U.S. ‘Pirate’ Streaming Site Operator Gets Amnesty

[Guest BackFire]

The Texan operator of Channelsurfing.net has made a deal with the
United States Government to avoid prosecution. The man, who was
arrested in 2011 after the domain name of his website was seized, stood
accused of criminal copyright infringement for linking to sport streams.
In the agreement, the U.S. attorney says that it’s in the best interest
of all concerned to give McCarthy amnesty.

February 2011 U.S. authorities seized several domains belonging to major sports streaming sites.

One of the affected domains was Channelsurfing.net, a website where
links to external sports streams were listed. The site itself did not
host any streams, but linked to those offered by third-party sites.

In addition to seizing its domain name, ICE and HSI classified the site as a criminal operation and a month later they arrested the alleged owner, the then 32-year old Brian McCarthy from Texas.

The ChannelSurfing operator was charged with conspiracy to commit
criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement for
his involvement with the site. The indictment stated that McCarthy “did
willfully infringe a copyright for purposes of financial gain.”

In the two years that followed there wasn’t much progress in the
case. As it turns out now, the U.S. Government and McCarthy were working
on an agreement not to prosecute, which was finalized earlier this month.

The agreement, obtained by TorrentFreak, gives little detail on why
prosecution is deferred, but it states that this is in the best interest
of both parties.

“…after a thorough investigation, it has been determined that the
interest of the United States and your own interest will best be
served by deferring prosecution in this District. Prosecution will be
deferred during the term of your good behavior and satisfactory
compliance with the terms of this agreement…”

The deal means that McCarthy will receive amnesty. During the months
to come he will have to demonstrate good behavior by not violating any
laws, seeking a job, and complying with several other conditions.

While the former Channelsurfing.net owner avoids prison, he is
required to pay back the $351,033.54 he earned through the website.

The decision to grant amnesty in this case is remarkable, considering
the strong language the Justice Department used after the arrest and in
the indictment.

“This arrest sends a clear message that this office, working with its
partners at HSI, will vigorously protect valuable intellectual property
rights through arrests and domain name seizures,” U.S. attorney Preet
Bhara said at the time.

The deal McCarthy struck is, however, similar to that of Richard
O’Dwyer, the UK student who operated the streaming site TV-shack.
O’Dwyer was facing extradition to the United States but also signed a deferred prosecution agreement last November.

Both sites merely linked to streams and neither operator was actively involved in the infringing broadcasts.

Whether this was one of the reasons why the U.S. decided not to
prosecute these cases is unknown. However, this is one of the main
distinctions with the operators of the seized video streaming site
NinjaVideo who were all convicted last year, some to hefty jail time.

All in all it’s safe to say that the U.S. Government campaign against
streaming piracy has mixed results. Aside from the above, the U.S. also
had to return domain names to the operators of two other sites.

Over the past year the authorities continued to seize domain names
under the flag of Operation in Our sites. Perhaps tellingly, none of
these domains were involved in video streaming.

[Guest Ethan]

thanks