Another EliteTorrents Uploader Facing 10 Years in Prison
Written by enigmax on November 17, 2007The fallout from the FBI raid on EliteTorrents in 2005 continues, with a seventh defendant associated with the uploading of Star Wars Episode III facing the prospect of 10 years in prison coupled with a $500,000 fine.
Every few months it seems the FBI manages to come up with yet more people to charge in connection with Operation D-Elite - the joint ICE and FBI raids against the US-based BitTorrent tracker, EliteTorrents, in 2005.
Everyone charged so far has been accused of being involved in the uploading of Star Wars Episode III which, at the time, was a pre-release movie, carrying criminal implications for the uploaders under the Family Entertainment Copyright Act.
According to an announcement by Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a seventh defendant has pleaded guilty.
An Duc Do, aged 25, of Orlando, Florida, has pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on a two-count felony. He’s charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement.
Do is the latest in a line of people pleading guilty in this operation against EliteTorrents. Previous guilty pleas and convictions include those of Scott McCausland, Grant Stanley, Sam Kuonen and Scott D. Harvanek.
In this copyright case tried in the criminal (rather than civil) legal domain, potential punishments are harsh. Do is facing up to 10 years in prison coupled with a fine of $500,000.
He will be sentenced on February 27th, 2008.
Previously: The Pirate Bay Laser Graffiti Tribute
Next: Mininova Hits The Million Torrent Uploads Mark
256 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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This sucks =( Poor guy, this guys have no heart
I give a fuck too
10 years! ?
Damn.. if that was me, i’d kill the guys convicting me. Might aswell..
America is one nasty country to live in. Evil… pure evil this is.
Thank god I don’t live in there.
i think that overly harsh, but come to think of it Star Wars who’s heard of that, sure it needs all the money it can take in the cinema !!
They are starting to win in this war…
If there will be more uploaders facing prison, other uploaders might start to fear, and stop uploading warez.. Hope they won’t be able to charge anyone else.. I feel very sorry for this guy… :(
These guys are probably geeks, so what prison would they put them in and keep them safe from the real criminals who will prey on them? My heart goes out to em and their familys.
“What are you in for?”
I raped a teenager.
“You?”
I killed a man.
“And what about you new fish?”
I uploaded Star Wars to the internet.
10 years for sharing (not stealing ffs)? What would that chimp Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Co get then if they were brought to the court for crime against humanity? I just can’t take that scummy American way of whatever you might want to call it anymore.
Stay away from the rest of the world ffs!
If all internet users start doing something about it, like uniting sure there’ll be a solution, a reasonable one
http://www.americanidolpixelmania.com/signup.php
“What are you in for?”
I raped a teenager.
got 5-7 years
“You?”
I killed a man.
7-10 years
“And what about you new fish?”
I uploaded Star Wars to the internet.
10 years and a huge fine , WTF is wrong with the world today? If hollywood would produce a decent movie and not charge us both arms to see it ….maybe , just maybe more of us would go to the theaters
“Star Wars Episode III”? Hm… that’s interesting. I remember downloading that before it was released… And guess what? Then I went to the cinema to see it!
Total loss for the movie industry: 0
What is going on in this world?
and the general public doesn’t give a f*ck…
until the corrupt government http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-and-mpaa-fund-anti-piracy-politicians/) gains some sanity (will they ever?) there’re always ways to hide what you’re doing with tor, proxies, etc.. or better yet, boycott their shitty movies altogether and read a book.
lol @ ‘felony’ …
Shouldn’t they be busy hunting murders and rapers instead of guys uploading StarWarsIII ?
Seriously this gotta be a joke. Wondering how far they need to take it, until we finally fight back. d=/
Oh god. I feel sorry for that guy. All ppl wo downloaded it should give him a dollar.
HE FUCKING DIDN’T HURT ANYONE! All he did was share some data over the internet! This is plain insanity.
America, Inc; a fully owned subsidary of Corporate America, Inc.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
This guy obviously knew what he was doing was illegal. Still, he, like many others of us, decided to go ahead. It’s like smoking, sure it can kill you, but I still do it. It’s a calculated risk.
Stop whining about being caught - surely he knew that by law, what he did could land him in jail.
i can see 10 years for esb, but rots?
Fuck off bittrucker, the fact that uploading carries a larger sentance than rape in that stupid country is ridiculous! If he was getting a few months then it at least would be more proportionate to what he did, whether you agree with it being a crime or not.
[quote] Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
This guy obviously knew what he was doing was illegal. Still, he, like many others of us, decided to go ahead. It’s like smoking, sure it can kill you, but I still do it. It’s a calculated risk.
Stop whining about being caught - surely he knew that by law, what he did could land him in jail.
[/quote]
Pathetic…
Knowledge that idiots might put you in jail for sharing data over the internet does NOT excuse those idiots, or take away your right to be mad.
Ok … who is in for a trial against BREIN }
Mail @ P2PISHERETOSTAY@LIVE.NL
I’d love to screw up BREIN, but I doubt they’ll like it…
Thank god I don’t live across the pool, those yankees are completely crazy.
~Fransw
America is a fucked up country. That’s for sure. This sort of “crime” should be something like a 1000$ fine at most.
Glad I live in europe, home of the free
[quote comment="215839"]Fuck off bittrucker, the fact that uploading carries a larger sentance than rape in that stupid country is ridiculous! If he was getting a few months then it at least would be more proportionate to what he did, whether you agree with it being a crime or not.[/quote]
Fuck off ‘ey?
Perhaps you should check facts before talking. According to a study the “average sentence for convicted rapists was 11.8 years” in the US.
Also, remember that 10 years is the absolute maximum term An Duc Do faces, which means, he’ll be sentenced to 6 at most, and serve 2.5-3 out of those.
Finally, he is charged with three counts of infringement, for the works of a) Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkahan - b) King Arthur - c) National Treasure. In addition he is charged with “for the purpose of private financial gain, infringed the copyright of ‘Flight of the Phoenix’”.
[quote comment="215825"]HE FUCKING DIDN’T HURT ANYONE! All he did was share some data over the internet! This is plain insanity.
America, Inc; a fully owned subsidary of Corporate America, Inc.[/quote]
He didn’t hurt anyone?
As a software developer, I am personally “hurt” by people pirating my software. Point in fact; 3 months ago I released my last commercial project to the public - retailing at $9.99 per license.
Now, in this piece of software I had included computer-fingerprinting (basically it takes your CPU ID and a few other IDs, mangles them together and sends it back to a central database of mine) specifically for the purpose of seeing what the percentage of fully paid for, legal licenses were in relation to copies. I’ll tell you what it was - 20%. Twenty friggin percent are paid for copies, with the remaining 80% being ‘pirated’ copies. Now, I have a fairly small userbase (just over 700 registered users), but it has still cost me $28491.48 in lost business. Ok, so perhaps not everyone now running a pirated copy would have paid for it, so let’s say a third would have, that’s still a net loss of just below $10000 for me personally - or, spread out over the lifetime of the project, $3165 per month.
Just to be clear, those 80% of unlicensed copies only included people running the software regularly (which in this context means at least once a week since installation). Also, the fact I did collect this information was made perfectly clear in the legalese provided with the product.
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