Anton Vickerman, the founder of surfthechannel.com, has become the first person in Britain to be jailed for running a site containing links to illegally uploaded films and television programmes, reports Speechly Bircham.

In a private prosecution brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), Vickerman was tried under the criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud.

It was shown that Vickerman had collaborated with other parties to put the pirated material online, thereby depriving film producers and TV companies of an estimated £98m in lost revenues.