Artists of all mediums need to protect their work. Without copyright law, it would be much easier for others to profit off of New York artists’ creations without giving those artists proper financial compensation. Recently the FBI seized a streaming website for airing content for which the proper copyright was allegedly not obtained.
According to officials, eight people created a streaming service that pirated its content, called Jetflicks. One of those people left the company and created a site, called iStreamItAll. That site claimed to have access to hundreds of thousands of movies and TV shows. It charged customers around $20 a month to stream the content.
All eight of the people involved in Jetflicks and iStreamItAll were recently indicted, and the FBI took control of the latter’s domain. They are facing various charges, including criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution and money laundering. The hope is that this case will set a precedent for future copyright law battles with other streaming services that may not own proper copyrights to the works they stream.
Whatever the outcome of this particular case may be, it only serves to underscore just how important copyright law is for artists. Without proper protection, artists may have their works used in ways they do not agree or they may not receive payment for the usage of their work. Fortunately, artists here in New York can work with an attorney with extensive copyright law knowledge to ensure that their creative works have the best possible protection.