The administrator of French streaming website Streamiz has to pay € 83.6 million ($103 million) in damages. Besides that, he also received a prison sentence of two years. The website was the second most popular illegal streaming website in France and received more than 250,000 daily visitors.
The French National Federation of Film Distributors (FNDF) failed a complained about the website in 2009, after which the administrator was arrested in October 2011. In the backpack of the administrator, the French police found €30,000 ($37,000) in cash, concealed in socks.
Although he was summoned by the investigating judge, the man didn't appear during the lawsuit. The court has issued an arrest warrant against him, according to LePoint.
Before it was closed, the Streamiz website offered links to nearly 40,000 streaming movies. According to the prosecutors this caused €500 million ($616 million) in lost revenue for movie studios. The website administrator reportedly earned €150,000 ($185,000) in advertising revenue in two years.
