An internet pirate who made up to £60,000 a month from people downloading TV shows and films from his website has been jailed for four years.
Anton Vickerman's surfthechannel.com attracted up to 400,000 visitors a day peak and was close to the top 500 most popular websites at its peak.
The site cost the film industry tens of millions of pounds, and ultimately huge loses to the Inland Revenue, Newcastle Crown Court was told.
It provided links to films, sometimes before they were released in cinemas. Volunteers searched the net for links and moderators checked the titles were usable.
Vickerman, 38, originally from Gateshead whose latest address was Citygate, Newcastle, valued the site at $400,000 (£255,000) when he offered it for sale in 2008.
Over two years the site, run via the former DJ and BT employee's firm Scopelight, turned over £1m with a profit of £250,000.
He was jailed after being convicted of two counts of conspiracy to defraud in June.
Judge John Evans told him: "Ultimately films will not be made if the producers cannot make them at a profit."
He said the public may suffer from piracy by having to pay more to watch films at the cinema.
Ari Alibhai, prosecuting, said Vickerman made between £12,000 and £60,000 a month from advertising on his site.
He said: "It is clear that the website, due to its popularity, was accruing hundreds of thousands of pounds."
He added that in July 2008 surfthechannel.com was listed 514 in an index of most popular websites. Mr Alibhai said it was more popular than Facebook at the time. And he said that it was impossible to calculate the losses it caused the film industry.
Anton Vickerman makes a peace gesture
It was revealed that surfthechannel.com allowed access to more than 5,600 films and TV shows and experts have estimated the damages to be between £52m and £198m depending on different ways of calculating lost sales.
"Once one reaches figures of tens of millions of pounds of loss it becomes irrelevant what the figure is," Mr Alibhai said. "The scale of loss was immense and it does run to tens of millions of pounds. Due to the number of films available and the frequency they were downloaded the scale of loss is considerable. And the losses should not just be seen as a loss to moguls in Hollywood but to hundreds of people in the industry."
Judge Evans said the losses would have also stretched beyond the film and music industry.
He said: "The loss is considerable but also there is here the loss of tax revenue because if the industry was generating this kind of revenue then it would have been shared with a net benefit to the taxpayer."
Vickerman's wife Kelly, who had faced the same charges, was cleared by the jury. The court was told that since then their relationship had broken down due in part to the stress of the case.
Vickerman and his wife Kelly
David Walbank, defending, said: "The overwhelming strain has contributed to the break down of his marriage. The proceedings sounded the death knell of their marriage."
But Judge Evans said it was in fact Vickerman's obsession with his website that had contributed to his marriage failing.
He said: "Had you told your wife about what you were doing she would have done her best to stop you. It was an obsession with the popularity of your website which contributed to the break up of your marriage."
Mr Walbank also said the case had left Vickerman financially ruined.
He told the court: "You know a great deal about him and know that he has already paid a great deal. It has left him financially ruined and he currently owes about £50,000 in contributions. He is personally insolvent and the likelihood is that he will be declared bankrupt."