Bryan McCarthy, 32, of Deer Park, Texas, was taken into custody at his home and is charged with one count of criminal infringement of a copyright.
He was the operator of channelsurfing.net, which was seized by federal authorities on Feb. 1, 2011, as part of an ongoing HSI investigation into websites that illegally streamed copyrighted sporting telecasts and pay-per-view events.
The investigation into McCarthy revealed that he made more than $90,000 in profits from online merchants who paid him to advertise on the website. Since the seizure of the site, it has received more than 1.3 million hits.
According to the criminal complaint unsealed Thursday in federal court and the seizure affidavit, channelsurfing.net was an online portal to pirated telecasts of sporting events of the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
All of these organizations hold the copyrights to the televised broadcasts of their respective sporting events. Visitors to channelsurfing.net would simply click on one of a number of links to begin the process of downloading or streaming an illegal broadcast of a sporting event.
During the investigation, HSI agents downloaded portions of live copyrighted telecasts of various sporting events.
The website also contained links to various live television channels as well. McCarthy registered the channelsurfing.net domain name in December 2005 and operated the website until the time of its seizure out of his home in Texas.
At the time it was seized, channelsurfing.net was one of the most popular of the websites that streamed illegal content.
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