Last year, Sean O’Toole was named by US authorities as the ring-leader of scene release group, RISCISO. After being ordered to appear in a Chicago court during February 2006 and facing 5 years in a US jail, a $250,000 fine plus a possible million-dollar restitution claim, O’Toole disappeared.
The popular Romanian BitTorrent tracker Torrentbits.ro was raided and the two admins of the site were placed under arrest. Torrentbits was founded little over a year ago but was already among the 200 most visited websites in Romania. Both admins are charged with copyright infringement and face up to 4 years in prison.
Another uploader to the EliteTorrents BitTorrent tracker has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement of a pre-commercial release work. Getting involved in the pre-release of Star-Wars Ep III could land him 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
Hew Raymond Griffiths, the leader of the notorious warez group ‘DrinkorDie’ has plead guilty to “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement” and “criminal copyright infringement”. Griffiths, who already spend 3 years in an Australian prison fighting his extradition to the US, now faces 10 years in prison & a $500,000 fine.
A man from Columbus, Georgia has pleaded guilty to two felonies connected to the distribution of copyright works via the EliteTorrents BitTorrent tracker, which was shut down by the FBI in 2005. As a major uploader he faces 5 years in jail plus a $250,000 fine.
While students at universities in the US are pressured by the RIAA, Cardiff University citing pressure from increasing numbers of copyright infringement notices, has taken out a blunt instrument and banned it’s students from accessing some of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites, regardless of the legitimate content they contain.
A Dutch judge ruled that ISP ‘KPN’ has to hand over the name and address of the admin of dutchtorrent.org to the Piracy watchdog BREIN. Dutchtorrent.org is one of the smaller BitTorrent sites, hosted on a private ADSL connection.
