Warez Bust: MaGE Leader Sentenced to Prison
A 27 year old man has been sentenced to prison on one felony count of conspiracy to infringe copyright in his capacity as leader of the warez release group ‘MaGE’. On top of this he was also fined $5000 and ordered to serve 2 years supervised release.
Last week, District Judge Frank D. Whitney sentenced Justin Paul Emch for his involvement in the ‘warez scene‘ – specifically an offense claimed to have been carried out when he was leader of the release group ‘MaGE‘.
Emch was indicted in yet another action forming Operation Fastlink – a huge undercover investigation carried out by the FBI, the US Department of Justice and Interpol into the ‘warez scene’
It’s claimed that Emch was a leader of the group ‘MaGE’ and worked to supply the group with software. Other members of the group then cracked the software (removed the security/copy protection) and passed the titles back to Emch for testing. The group had a huge collection of copyright material to which Emch had full access.
For his actions, Emch (like a few before him) received 12 months in prison on a felony count of conspiracy to infringe copyright, two years of supervised release and a $5000 fine.
Presumably the authorities will be wanting to keep a tighter grip on Emch than they did with the leader of RISCISO who proved to be quite an annoyance.
