Two More NinjaVideo Admins Plead Guilty

enigmax
October 27, 2011
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Two more staffers from the now-defunct NinjaVideo streaming movie portal have pleaded guilty for their roles in helping to the run the site. Ninja’s uploader supervisor and the site’s so-called “head of security” both face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. An arrest warrant for a key uploader located in Greece has also been issued.

Following the mid-2010 ‘first round’ of the ongoing “Operation in Our Sites”, five people connected to NinjaVideo streaming movie and TV show portal were indicted by a federal grand jury in September.

The latest to plead guilty are Joshua David Evans, 34, of North Bend, Wash., and 33-year-old Jeremy Lynn Andrew of Eugene, Ore.

According to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Evans pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of criminal copyright infringement relating to the release of the movie Iron Man 2 before its commercial premiere. Andrew pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy.

In court documents, Evans (known online as Wadswerth) is described as “Head God” of NinjaVideo’s uploading team, i.e the person responsible for supervising the people bringing new content to the site. He was also said to have been responsible for carrying out background checks on people wishing to communicate with the admins of NinjaVideo.

In addition to monitoring the Ninja servers for unauthorized access, Andrew, “Ninja’s Head of Security”, also served as a moderator on the site’s forums. He was known online as “Htrdfrk”.

Of the total $505,000 said to have been made by NinjaVideo during its operations, Evans has admitted to receiving $26,600, Andrew just $5,250. The pair will have to pay restitution in these amounts.

Evans will be sentenced January 2012, Andrew in February. Both face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Previously, Hana Beshara, “The Queen” of NinjaVideo, pleaded guilty to negotiating agreements with online advertisers and receiving $200,000 of the site’s income. She will be sentenced January 2012.

Co-founder 23-year old Matthew Smith (known online as Dead1ne) also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement. He will be sentenced December 2011.

The fifth defendant in the case is Zoi Mertzanis of Greece. Known online as “Tik”, Mertzanis stands accused of being one the site’s most active uploaders with responsibilities for supervising other uploaders in Europe. A warrant has been issued for the defendant’s arrest.

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Blumpkin

Worst ninjas EVER.
Guest

Going to jail for hyperlinking…!

ANTI-MAFIAA – “just kill them all”
- WarezSiteOwner
  
  hyperlinking? LOL!
  You don’t know anything of their website do you?
  They were HOSTING the videos on their own servers, and don’t give me the “they were using megaupload premium” bull-crap, I’ve seen their server’s IP’s.
  - VodMap
    
    Sorry but you are wrong they they were NOT hosting the videos or content on their own servers, they used a java applet to bypass megaupload (and others) verifications and streamed from their.
    
    You serious? They would need a lot more than $505k to serve all that video content, lmao.
    
    They were guilty of uploading content which is where “hyperlinking is not a crime” falls on its face.
    - notadumbass
      
      They had a servers re-encoding the videos to divx. So technically they were hosting the videos, derp.
Idonthaveemail

How will he be able to pay 250k. goodluck with that one
http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

OK, I’m not sure I get this story at all (sorry Andy).

Is this about profiteers making some cash from filesharing, when all we (as real filesharers) want to do is release ourselves from the stultifying and fascist grip of the MAFIAA as they continue to pursue their biased and closed market?

After all they’re simply an “industry” that
1. refuses refunds for crap productions.;
2. locks you into watching adverts even after you paid for their ‘product’;
3. warns you that you’ll be sued if you ‘improperly’ use your property that you paid cash for;
4. tells you that you MUST NOT sell, lend, share or reproduce your property that you’ve bought.

Just how dumb to these fuckwits think we are?
Enough is enough guys.

The MAFIAA is going to have to grow up and release itself to the same risk, and quality guarantees as any other industry in a global market.

Adapt or die guys.
It’s as simple as that.
- Ven
  
  “when all we (as real filesharers) want to do is release ourselves from the stultifying and fascist grip of the MAFIAA as they continue to pursue their biased and closed market?”
  
  That’s all good and fine, but these people were profiting from it. At the end of the day, I would imagine that most “real” filesharers would rather have the content creators/producers/distributors paid for their work instead of 5 random web faces cashing in on the work of others.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay
    
    I wouldn’t look at the plea bargain as a valid source of how much they’ve gotten. Plea bargains corrupt justice in all its forms.
    - Ven
      
      The prosecution merely needed to see the account information used for advert income and donations.
      
      NV was a business in the United States, which means the courts can find out exactly how much they pulled in, and where it went from there.
- Peasantry
  
  Please stuff that cake in your fat mouth and suffocate. Its impossible for brain deads like you to understand that making money off copyrighted content is wrong.
  
  “Just how dumb do these fuckwits think we are?”
  
  Yes you really are as dumb as they think you are. Even dumber than they imagined. Your comments here are proof of that!
  
  The MAFIAA may be struggling to adapt to new age business models but that has absolutely nothing to do with a bunch of guys earning $500k from content they didn’t create. Just because the MAFIAA don’t have online content distribution models doesn’t give some 3rd party the right to provide that service and earn tons of money, especially when they have no rights over the content they sell or distribute.
  
  “1. refuses refunds for crap productions.;”
  
  It your duty to ascertain the quality of a product before you buy. The company is not liable to refund you anything once purchased. Why do you think people read ten different reviews on the internet before buying any physical product like a Camera, TV, GPS etc.? Its because no shop will give you a free 1 week trial of a camera you intent to purchase.
  
  There will always be good and bad products on the market. Its upto you to separate the good from bad.
  
  “2. locks you into watching adverts even after you paid for their ‘product’;”
  
  You’re bitching about the 5 min advert at the beginning of a movie that promotes their upcoming film? Well, it takes all of 1 mouse click to skip that portion.
  
  “3. warns you that you’ll be sued if you ‘improperly’ use your property that you paid cash for;
  4. tells you that you MUST NOT sell, lend, share or reproduce your property that you’ve bought.”
  
  When you want to share your baseball bat with a friend, you don’t create a copy of that and share, you give the original to him. By all means give your original Blu Ray or DVD disc to your friend if you want to share. Nobody will come after you.
  
  But ripping content off a disc and then distributing to millions over the internet is something else.
  - http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes
    
    lol, good try but you barely reach 1 out of 10 for attempted defence of your paymasters.
    
    Go back to your dark, damp cave and think again troll. I know you can do better than that because unlike your so-called ‘content industry’ I have confidence in your ability and intelligence as an aspiring beast trying to become Human.
    
    Good luck with your contemplations meantime. Be assured we’ll welcome you to human society once you gain even a grain of sensibility and decency.
    
    For just now – FUCK OFF and stop annoying us with your profiteering bullshit.
    - Peasantry
      
      So typical a reply as predicted. You simply don’t have an answer to my post do you? Nope, you don’t. So you resort to the old rhetoric to skirt around the issue.
      
      Owned!
    - Danny
      
      I THINK ITS JACK COCK MURDOOCH IN DISGUISE!!!
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IZ5BM5GNLA54OADSWGSXAMA7SY Jay
      
      @Peasantry You lead with an insult then expect someone to treat you with respect? Respect is earned, not given.
    - Peasantry
      
      @Jay, Respect? I never asked for respect. Respect from thieves online means nothing to me. If Rob had the balls he would have had an answer to my post but because he doesn’t have any, he had to somehow skirt around it by diverting focus from the topic at hand and the result is the stupid post of his you see above.
    - Anon
      
      Typical pirate shit, Rob. Peasantry gives a factual reply and you burst out in fuck off ad homs because the fact don’t back you up. You are as pointless and irrelevant to reality as Falkvinge.
      
      IT IS SUCH A FUCKING PLEASURE to watch you asswipes slowly but surely be marginalized to the point where you have to use VPN’s or spoof someone else’s wifi to hide while you rip off everything you can get your greedy hands on.
      
      Fileshares are such ignorant douches. And yes, that is an ad hom, too.
      Suck on it.
    - http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes
      
      Hey! I’ll happily suck on whatever you’ve got but I doubt it’ll be worth my effort – and I can guarantee you wont gain any benefit, profit or pleasure in my actions.
      
      You dickheads have declared War on filesharing, the internet, society and decency simply to protect your own self-interested, profit-motivated monopoly industry and you recognise the writing on your own grave stone.
      
      Read it carefully my friendly asswipe, for it says “Rest In Peace” (or if you prefer, requiescat in pace).
      
      Crawl back to your damp cave troll – you guys are dying. Filesharers and the right of people to live with freedom to information and freedom to share for the benefit of humanity will NO LONGER be restricted or denied or locked down just because a few extra bucks can be taken from a nurse, a street-sweeper, a musician or a programmer.
      
      Wise up or fuck off out of our lives.
  - Colin
    
    “It is your duty to ascertain the quality of the product before you buy.”
    You mean watch the trailer with all the best bits crammed into a one minute commercial? Or read the review, written by a paid hack?
    
    “You’re bitching about the 5 min advert…” YES, it’s a pain!
    - Peasantry
      
      Yeah surely all of the thousands of reviews posted by IMDB users were paid jobs. Reviews posted by movie critics on various sites on the net were also paid jobs. I am sure the MAFIAA has nothing better to do than pay thousands of anonymous users on the internet to post reviews about their movies.
      
      Please come back after you have installed a new brain in your skull.
      
      And if its a pain to click one mouse button to skip the 5 min advert, then I bet you need to get on that treadmill fast.
  - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
    
    Ah the reply.
    
    The MAFIAA may be struggling to adapt to new age business models but that has absolutely nothing to do with a bunch of guys earning $500k from content they didn’t create. Just because the MAFIAA don’t have online content distribution models doesn’t give some 3rd party the right to provide that service and earn tons of money, especially when they have no rights over the content they sell or distribute.
    
    Agreed with the first part. If they really made money of the content (as in CHARGE FOR EACH DOWNLOAD) then they should be behind bars. However, providing a service costs and needs proper administration and thus they are entitled to earnings for the service provided. The fact they provide a service that allows one to share videos, copyrighted or not, then it is ok. And, if it is that damn profitable, why isn’t MAFIAA running their torrent indexers? Oh because it isn’t. Remember, take official statements with a grain of salt and a lot of distrust, specially if private companies have interest in the thing.
    
    It your duty to ascertain the quality of a product before you buy. The company is not liable to refund you anything once purchased. Why do you think people read ten different reviews on the internet before buying any physical product like a Camera, TV, GPS etc.? Its because no shop will give you a free 1 week trial of a camera you intent to purchase.
    
    Cameras for instance have their technical details available and that helps you choose models and brands because you KNOW their capabilities. But the quality is a tricky part. Sometimes even known and established brands screw up and release shit. And if you buy it and it’s not what you expected from reading the specs and the user reviews then yes you can return them. It’s up to any of us to buy with care but it’s not as easy to tell the good from the bad as you imply. Unless you live in some sort of Neverland inside your head. So you fail =)
    
    You’re bitching about the 5 min advert at the beginning of a movie that promotes their upcoming film? Well, it takes all of 1 mouse click to skip that portion.
    
    Fail. Yes, we bitch. (hello Obama) I don’t mind ads I can skip but I HATE when they make me watch trailers and FBI warnings on my DVDs. Skip that without ripping the DVD you OWN or downloading a rip from bt and being a criminal. And I PAID for the damn thing, I don’t want ads. Again, you fail.
    
    When you want to share your baseball bat with a friend, you don’t create a copy of that and share, you give the original to him. By all means give your original Blu Ray or DVD disc to your friend if you want to share. Nobody will come after you.
    
    But ripping content off a disc and then distributing to millions over the internet is something else.
    
    Oh rly? Then why do I have to keep seeing annoying screens as if every buyer had the intention of making copies and selling on the streets?
    Ripping contents and distributing the content over the net is the same thing, except that you make a copy. The original is not lost. And many that wouldn’t watch the stuff if not by the shared copy will watch and buy. Don’t believe? Prove the opposite please. I’ll give my personal testimony: I buy even when I download if it’s worth.
    
    There, your answers. Now be a good troll, ignore anything and keep thinking your logic is absolute and everybody that disagrees is a filthy pirate that rapes children. I know that’s what you’ll be doing anyway lil troll.
    - Ven
      
      — “It’s up to any of us to buy with care but it’s not as easy to tell the good from the bad as you imply. Unless you live in some sort of Neverland inside your head. So you fail =)” —
      
      The movies can be rented, physical copies can be borrowed, as well as seen on broadcast television. If people aren’t patient enough to wait for those, then there will be some risk involved. Much like those who ran out to grab Iphones before antenna-gate went down.
      
      — “However, providing a service costs and needs proper administration and thus they are entitled to earnings for the service provided. ” —
      I don’t know how it works in Sweden, but in the United States taking any form of revenue without being a 501(c) organization means it was trying to profit. If it wasn’t profitable after admin costs, it won’t matter.
      
      Again however, I don’t know how that works in Sweden.
      
      — “I don’t mind ads I can skip but I HATE when they make me watch trailers and FBI warnings on my DVDs.” —
      
      I agree. I understand that they want to “spread the word” regarding IP theft, but when a lazy, TV-addicted American like me can recite the INTERPOL warnings on some of my movies?….
      
      I wish they would integrate that stuff into the DVD menu: it would be novel enough to be noteworthy, and I wouldn’t get caught up with screens I intentionally ignore.
      
      — “Ripping contents and distributing the content over the net is the same thing, except that you make a copy. The original is not lost. And many that wouldn’t watch the stuff if not by the shared copy will watch and buy. Don’t believe? Prove the opposite please. I’ll give my personal testimony: I buy even when I download if it’s worth.” —
      
      This is a straw man argument. His statement was that file-sharing denies the rights of distribution to the copyright holder. It has nothing to do with cost of duplication, if the original was lost, or who will watch what.
Sketch

never even heard of ninjavideo…but i watched Hana Besheras rambling monotone video on youtube……but im forced to agree with an earlier comment…..they werent very good ninjas…..
PowerlessPeasant

People’s lives ruined over filesharing.
Disgusting.
Don’t vote, shoot.
Pingback: Two More NinjaVideo Admins Plead Guilty | TorrentForce Blog
SomeGuy

I hope they all get minimum 5 years prison. You don’t make $505,000 for being good sharers! This is exactly what copyright laws are for. To stop people from making money off of others hard work. This was a business for them. So, I say “yeah” for them getting busted.
- Guest
  
  Enough Troll! Let’s kill all these corporate parasites! All of them! all of them!
  
  Hollywood will be destroy.
  - Ven
    
    Wow, should someone set them up the bomb?
Anonymous

This makes a lot of sense dude. Wow.
total-anon.at.tc
Predator

“Two more staffers from the now-defunct NinjaVideo streaming movie portal have pleaded guilty for their roles in helping to the run the site.”

Guilty of what?
- Ven
  
  Criminal copyright infringement and/or conspiracy to commit those crimes. For Conspiracy, check out the Wiki entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_%28crime%29).
  
  Criminal copyright infringement is somewhat covered by those harsh and dated counterfeiting laws, but in this case they were profiting so those laws are probably gonna be just what is needed.
Erthwjim

Here’s what they’re guilty of:

“Of the total $505,000 said to have been made by NinjaVideo during its operations. Evans has admitted to receiving $26,600, Andrew just $5,250….

Previously, Hana Beshara, “The Queen” of NinjaVideo, pleaded guilty to negotiating agreements with online advertisers and receiving $200,000 of the site’s income.”

I believe this is money above and beyond what it cost to run the site. Andrew, that’s ok, Evans, questionable, Hana, unacceptable. Truly if they were into the true nature of file sharing, they should have not made this site into a for profit site, especially 500k.

Did ninja video accept donations? How exactly did they make 500k, just off advertisements or ?? Perhaps there is a credible reason.
- Robespierre
  
  THIS IS BOWLS SHIT!!!
  
  They have been coerced to plead guilty.
  
  I don’t want to frigthen you troll but we are so sick and tired of your corporate parasite bosses that they are all going to end up with their heads on pick.
  
  MARK MY WORD!
  
  Cut Cut Cut! Cut Cut Cut! Cut Cut Cut!
  - Ven
    
    They all plead guilty, but only one is smart enough to say he only received 5K? I guess the 25K plea was not so bright, but then admitting without evidence that you received 200K was downright stupid.
    
    No lawyer (or even smart person) would admit to getting 40% of the sites total estimated revenue without some form of proof as to her financials.
    
    You also have to realize that the site revenue was easily tracked: donations through Paypal are gonna be logged by Paypal and ad revenue is going to be logged by the advertising companies. Without the defendants showing evidence that ad revenue and donations couldn’t have been coming from elsewhere, the prosecution is going to have a very clear and very accurate picture of NinjaVideo’s finances.
    
    You gotta get your head out from under a rock and start seeing the world realistically.
  - Erthwjim
    
    And I knew people that used to be a part of ninjavideo, they’ve since left and started their own site. They also had informed me that she made money off of the site and beyond that, hana and some of the other admins developed napoleon complexes.
Joshlondon

You should do a little research into your namesake, Robespierre.

The Revolution did not work out terribly well for him.
- Robespierre
  
  Never mine that. He did his job cleaning the society to most of it’s parasites.
  
  Never mine what’s happen to him. That was not important.
  
  We have another human parasites problem to adress and the solution is:
  
  Cut Cut Cut! Cut Cut Cut! Cut Cut Cut!
LOLZ-HOLLYWOOD

Arrest warrant…that’s what they’re using taxpayers money for. Why didn’t Hollywood fund this themselves? Stingy jews.

I hope the guy moved to dubai and can give the authorities a big middle finger and fuck you to extradition. Goddamn MAFIAA
- Danny
  
  notice in nearly every film that comes from hollywood is full of J3WS?? big nosed $$$$$$$ grabbing parasites!!
ll

Greece is broke and in desperate need of a financial bailout, and of course will do anything the USA asks.

So arresting a Greek citizen and handing him over to the USA on demand (no questions asked) will be easy — even for a suspect whose accused actions were perfectly legal under Greek laws.
- Robespierre
  
  Oh that is alright. We are going to arrest All these cleptocrates , corporates parasites, government criminals cops and lawyers. We can sell some of them to north Korea and Iran since all these parasites might feel more at home in there. However most of them will be useless to the society so the solution will be:
  
  Cut Cut Cut! Cut Cut Cut! Cut Cut Cut!
Pingback: Two More NinjaVideo Admins Plead Guilty - WebFaux
None

All the same, these holders are greedy. They earn money billions, and now want to hide the guys over such little things as video. Tear and kill all those involved in the trial of those guys!
Anonymous

http://tinyurl.com/4skyaqr
Anonymous

http://tinyurl.com/4skyaqr
Anonymous

http://tinyurl.com/4skyaqr
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Two More NinjaVideo Admins Plead Guilty

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