With nearly 100,000 streams per day and over a million monthly visitors, it was one of the 150 most visited websites in the country.
This changed last week, when an alleged operator of the site was arrested by local police. According to the prosecution office at d’Aix-en-Provence the 22-year-old man was subsequently jailed.
The man reportedly admitted that he founded the site three years ago and it’s claimed that he profited substantially through advertisements. This revenue was kept offshore in a Hong Kong bank account.
The investigation into Full-Stream began in 2014 after the authorities received a complaint from the local entertainment industry group SACEM and the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA).
According to the prosecution office the investigation found that the site offered pirated copies of 2,426 TV-series and 10,152 films. How much revenue the alleged operator made is still being researched.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor applauds the cooperation with the private industry groups which led to the arrest.
“This is the first time in France that, in this legal framework, cooperation between investigators and agents SACEM and ALPA has lead to the arrest of suspects.”
A second man was also detained in Grenoble last week, but he was released after an interrogation. However, the authorities note that other persons may be indicted at a later stage.
On the official Facebook page many people are mourning the loss of Full-Stream. Initially the Full-Stream.org and Full-Stream.me domains remained accessible, but at the time of writing these are offline as well.
The operator of the site will remain in prison for at least four months “because of his behavior and statements made in court,” and he ultimately faces a prison sentence of up to five years.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
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