Having never seen anything like it before, James (as we shall call him for now) became hooked, and quickly began to display a trait inherent in many addicted file-sharers.

“I simply couldn’t get enough,” he told TorrentFreak. “It was more fun downloading and sharing the stuff with all my friends then actually using it or playing the actual games.”

Having become inspired by these simple beginnings, James began chatting with other like-minded people on warez sites and ICQ, going on to share warez via PUBS, FTP-enabled servers conveniently left open by companies with more bandwidth than security sense.

Sharing files wasn’t a simple process back then and James took exception when Napster began dumbing down the process.

“We hated it, simply despised it because it made a mockery of the hard work we put in to obtain all these different warez,” he recalls.

But despite these early bad feelings towards Napster, the future would eventually see James become a facilitator of even easier ways of downloading. Not for just his friends, but for more than a hundred thousand people.

After working his way up to become one of the top members on the GraveyardFXP warez board, James says he became a moderator of DelusionalFXP. It was there, on their IRC channel, that he would meet people whose new project would suck him in and change his life forever. At some point along the line, ‘James’ became better known to his peers as StonyVision, and he was invited to join a new project being set up by, among others, a fellow pirate known as Sk0t.

Under Sk0t’s leadership, a torrent site called Elite Torrents was taking shape and preparing itself for an eventual membership of some 130,000 active users. It would also become the only US-based BitTorrent tracker ever to be busted by the FBI and ICE.

After he’d installed BitComet and began sharing content in February 2004, staff on Elite noticed something very appealing about StonyVision – his impressive upload capability. StonyVision told us he’d “followed instructions” on how to use two instead of the regular one modem his cable connection usually allowed, which gave him business-standard upload speeds. When you’re delivering content on BitTorrent, upload bandwidth is king, and Elite wanted some of Stony’s.

But as file-sharers are often heard to complain, you can never have enough bandwidth, so Stony acquired a 100mbit server at The Planet in Texas and began seeding his files from there. Once around 150 of Elite’s users had grabbed his latest release he’d begin releasing his next torrent, usually the very latest movies. His performance eventually meant that he became a member of staff, later going on to organize other Elite Torrents uploaders.

Of course, StonyVision needed content to share and he wasted no time in getting it directly from source – The Scene. He’d gained access to this elite network through his contacts at DelusionalFXP and ended up adding his own server to something called T.O.P. or “Tower of Power” – 53 dedicated 100mbit servers acting as a single giant RAID FTP piracy site. But still Stony needed more.

“At that point I was on four or five top sites, and my main interest was always movies. I loved movies and still do,” Stony explained. “Since my server was tied up I ended up renting two more, one to race with and another for seeding content on Elite Torrents.”

In common with his more old-school peers, Stony saw himself as something of a Robin Hood, “taking from the rich and giving to Average Joe”, and reveled in the positive feedback left by up to 130,000 Elite Torrents users.

But the environment in the United States had become increasingly unfriendly towards The Scene. The FBI and DoJ’s Operation Fastlink was underway and there was a growing fear that torrent sites would be targeted next. Stony sensed the tension and stepped down from the site’s staff around April 2005. He was 19-years-old – and too late.

Elite Torrents and its operators were already being watched and no amount of IP-address obfuscation would prove effective in hiding Stony or his fellow staffers on the site.

“Truth be told I did hide my IP and was the hardest one to find but [the FBI] used the Patriot Act and came up with an asinine amount of money lost to these companies and the movie industry and labeled me as a possible domestic terrorist who was conspiring to commit copyright infringement,” Stony explains.

“I woke up to banging on the door over and over, the dogs started barking. I got up thinking who’s the asshole banging on my door at 6am? Next thing I know there’s 10+ FBI agents in my house. I started laughing at first – I thought it was a joke – until the reality sunk in.”

It was 25th May 2005 and Operation D-Elite, which was to claim several admins and staff members at Elite Torrents, was underway.

“That was the day of days, I was in total and utter dismay and couldn’t even wrap my head around what had happened. I had no clue what was happening to the others. I lawyered up immediately which in itself is a funny story. I opened up the Yellow Pages, looked under ‘lawyer’ and there it was – an ad with a firm that had dealt with computer crime.

“I think I need a lawyer,” Stony told the gentleman on the other end who inquired “Why?”

“Well, the FBI had just raided my house along with a group they called ICE,” Stony responded.

A few awkward seconds of silence was followed by: “How fast can you get here?”

What came next was mountains of litigation and Stony being told to expect the worst – 5 years in prison. The pressure proved too much and Stony went off the rails, turning to alcohol.

In December 2006 he would learn his fate for the uploading of 53 movies, 6 pieces of software and 10 video games. The government demanded a prison sentence in order to deter others from infringement. To Stony’s huge relief, they didn’t get their way.

“Luckily for me I had the most liberal federal judge there was at the time. I was given a fine of $3,500, 6 months house arrest, community service and 3 years probation in which I was not allowed to touch a computer. I had somehow escaped doing time and the U.S attorney was furious.”

But despite avoiding prison, Stony says that he’s still paid a price.

“It’s been the bane of my existence and yet made me who I am. I continued on a self destructive path for quite some time doing crazy things, still working out, getting in bar fights. Truth be told I’ve been to hell and back, stared the devil in the face with its trillions of dollars of influence (RIAA, MPAA) and laughed and walked away.”

Stony says that confessing to a double felony on job applications hinders him, but the support of a new woman in his life has helped tremendously. So how are things today?

“I of course no longer pirate anything anymore as I’m sure I’m still on numerous watch lists. Its simply fun to look every now and again,” says Stony.

“My story isn’t one of inspiration but one of caution. It could happen to anyone out there. I know people are thinking ‘nah, not me’, but that’s what I thought too and now here we are.”

Stony told us that he recently got back online again with his own computer and was inspired by the huge anti-SOPA and PIPA campaigns.

“Thanks to everyone who spoke out on Internet blackout day. It really did give me goosebumps to see people finally stand up and be heard,” he concludes.

Sk0t’s story and those of his fellow operators and uploaders can be found here and here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The cable, dated 17 December 2008, was published by Wikileaks this week and reveals details on a piracy workshop the U.S. Government organized in the country.

In the cable Ambassador Taylor writes that the workshop was paid for by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, which allocated $125,000 to educating Ukrainian authorities on piracy. About 30 local police officers with experience in computer/internet cases were participating .

A topic high on the agenda during the meeting was the fact that many large torrent sites are hosted in Ukraine. Matthew Lamberti of the Department of Justice named the example of Demonoid, a large semi-private BitTorrent tracker that started renting servers in the country early 2008.

“Lamberti noted that earlier this year one of the world’s biggest pirate websites had moved to Ukraine, and that the founder of the site had stated that he was looking for a ‘suitable’ home after being pressured to leave several other countries, including the Netherlands, Canada, and Malaysia. Lamberti cautioned that Ukraine might become a haven for pirate sites if it did not step up enforcement efforts,” the ambassador writes.

However, stopping these sites from renting server space is easier said than done, as Ukrainian authorities don’t have the legal means to do so.

“Representatives have argued that Ukrainian law does not give law enforcement officials clear authority to shut down such websites, although sometimes ISPs can be persuaded to do so,” the ambassador notes.

Aside from these warnings the workshop also explained how private BitTorrent trackers in the U.S. and U.K. were effectively shut down. Kiffa Shirley from the FBI’s Cybercrime Fraud Unit used the example of EliteTorrents, one of the largest BitTorrent communities that was raided during the summer of 2005.

“Shirley gave a detailed briefing on the different kinds of websites that engage in internet piracy and the technology they employ. He also described the investigative steps he and other FBI agents took to investigate elitetorrents.org, a pirate website based in the United States that was known for its extremely fast illegal downloads,” we read in the cable.

Mumith Ali from the music industry funded anti-piracy group IFPI explained how they busted the music oriented BitTorrent tracker OiNK in 2007.

“Ali provided participants with strategies and best practices based on his experiences investigating some of the biggest pirate websites in Europe, including a UK-based private pirate website with 180,000 members notorious for offering illegal downloads of pre-release music albums. Prosecution of the owner of the site is currently pending in English Crown Court,” the ambassador summarizes.

Interestingly enough, it later turned out that one of the main reasons why no torrent admin has been found guilty in the UK is because of IFPI’s involvement. Since the police relied heavily on information provided by industry-funded groups like IFPI, the courts doubted the objectivity of the investigations against both FileSoup and OiNK.

Among other things, the IFPI employee introduced the Ukrainian cyberpolice to several investigative tools they use to spy on BitTorrent communities, including the packer sniffer application Wireshark.

“Moreover, Ali gave a live demonstration of how people download illegal works from pirate websites. Ukrainian participants were particularly interested in Ali’s description of a free computer program called ‘Wireshark’ used by IFPI to investigate pirate sites; we are following up with the Ministry of Interior to provide more information on this program.”

There is no doubt that the 30 computer experts of the Ukrainian police force have learned a lot during the workshop. However, it is doubtful whether the tens of thousands of dollars in U.S. tax payer money will have much of an effect. Apparently, there are bigger problems in the local police force that have to be dealt with first, as the ambassador notes at the end of the cable.

“Unfortunately resource issues will continue to hamper enforcement efforts. For example, several police officers from the regions complained privately that they did not have access to the internet in their workplace,” he writes.

Bummer.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

LokiTorrent

Born in early 2004, LokiTorrent grew from comparative humble beginnings, especially when compared to the mighty Suprnova. However, as a recipient of one of the growing number of cease and desist letters sent out by the MPAA, LokiTorrent found its fame.

In mid-December 2004, as the MPAA was yet to formally identify the site’s owner, a ‘John Doe’ lawsuit was filed against the operators of LokiTorrent. Rather than caving into the threats as other BitTorrent and eDonkey services already had, the site’s operator, the then 28 year-old Ed Webber (aka ‘Lowkee’), took a rather more aggressive stance.

Webber refused to comply with the MPAA’s demands, which went down an absolute storm with many in the BitTorrent community, who believed that their very existence was under threat. If Lowkee was prepared to fight, so were they. The battle lines were drawn.

This rallying of support reached fever pitch, with the site’s membership swelling to almost 700,000 users and Webber receiving donations in record time and in record amounts. Within a short period of time around $43,000 was collected to go to war with the MPAA.

Then something something suspicious came to light. Webber was trying to sell the LokiTorrent domain name on Sedo. The community was not pleased – in fact it went absolutely nuts.

Under huge pressure, on January 27th Webber made an announcement saying that he put the domain up for sale because he was curious as to its worth, noting that for $75k he’d sell it and simply move to a new domain. Selling the entire site, he said, would never happen. The Sedo listing suggested otherwise, with Webber offering the full source code and email addresses of the members.

So what about the donations thus far? Were they safe?

“As for the legal fund.. if I were going to run off, I would have already. That money is for the lawsuit, as stated. Only those who would run off with the money thought we would,” said Webber in an announcement.

Around two weeks later the site disappeared, replaced by the MPAA’s infamous ‘You Can Click But You Can’t Hide’ campaign artwork. None of the donated money was handed back and although the existence of a lawsuit was later confirmed, there was no fight.

Webber’s attorney, Charles S. Baker, said parts of LokiTorrent’s operations were defensible in court, particular since Webber had already offered to remove links to pirated movies. But it wasn’t to be.

According to court documents, Webber was eventually ordered to pay the MPAA $1m in damages and hand over all of the user data held on the LokiTorrent servers. There is no evidence he paid a cent. Webber also claimed that all of the donations were swallowed up by legal fees, few believed him, and it would be a long time before BitTorrent users dug deep again.

EliteTorrents

Despite the misery surrounding the LokiTorrent closure, other sites continued to blossom, although the emphasis switched to the relatively more underground scene of invitation-only trackers.

With around 130,000 members, EliteTorrents was one of the most prominent torrent sites in the growing, but still fairly undeveloped, private tracker scene. With its good staff and strong community, for many Elite was the site to be seen at.

On June 25th 2005, it all came crashing down in a huge and unprecedented fireball.

Despite many thousands of torrents being uploaded during the site’s lifetime, a single release – a pre-release version of Star Wars: Episode 3 – attracted the interest of the FBI, who shut down the site and arrested the admins and uploaders.

Several of them served substantial jail sentences, a punishment previously unheard of in BitTorrent history.

In 2006, Scott McCausland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement for his uploading of Star Wars: Episode III. He received jail time and home confinement.

Fellow site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence with the addition of a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who were found guilty included Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek, An Duc Do, aged 25, and Daniel Dove.

Before the EliteTorrents shutdown, while many BitTorrent trackers were hosted in the United States most had been pressured to leave, largely due to MPAA pressure. Right up until the introduction of the Family Entertainment Act – the criminal legislation used to justify FBI involvement and shutter the site – action against torrent sites would have taken place in the civil domain. The law governing the distribution of pre-release movies changed that perception forever.

The aggressive action against both LokiTorrent and EliteTorrents ensured that no-one, especially a US citizen, would ever openly place a big movie BitTorrent tracker on US soil again. Only search engines such as isoHunt and TorrentSpy would dare to stay, but eventually, even they would have to leave.

While United States-based BitTorrent trackers had plenty of drama in 2005, during the next two years Europe would become the next theater in the ever-increasing war on copyright infringement.

More dramatic shutdowns will follow later this week in Part 2

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In September 2006, Scott pleaded guilty to two charges – ‘conspiracy to commit copyright infringement’ and ‘criminal copyright infringement’. For his ‘crime’, Scott was sentenced to 5 months in jail and 5 months home confinement but his release didn’t mean his life was back to normal.

After his release in 2007, Scott was fitted with a monitoring ankle bracelet which restricted his freedom, but the government hadn’t finished limiting his life. Scott had to have special software installed on his computer to monitor his online activities, but since it was Windows only, he had to give up his beloved Ubuntu.

In the months that followed, Scott publicly shared details via his blog of his struggle to come to terms with his severe treatment for uploading a single movie, which at times made pretty upsetting reading. Thankfully his nightmare is now coming to an end.

It has been around 3 weeks since Scott was taken off the US government’s monitor list, which means that he is no longer on probation. Scott says things have been pretty good since and he can now do things we all take for granted – like being able to use Ubuntu instead of Windows.

TorrentFreak caught up with Scott who said he was happy to send a message to his friends and readers here to mark his official freedom.

“I have officially been off probation since July 12th. What a great feeling to finally be free from the clutches of evil (or the federal government). It was actually a really easy time on probation. It was 2 years, dealing once a month with my probation officer… who was really a great person,” he told us.

For those of us who remember the exact time and date of the EliteTorrents raid, it seems like only yesterday, but so much has happened since and as Scott puts it, his freedom has been a long time coming.

“I haven’t had a clear head since May 25th, 2005. Over 4 years of what I would call the worst period of my life is over,” he recalls.

But in the end the release from the nightmare comes from Scott himself and he is certainly trying to make the best of things now.

“I have been focusing a lot of time on my family. We bought a house in November, while I was still on home confinement. I am working at a local college, dealing with ERP implementations, specifically Oracle, and I am still actively participating in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and MMA,” he told TorrentFreak.

As if these things won’t keep Scott busy enough, he’s looking forward to a brighter future and a very special occasion.

“I will be hopefully starting back to school for my MBA in the spring. And I am getting married in May 2010. Aside from the economy, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Scott told us that he felt his story is probably no longer worthy of news, so he will take this opportunity to move back into the shadows to get on with his new lease of life.

“This will be the last time most of you hear from me – although there is sk0t.com. The good majority of you have been really supportive… so thank you all for caring, and for
those of you who didn’t care… thanks also.”

I’m sure that the readers will join us in wishing Scott all the best for the future and every happiness in his forthcoming marriage. Good luck Scott.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Duc Do, was found guilty of uploading the movies Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Flight of the Phoenix and King Arthur to a seedbox, for the benefit of the site’s members

Unlike previous defendants Scott McCausland and Grant Stanley, Duc Do escapes a jail sentence. Instead, after pleading guilty to conspiracy and copyright infringement charges, the former Drexel University student was given 3 years probation, a $15,000 fine and 400 hours of community service.

According to prosecutor Floyd Miller, Duc Do wasn’t as dedicated as other uploaders on Elite: “They threatened to kick him out of the organization because he wasn’t uploading as much as some of the other pirates were doing,” he said.

However, despite escaping jail, the future doesn’t look immediately bright for Duc Do. After getting a degree in computer science from Drexel University, he later landed a job at the worlds largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, developing military war-games. This conviction means that Duc Do will have to resign from his job.

Other convictions in the case include those of Daniel Dove who was recently jailed for 18 months. Site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence and a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who also pleaded guilty include Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, and 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Daniel Dove, one of the arrested administrators of the Elitetorrents tracker initially opted for a ‘not guilty’ plea, but his gamble didn’t pay off. The jury was told that Dove was responsible for managing and recruiting the crucial ‘uploaders’ on the site (original seeders) and that he also operated a server which was used to distribute pirate material.

The jury believed this version of events and found Dove guilty on one count each of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement. Today, Dove has was sentenced to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release and a $20,000 fine.

Dove is the only administrator of Elitetorrents to plead “not guilty”. In 2006, Scott McCausland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement for his uploading of Star Wars: Episode III.

McCausland received jail time and home confinement and on his release told TorrentFreak: “After 5 months in prison, and another 5 months on home confinement, I have just one obstacle left: my 1.5 years left of probation.”

Fellow site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence with the addition of a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who pleaded guilty include Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek and An Duc Do, aged 25.

Dove’s sentence is the eighth resulting from Operation D-Elite but this federal crackdown didn’t end up causing a decrease in overall private BitTorrent tracker availability. Instead, soon after the raids the Elitetorrents members spread out to other trackers, the major difference is that most of them are now hosted outside the US.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The page was so crude that it gave the tens of thousands of worried users a little relief – if the FBI was really behind the shutdown they would’ve made a better job of the page design than this, surely? The conclusion I reached along with many others was that this was the work of hackers. Site staff reported that the DNS had been hacked, which at the time was actually relatively good news, as reports started to come in that the site now traced to the Department of Homeland Security.

For many sci-fi fans the site downtime was really badly timed, as they (and just about everyone else) were desperate to get on the site to get the leaked ‘ViSA‘ workprint copy of Star Wars: Episode III. But as time passed you could feel the mood change. Most people knew deep down something was wrong but just didn’t want to admit it. Operation D-Elite had been and now EliteTorrents was gone.

When the confirmation came, it did so via a notice in the site’s IRC channel: “A few of the admins have been raided by the FBI, sorry, but ET [EliteTorrents] is now closed”, closely followed by an announcement by Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Richter of the Criminal Division, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Michael J. Garcia, and Assistant Director Louis M. Reigel of the FBI’s Cyber Division:

This morning, agents of the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed 10 search warrants across the United States against leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents. Employing technology known as BitTorrent, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000 members and, in the last four months, allegedly facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 17,800 titles – including movies and software – which were downloaded 2.1 million times.

BitTorrent sites had been shut down before in the United States, such as the LokiTorrent case, but none had been closed down by the FBI – something had changed. The recently introduced Family Entertainment and Copyright Act meant that when EliteTorrents admin Sk0t uploaded Star Wars: Episode III, he didn’t just commit a civil infringement, it was now a serious crime. The huge popularity of the movie meant it was downloaded at least 10,000 times during the first 24 hours with some claiming in the region of 20,000 downloads worldwide, and this was reportedly enough for the MPAA to finally lose its patience and make good on its successful infiltration of the site.

The federal agents involved in the case executed 10 warrants and took control of the server. In a recent interview, Scott McCausland, aka sk0t, an administrator of the site told Slyck: “Star Wars was uploaded… and then it was game over. I awoke one morning to see the FBI warning on the ET site, and thought to myself “Damn, I think we are screwed.” It didn’t dawn on me at the time that I could be a target. I didn’t upload a lot, just a couple movies. But I did Star Wars, so… Then, at 6AM I am woken up to the sounds of 6 FBI, 6 ICE, and 2 Local Police at my front door. They come in, confiscate everything, and that begins my 2+ years saga.”

In the BitTorrent community many people were absolutely furious at the loss of their favorite site, with a passion not seen since the demise of Suprnova. Thousands of others were panicking. Forums and IRC were awash with theories of who had been arrested so far and who would be targeted next by the FBI, and why. Would it be limited to admins? What about the uploaders? Would regular users be chased down? In the end, around 130,000 users had nothing to worry about but some admins and uploaders weren’t so lucky.

In 2006, Scott McCausland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement for his uploading of Star Wars: Episode III. He received jail time and home confinement and on his release told TorrentFreak: “After 5 months in prison, and another 5 months on home confinement, I have just one obstacle left: my 1.5 years years left of probation.”

Fellow site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence with the addition of a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who pleaded guilty included Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek and An Duc Do, aged 25.

Not everyone arrested in connection with the case pleaded guilty. Daniel Dove, an administrator of the site, opted for a ‘not guilty’ plea. For Dove, the gamble hasn’t paid off. The jury was told that Dove was responsible for managing and recruiting the crucial ‘uploaders’ on the site (original seeders) and that he also operated a server which was used to distribute pirate material. The jury believed it and found him guilty on one count each of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement.

Dove will be sentenced on September 9th 2008 where he, like some of the other admins, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail, but is likely to receive substantially less.

Historically, the EliteTorrents case is an important one. Many BitTorrent trackers used to be hosted in the United States, but had been essentially scared or pressured to leave, largely due to direct or indirect MPAA pressure. Right up until the creation of the Family Entertainment Act, any action against sites would have taken place in the civil domain. The act coming into force gave the FBI the green light to get involved, much to the delight of the MPAA who possessed significant investigative powers but lacked the killer ability to quickly shut down a non-compliant site.

The MPAA loves to issue a stream of data about how much piracy went on at EliteTorrents (and a lot did go on), but it was the seeding of a movie, a single pre-release movie that eventually killed the entire site and caused the imprisonment of the admin team. Clearly the leak did nothing to hurt the movie as it went on to gross nearly $110m in its first weekend and has nearly reached a worldwide total of $1bn. But we knew that anyway.

Despite the massive resources at the disposal of the FBI and supposed importance of the case, the person that originally leaked the Episode 3 workprint copy direct from Lucas is nowhere to be seen.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

One of those who came to grief was sk0t – aka Scott McCausland – who pleaded guilty – an admission which earned him 5 months in jail and 5 months home confinement. As part of the home punishment, Scott was required to wear an ankle bracelet which monitored his movements. Fitted on July 19th 2007, the bracelet enforced the terms of his release: Monday to Friday 08:30 to 21:00 he was free to do as he pleased. Weekends were more restrictive – freedom was allocated between 08:30 to 17:00. Freedom – proper freedom – was 5 long months away.

Eventually the day had arrived to remove the bracelet. Scott told TorrentFreak:

“On December 19th, I was allowed to, personally, remove my ankle monitor. After 5 months of curfews, and missed occasions, I am now allowed to partake in all the benefits this free world has to offer. After 5 months in prison, and another 5 months on home confinement, I have just one obstacle left: my 1.5 years years left of probation.”

After a couple of years of ruined festivities for Scott, things are really looking up for him now:

“This Christmas has been quite good to me. My first semester back at school is over, I am with my family, and I am off home confinement… the holidays are going well for me.”

Scott hasn’t been sitting around idly since his release. Aside from spending time with his family and friends and buying a new home, Scott went back to school, finished his first semester and got some pretty good grades, despite ‘taking it easy’ with his 4 chosen classes:

BA 243 (Business Ethics) – B
Phil 014 (Love & Sex) – B+
Phil 012 (Symbolic Logic) – A-
Econ 002 (Microeconomics) – B

It’s good to hear from Scott but a little sad that we don’t hear anything from the other guys who also went to jail who must be going through similar experiences. I’m sure that everyone in the BitTorrent community wishes them well, whatever they might be doing.

Final word from Scott: “Everyone have a Happy Holiday Season”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Sk0t has now been released from jail but this doesn’t mean that everything is back to normal.

Back on 17 July, sk0t had to see his Probation Officer for the first time and two days later he had to have a special ankle bracelet attached. This monitoring device is there to enforce the terms of his release: Monday to Friday 08:30 to 21:00 he is free to do as he pleases. Weekends are more restrictive – freedom is allocated between 08:30 to 17:00. The one good thing about this device is that it will be removed before Christmas (Dec 19th).

According to a post on his blog, following another meeting with his Probation Officer, it seems sk0t is having more trouble:

So, I am getting shafted by the Justice Department again…”

sk0t was informed by his Probation Officer that he has to have special software installed on his PC so that the government can monitor his online activities. However, what is a more bitter pill to swallow for him is that the monitoring software is Windows only and as sk0t is an Ubuntu user, the Justice Department is forcing him to switch operating systems.

I had a meeting with my probation officer today, and he told me that he has to install monitoring software onto my PC. No big deal to me, that is part of my sentence. However, their software doesnt support GNU/Linux (Which is what I use). So, he told me that if I want to use a computer, I would have to use an OS that the software can be installed on.

Sk0t is left with a tough choice. Give in to the evils of the monitoring software, format his hard drive and install Windows – or be barred from using a PC completely.

Sk0t told TorrentFreak: “I think that this whole situation is just one more way that they can impose their will onto me. I have contacted my attorney, and we are going to fight this. It isn’t the fact that I have to be monitored that bothers me, it is the fact that I have restructure my life (different OS, different software on that OS) and that they would require (force) me to purchase software while I a currently unemployed and relatively unemployable with the 2 felonies that they gave me. It is just a ridiculous situation. Why should I conform to them when I am consenting to the software… they should have software that conforms to me.”

Unfortunately, thanks to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, some BitTorrent users are considered criminals these days, which means these unusual measures can be forced upon them. In a society where ‘the punishment should fit the crime’, you can’t help but think that somewhere along the line there’s been a big miscalculation when regular citizens are turned into criminals for sharing files.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Federal Court Judge McLaughlin said in a statement, prior to imposing sentence “those engaged in online piracy of copyrighted material are not modern day Robin Hood’s, but rather common thieves motivated solely by the desire to get something for nothing.”

McCausland is the second Elitetorrents admin who is sent to prison. Last month The 23 year old Grant Stanley received the exact same sentence, five months in prison, followed by five months of home detention.

Elitetorrents was taken down in May 2005 by the FBI. FBI’s Operation D-Elite resulted in the permanent shutdown of the Elitetorrents, and the end of one of the most active “private” BitTorrent communities.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.