BitTorrent Site Admin Sent to Prison
Written by Ernesto on October 26, 2006The 23 year old Grant Stanley has been sentenced to five months in prison, followed by five months of home detention, and a $3000 fine for the work he put in the private BitTorrent tracker Elitetorrents.
This ruling is the first BitTorrent related conviction in the US. Stanley pleaded guilty earlier this year to “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement” and “criminal copyright infringement”. He is one of the three defendants in the Elitetorrents operation better known as “Operation D-Elite”.
Operation D-Elite (they love word tricks) was orchestrated by the FBI with a little help from the MPAA in May 2005, and resulted in the shutdown of one of the largest private BitTorrent trackers at that time.
FBI Take home Message that replaced the Homepage of Elitetorrents after the shutdown
Two months ago we reported that Scott McCausland pleaded guilty to committing the same crimes. Scott is to be sentenced on December 12, 2006, and invited everyone who sympathizes with him to write a letter to the judge on his behalf.
In a response to the present case US Attorney John Brownlee said:
“This is the first criminal enforcement action against copyright infringement on a P2P network using BitTorrent technology. We hope this case sends the message that cyberspace will not provide a shield of anonymity for those who choose to break our copyright laws.”
Stay tuned…
Previously: Underage Finnish BitTorrent admins fined $60,000 each
Next: Free full-length horror films on BitTorrent.com
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How can these people be prosecuted for posting links for DL’s? They are basically just a specialized search engine…So is Google and Yahoo next? I can provide proof that both supply WAY more links to copyrighted materials to DL that any torrent tracker…
MPAA + FBI = Total asshats
“You will get caught though, and you’ll be in prison for a long time too.”
Highly doubt it…
I feel for Grant. He is caught in some of the ugliest business. He is caught between freedoms intellectual rights and The RIAA with the Government on it’s side. Anyone with a PC and a browser can download MP’3 copy, movies, distribute text and totally shed all the copy rights laws. The idea these laws are out dated is a mute point. Every since the original Napster sting I have refused to buy and music supported by the RIAA. I believe there needs to be a wide spread boycott of anything the MPIA or the RIAA touch. They should be restructured to meet with the modern era and they should not be a witch hunt to find out where they believe they are loosing money. They shouldn’t have anymore money period. Our government has better things to do (Like fighting terrorism). They need to stay out of it, or get voted out. AS a tax paying American I am fully against turning a 24 year old Bittorrent guy into a convicted felon. What public interest does that serve? Are the streets safer? They don’t enforce our immigration laws as much as these Copy rights laws and I believe that is a bigger issue these days.
Money is power and we have the power when it comes to delivering the message to the MPIA and the RIAA. Stop buying their crap. When the RIAA originally sued Napster the recording industry did it after the after recording record profits. Their greed is endless. Stars Wars III was so bad they need to be giving it away. I will never purchase anything George Lucas has ever had his hands on. He is rich enough.
We have been programmed by the Advertisement Industry to be super consumers. We go around with jingles running through our heads , and we get excited about premieres’ of movies and DVD release dates. All because of the way they have programmed us.. They market toys and gadgets to us from a very young age. The understand how we work better then we do and they use it to remove the money from out pockets. It is not a conspiracy it a fact that the more we pay attention to hype the more we get sucked in.
Support Grant Stanley and understand he is going to jail so that the MPIAA and the RIAA can keep control over you. Understand that they want control and we have the power. Voting can help. Not buying their crap will take the winds out of their sales. My music is my music. My movies are my movies. And you are all welcome to come and share it with me.
I don’t understand why people who break the copyright law don’t think the law should apply to them. I really don’t. My theory is that people who are generally law abiding in most of their lives have to construct massive rationalizations to keep on thinking that they are “good guys”. In my long life, I’ve found that people will steal if they think that there’s hardly any chance of getting caught, and if there is no obvious victim close at hand. People just can’t help the urge to get something of value for nothing if the chance of punishment is very slim. I’ve done it myself, (copied software, etc) but I don’t kid myself that there’s nothing wrong with it. If people think there’s nothing wrong with obtaining copyrighted material without paying for it… then they are just lying to themselves to maintain their own self image as somebody who is basically a good person. If you want to do it… fine, go ahead… just stop lying to yourself. My attitude about this case isn’t “Oh those mean FBI people!” it’s … “Damn… sucks to get caught doesn’t it?!”
Americans…
Welcome to 1984. Big Brother is watching you.
That’s awesome. Federal prison? He’s probably somebody’s bitch already.
Don’t know why everyone’s so worked up. We all know he was stealing, he knew he was putting himself at risk.
As Johnny Cochran said, “If you can take the prison buttsex, don’t do the crime.”
Of course, shoulda been “If you can’t take the prison buttsex, don’t do the crime.”
Just like their name shoulda been MaybeNotSoEliteAfterallTorrents.com :)
Proof-reading FTW!
Just wait for Internet 2 to arrive … you think your controlled now - you ain’t seen nothing yet.
You can’t even upload any video at all without an expensive tv station (FCC) license.
And even if you have a license it will depend on the content.
It’s a fascist/corporatism takeover … just hope Hell doesn’t come to your house anytime soon.
damn thats scary, hope he does okay, the messed up thing is that movie studios expect this stuff and they over react, if they really wanted this stopped they could easily do it, its turning into communist russia.
Man; I just still don’t understand the difference between downloading a t.v show from somebody 1,000 miles away and borrowing the same t.v. show on a vhs tape from your buddy down the street. Same thing. Hopefully in 20 twentys we’ll be laughing about how people used to go to jail for sharing files. Geez, I can pay $1.00 to rent the film or I can just download it. 1 freaking dollar and you’re gonna send people to jail over it?? Yeah, I’m proud to be an American.
No freedom left in the U.S. … If you ain’t a multi billion company, you don’t have rights anymore… But the one to keep silent about everything and ignore what’s going on around you. Same with the US Coast Guard in the GreatLakes…
Pur insanity…
Jacob, you’re right — $1 isn’t very much at all. So why not pay it?
Hmm, let’s see…pay a dollar, or spend the next half-year getting raped in jail? Face it, dude was dumb.
Elite torrents was shut down like 2 years ago. Also, any reputable bit torrent private site like elite torrents today is operated in places like the netherlands where anything goes. They’ve already unsuccessfully tried to shut people down there, example pirate bay. I’ve heard pirate bay has redundancy to the point that it’s virtually impossible to shut it down for more than a few hours.
Plus, we’re talking about the guy who programmed the site, not Joe user downloading their full DVD’s at 400kbps haha. Soon it will be faster than going to the video store.
If big business wasnt so greedy, they could have found an alternative that people would actually buy into and pay for but I’d say its too late now for the current generation of media at least.
waaaaaaaaaay ?????????
i think this not good
http://www.lo7a.com/
what you Americans need to ask your politicians is whether they support you the (common men) or the motion picture / recording artist sadomasochistic billionaire association.
And then c\vote for the party who supports you.
That is called democracy.
i hope it works ;)
or else lets have dictatorship like cuba china russia.
“I don’t understand why people who break the copyright law don’t think the law should apply to them. I really don’t.”
I didnt pay the royalty the last time I sang the 19th century “Happy Birthday” song, something for nothing scofflaw that I am.
Copywrite law has become entirely perverted, I refuse to support it.
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