FBI Started Crack-down against Illegal Streaming Services

An FBI-led investigation recently solved a massive copyright infringement case that includes the two illegal streaming services (iStreamItAll and Jetflix) by the two programmers in Las Vegas.

Julius Polo (Creator of iStreamItAll) and his co-defendant Luis Angel Villarino are the two developers who admitted to running the streaming service have now been pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges. These offenses could hook up in the prison for at least 5 years.

Julius Polo is believed to be working at Switch Inc. as a Senior Software Developer in Las Vegas and at the same time running his illegal streaming website.

These two Netflix-like sites were subscription-based services that charged users’ $19.99/month or $179.99/year.

The reason why people are attracted towards free streaming services despite knowing the consequences is because these services offer all of Netflix Shows, Disney Plus library, Hulu Series, and a lot of other services library in one place.

For example, to watch ‘The Mandalorian’ you will need to get a Disney Plus account, and to stream Boss Baby, you will need to get a Netflix account, to stream Game of Thrones you will need an HBO account, and so on. The illegal streaming services might charge a few bucks (very little than Netflix or Disney Plus) but let you watch all of these shows instantly.

A rapid rise in the streaming services (Disney Plus, Apple TV+, and BritBox) has given a new appetite for piracy and illegal streaming services. Due to this extraordinary growth, it has also led to an increase in consumer appetite for watching various content. Now, these consumers will have to pay a lot of money if want to watch the content from Disney+, Apple TV+, and BBC iPlayer, so they decide to go for subscription-based illegal streaming services.

In 2018, piracy sites made over 5.7 billion from UK audiences alone. Also, 80% of the people believed that they were paying too much for content streaming. It seems Disney Plus acknowledged that behavior and introduced a bundle package where consumers get Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN for only $12.99. But that’s not enough, consumers want more at lesser price.

Illegal streaming websites like iStreamItAll, Jetflix, and BayStream tend to download content from torrent websites and stored for streaming. Polo (creator of iStreamItAll) used sophisticated computer programming to download illegal content from torrent sites and store these works on a server that was available in Canada. Just recently, he admitted to copyright infringement and money laundering charges.

Despite a success investigation carried out by FBI, there are still hundreds of websites that streams free content. These services eat up the portion of streaming market and that’s hurting the industry. So what’s next for streaming giants like Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney Plus, and Amazon Prime? Should they collaborate and bring up a subscription plan that merges all of these streaming giants library? Think on it! The time has come.