Pirate IPTV Owner’s Conviction First Ever Under Protecting Lawful Streaming Act

Passed by Congress late December 2020, the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act (PLSA) was crafted to urgently close a loophole in copyright law that treated unlicensed reproduction and distribution as a felony, but unlicensed streaming as a misdemeanor. This week, well over three years later, a 40-year-old former operator of an illicit IPTV service became the first person to be convicted under the PLSA. While a win is a win, the case wasn't entirely straightforward.