In France, seven people will appear in court for illegally offering for two million episodes of TV series.
The suspects, aged 19 to 36, will be tried in court for counterfeiting and concealment of counterfeit audiovisual works, committed in an organised gang, reports Satellifax.
Suspected of being at the origin of the site, the main suspect, a 22-year-old student in computer science and robotics at the University of Franche-Comté, will appear in November alongside four other adults. Two other persons, minors at the time of the events, will appear before the juvenile courts in Dijon and Montpellier in mid-June, said Besançon prosecutor Etienne Manteaux.
The students face up to seven years in prison and heavy fines if the holders of the rights to pirated works bring civil action.
The site provided access to an online library of two million episodes of French and international television series.
The student who developed the platform, closed in April, “on his own time” and “without the agreement of the rights holders of these audiovisual works”, according to Manteaux. In total, it generated EUR200,000 in advertising revenue between 2017 and 2019 and EUR30,000 in cryptomoney.
