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 $500,000.
He will be sentenced on February 27th, 2008.
Previously: The Pirate Bay Laser Graffiti Tribute
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256 Responses
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When I get information like this I get fucked like all of you. But parallel I am wondering: there is EFF, Amnnesty Int., and so on- I would love to participate with a group combining efforts on legal, PR, administrative and so on responses. I am a professional from Austria and I am getting fed up because there must be a way of to respond and starting to coordinate activities
well i wonder how much it cost him to make the movie and i wonder how much he made off it i bet he is not broke
That’s right chrismd, it’s about time we did something about all this, but how on earth would you fight bolshie people like that Adam (#123) twat who thinks the world = U.S.A?
this is getting serious..
can i just say F$%@!
this sucks so bad! i feel bad for the poor guy, there are SO MANY BAD THINGS to care about in this world, and they are looking at this guy!!! he just shared some media! what’s the big deal? why don’t spend that money in education or health? don’t you fucking see you can make a better world, and you are screwing it!!!!! look around and realize how foolish you are.
freedom is the key. seriously.
Yeh John. You find freaked out nuts like Adam everywhere. Maybe he is a 14 year old thinking Iraq is in South America. Serious people do and act in a serious manner. I know that people in the US have more difficulties maintaining their freedom and get more misleading information ( like the IRS that has no constitutional basis) but people have started to fight back and I am opptimistic about that. Here in Austria a court verdict issued to a torrent community member was successfully abolished after legal intervention. The newspapers did some reporting and in a small country like Austria it worked out in this one case. Anyway a global coordination is not compareable but as global group that is interlinked with people that opposs restrictions to information flow and transfer - as I said -wonder if there is any way to act-even if the scope of what we can do is small. A lot of things in history started with some guys that started thinking - the social dimension started secundarily. Anyway dont worry about Adams & co. Stupos are in the US, EU, Chine and -in Torrent Freak ( rather unfortuneatly). Sorry for my bad English-in every day life I speak German.
I feel sorry for the ppl in USA they can get 10 years for uploading a movie, they need to buy insurance to get medical care and their youngs are sent offbroad to fight in wars they don’t understand.
But still it’s the ppl that lets this happen.
anybody remember the days when you had to go and get your photo’s developed behind the counter. and then along came TEKNOLGY and we could reproduce and share our digital photos for free on FACEBUK and diddn’t have to pay a DIME
shame, all those poor people who used to develop photo’s for a living had to find new ways of making money and probably lost a lot of it on expensive printing equipment.
I never heard one peep from agfa, or fujifilm.
why is this?
Hollywood is a bunch of selfish, currupt, talentless fucks. they have enough money to wipe their arses with for the rest of time. maybe they won’t be able to afford that gold plated shark tank for their bar, but fuck them, neither can the rest of us. it was only during the 80’s that entertainment took such a financial imperitive and now the tipping point has been reached.
Never again will we see the massive ammounts of unnessecary investment on intangible thinks like MOVEES & MUSIK, people will only become more demanding of KWID PRO KWO (something for something) when handing over their harder and harder earned KASH.
yay, i watched a movie, it was cool.
how much was it WORTH TO ME
not 10 motherfucking years
i’m gonna go read a book from the LIBRARY, the ORIGINAL filesharing.
fuck amerika, i KAN’T WAIT until it’s corrupt, nihalistic endevours eat it from the inside out like a cancer. then I can start hating the CHINEEZE
[quote comment="215874"][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.[/quote]
Maybe you should learn what other people before you have. You wins’em an you lose’em. If your in the software business then you shouldn’t expect such a return early on. Heck, how many of those people would of heard of your software if it wasn’t for bittorrent? Now that you have a larger following, use it to sell your next product. Let it grow dear fellow, let it grow. Those people will recommend it to other people and bring it to their businesses. Businesses cannot normal ly except pirated software. So cha ching! You suddenly have free advertising. You will have product known by thousands rather than hundreds. Remember there are a lot of potential customers. So do not expect tears here. The world rewards the willing.
Bittrucker nonsense. I buy the software only when I read a lot of reviews on torrents forums. You are an idiot and you have no idea of doing business.
The movie and music industry could have avoided all this by giving their customers a fair deal, instead of bleeding us dry over the years. They give us too little, too late, squeezing out every dollar they can for maximum profit.
In developed countries, a great deal of people have internet to the access. I can only begin to imagine how many of us there are out there sharing files. We’re not just common criminals, common thugs. We’re high school students, doctors, soccer moms. This is a world wide thing, not a series of random incidents.
“The customer is always right” You know, I remember when that saying actually used to mean something. These days, ‘being right’ seems to be the province of those who have enough money to pay for the privilege.
P2P is here to stay. You can continue to prosecute ordinary citizens here and there while we continue sharing files on the internet, or you can continue to go the way you’re going. People don’t like being manipulated for another’s personal gain. Look for the day when the average citizen gets tired of being taken for a ride.
lol
Laughable
Freaking ridiculous to read people defending the corrupt (and ethically plain wrong) laws.
Even if you KNOW 100% that the law states you will get sent to jail for 10 years, if the crime is trivial (i.e uploading Star Wars III or whatever) then the law IS NOT JUSTIFIED.
Don’t accept laws just because they exist. Do you also follow orders blindly? Grow a fuckin brain, damn hillbillies.
(Don’t mean to offend those of you americans that actually can see reason)
Who ‘owns’ these companies?
[quote comment="216573"]Some of the most ignorant and uneducated comments I think I have read, especially from some of you Europeans. You wouldn’t be shit if it weren’t for the USA. Don’t forget it. Who do you think would protect Europe if we were nowhere around? England?, a country the size of Florida. HA HA. We all know Germany and France would rather sell weapons to the enemy for some oil, so you can count them out too. What about..OH wait those are your big three. Well you can always call the Swiss army, I hear they have really great knives![/quote]
hahahaha all bow down to U S and A the masters of the free world…..
My friend you have a very narrow out look on life.
Woke up this morning and read all this again. If there is a legal defense fund (PLEASE no phony ones like the ones setup by assorted parasites when OINK went down!) I will contribute. In protest I plan on renting all 6 Star Wars movies, (Widescreen, all the goodies) and copy and upload them to my favorite P2P site, no compression, full quality! I realized I don’t have them in my collection. And I have many many TBs of stuff! So Fuck you Hollywood! And a BIG FU to the Web sherriff.
[quote]These are maximum sentences…. He definetly won’t get 10 years & 500k. There’s no way this will happen — he’ll probably serve 1/3rd of it and get parole.[/quote]
Still way to much.
[quote]I don’t pity him.
He knew what he was doing was wrong.
[/quote]
You know very well that it’s not wrong.
[quote]Well, dipshit, some laws are made for common people, and some laws are made to protect things works of art that other people create, if they want them protected.[/quote]
You say “protect the art” like sharing it harms it.
[quote]The right to share? What really makes you so high and mighty to think that you have a ‘right’ to share shit that you didn’t fucking create?[/quote]
Yes, I very well fucking do have a right to share.
Pah, stupid freedom haters…
[quote]But the laws are what they are, the laws are set to protect the product, not the price. [/quote]
Again, how is the “product” in any danger of being harmed? Does me sharing a Pink Floyd album over the internet somehow harm it?
[quote]The thing is, however, you and I both know the law, we know what we are doing is wrong, and we know why it’s wrong. [/quote]
I know the law says it is wrong, but I don’t agree with the law.
It’s not wrong.
[quote]You can try to soften the shit up with “copying isn’t stealing”.[/quote]
Do you know why people say that? Because it’s true! Sharing ISN’T stealing.
[quote]So, let’s say I found a home porn tape of you and your mom fucking, and I took it, put it on my computer, and started making it available for anyone to download, and just put the tape back right where I found it… I mean, I didn’t steal it from you, I just ‘borrowed’ it, ‘copied’ it, and ’shared’ it with others, and gave it right back.[/quote]
You stole that tape. However, if the person who made it sold that tape to you and you copied it then it would be fine.
[quote]I’m not going to cower behind shitty false premises of ‘copying isn’t stealing’.[/quote]
It’s an entirely true statement. Sharing isn’t stealing; never has been, never will be.
[quote]Stealing a movie from a store is the equivalent of pirating one movie you didn’t buy from someone on BT, Soulseek, LimeWire or IRC. Stealing a case of DVDs and giving them to people for free is the equivalent to seeding a single movie to a ratio of 50.0. Pirating 40GB of PC or next gen games currently on the market, 20GB worth of XViD encoded feature full length movies, and 60GB worth of 320kbps full mp3 albums - none of which you actually ever paid for - is about the equivalent of going to a number of different stores and stealing 20 games, about 30 movies, and 200-300+ CDs.[/quote]
It’s not equivalent at all. In one case you actually steal a physical object, in the other case you download a copy of it.
[quote]But for God’s sake, don’t pretend like you don’t know what you’re doing, and don’t pretend like it’s not wrong when you know for a fact it is.[/quote]
You and me both know that sharing isn’t stealing, and sharing isn’t wrong. Stop pretending, really; it’s pathetic of you.
[quote]Property is theft.[/quote]
Proudhon said that, and by you saying it again it means that you have stolen it from him!
/end capitalist-fascist anti-sharing anti-freedom stupidity
[quote]Some of the most ignorant and uneducated comments I think I have read, especially from some of you Europeans. You wouldn’t be shit if it weren’t for the USA. Don’t forget it. Who do you think would protect Europe if we were nowhere around? England?, a country the size of Florida. HA HA. We all know Germany and France would rather sell weapons to the enemy for some oil, so you can count them out too. What about..OH wait those are your big three. Well you can always call the Swiss army, I hear they have really great knives![/quote]
America makes people want to attack it and its allies. Europe (a lot of it at least) doesn’t.
[quote]hahahaha all bow down to U S and A the masters of the free world…..[/quote]
If only there was a part of the world that was free…
[quote comment="216407"][quote comment="215979"][quote comment="215957"]Wow, so many of you etc, etc…[/quote]
Indeed, comparing copying to stealing is incredibly ignorant.[/quote]
[quote comment="215988"]@ colossal
Do you happen to think before jotting down your thoughts? Don’t call people ignorant since you don’t know ‘em in the first place. So you’re advocating the laws eh? Who are those making the laws? What are those laws made for? Do you REALLY think it’s for the common people? What if you stood for the RIGHT to share instead of running and hiding like a rabbit? You’re so vain ‘cos you haven’t been busted yet, big mouth behind anonymity eh? Piss off …..[/quote]
I’m not vain, I’m just not fucking dumb about it. Comparing copying to stealing is ignorant? Who are making the laws? Who are laws made for? Well, dipshit, some laws are made for common people, and some laws are made to protect things works of art that other people create, if they want them protected. The right to share? What really makes you so high and mighty to think that you have a ‘right’ to share shit that you didn’t fucking create? Much more so if you didn’t even buy it in the first place? People spend their time and money to make products to sell to people, to play, as a means to make income, to have a house, to have food, to put clothes on their children’s backs. There are copyright laws enabled to protect this fact. I’ll agree, $50 for a brand new fucking video game is mega retarded, and I won’t buy any game for that much ever again. I won’t buy a CD for $15. I won’t buy a DVD for $20. Media itself is not that expensive to produce. It sucks, and that’s why I will still pirate until it’s just not possible, or I get busted, or I’m dead. I don’t like big business, and am very much an advocate of fucking those pigs as much as the next guy, they’ve raped us long enough, and it’s time to fuck them to. But the laws are what they are, the laws are set to protect the product, not the price. The thing is, however, you and I both know the law, we know what we are doing is wrong, and we know why it’s wrong. You can try to soften the shit up with “copying isn’t stealing”. So, let’s say I found a home porn tape of you and your mom fucking, and I took it, put it on my computer, and started making it available for anyone to download, and just put the tape back right where I found it… I mean, I didn’t steal it from you, I just ‘borrowed’ it, ‘copied’ it, and ’shared’ it with others, and gave it right back. Oh, here’s where the problem comes in; I didn’t have your permission to do so. You’d be pissed, you didn’t authorize me to do so, and because it’s your property, your rights were invaded. That is where these guys stand. I’m not saying I honestly give a fuck one way or the other where these guys stand, because I’ll still do what I do, I’ll keep seeding to peers, and do my part in keeping the ball rolling. What I won’t do is make shit out for anything but what it is. If I ever get busted, it’s no ones fault but mine. I’m not going to cower behind shitty false premises of ‘copying isn’t stealing’.
Comparing piracy to stealing is absolutely not ignorant, it is the same thing. If you go into a store and steal A (one) DVD of some stupid movie, you’ll probably get a fine, some small jail time. If you download that same movie online, and only that movie, you’ll probably never get caught at all. If you get in the back of the truck, and steal 3 cases of a specific movie, and start giving them away to people, and you get caught, how harsh of a punishment do you think you’ll get? Probably pretty fucking harsh. If you find a preview DVD of a movie that’s not even released yet, and make copies and give them away at the mall or out of the back of your car, and you get caught - do you think you’ll just get a small fine and a couple months in jail? Or do you think you’ll get 10 years and $500,000 fine? Probably the latter. Don’t pretend like “pirates get way harsher sentences than shoplifters”, because you do the time for what you did. Stealing a movie from a store is the equivalent of pirating one movie you didn’t buy from someone on BT, Soulseek, LimeWire or IRC. Stealing a case of DVDs and giving them to people for free is the equivalent to seeding a single movie to a ratio of 50.0. Pirating 40GB of PC or next gen games currently on the market, 20GB worth of XViD encoded feature full length movies, and 60GB worth of 320kbps full mp3 albums - none of which you actually ever paid for - is about the equivalent of going to a number of different stores and stealing 20 games, about 30 movies, and 200-300+ CDs. What do you think the revenue is on all that merch? High enough to spend some big jail time?
Again, I don’t give a shit about corporations, high pricing software companies, and big businesses trying to squeeze your wallet dry, fuck them and keep fucking with them. Show the fucks like the RIAA that they can spend as much money and man hours trying to find ways to protect their overly rich clients, but that it will continue to be futile. But for God’s sake, don’t pretend like you don’t know what you’re doing, and don’t pretend like it’s not wrong when you know for a fact it is.
/end novel[/quote]
Just because something is against the law doesn’t make it wrong by definition. The reality is that laws are made by big companies for big companies to protect their own interests.
And no matter how much bullshit you write to justify your ludicrous ignorance, copying is not the same as stealing.
People spend their time and money to make “products” so that organisations like the ones behind the MAFIAA can screw them over first and then overcharge the rest of us so they can make huge profits while contributing nothing to the process. There is the real crime.
I feel bad for them.
http://productiveblog.blogspot.com
bittrucker:
Unless the users stole a physical retail copy of your software, NONE of them equate to a loss for you. If nothing is missing, there is no loss.
Adam:
How”s that “protecting” going in Iraq?
Imagine you buy a bag of potato chips from a convenience store. Then because you have a really cool Harry Potter style wand you make lots more bags of chips from the first and give them to all your friends.
Now it might piss off the chip-making factory but it sure as hell ain’t stealing. It’s just your good fortune to have a cool wand.
It isn’t taking money from the chip makers. It is denying them profits.
These are morally two completely different things.
No wonder Terrorists are able to penetrate the country, hijack plains and fly them into two of the largest buildings in the world.
Maybe the STUPID FUCKING FBI could make some time to protect the American people. I know it means they have to protect against DANGEROUS people but I was under the impression thats what they where hired for?
Hmm, I do think that people are entitled to profit from their intellectual work, whether it’s sold directly to the consumer or by contract with a third party distributor. If you don’t want to pay the price, okay. But I don’t see how that entitles anyone to steal the work. Why don’t you pirates just go out and create something by investing your time to learn, to create something new, and your own hard work market it. And you can give it away if you like.
As for copyright laws in the US, I believe the protection continues for 50 years after the author’s death, and the work enters the public domain.
As for the guy who got caught (remember him?), I think that he’ll be okay too. Most judges and juries in the US have not lost their common sense. Hmm, but if he were the leader of an organized crime outfit, do you think that the maximum penalty would be appropriate?
Finally, I think that maybe the most nteresting perspective was from Markus (#99).
[quote]If you don’t want to pay the price, okay. But I don’t see how that entitles anyone to steal the work. [/quote]
Are you really so ignorant as to not understand the difference between sharing and stealing? It’s like the difference between night and day; it’s a massive difference.
Why doesn’t the FBI spend more time fighting the real criminals?
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