Warez Scene Member Gets 3 Years Probation, $2000 Fine
Written by enigmax on September 27, 2008A Florida man was sentenced to three years probation on Thursday for his part in running a ‘warez’ server. The 55 year old, known online as ‘kidzap’, would’ve most likely been sent to jail, but avoided incarceration by pleading guilty to conspiring to commit copyright infringement. He collects a $2,000 fine.
Back in April this year, we reported that five men were arrested in connection with the operation of ‘warez’ scene servers known as TEN (The Ether Net), TBR (The Boxer Rebellion) and NRH (Nite Ranger Hideout).
The men were snared as part of ‘Operation Higher Education’ – a component of ‘Operation Fastlink‘ – and charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Dominic Tymorek, a 53 year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, and 57 year-old Robert Hardick, of Getzville, N.Y., faced three counts. Steven Fiatarone, a 55 year-old from Spring Hill, Florida and 43-year-old Michael Uszakow, of Oakdale, Minn., faced two counts and William Parrott, of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., faced one count.
Previously, 57 year-old Robert Hardick, known as ‘tcut’, was found guilty of helping to run the ‘TEN’ and ‘TBR’ servers and was facing a five year prison sentence and huge fine. However, Hardick agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy, and as a result picked up three years probation instead, which included 6 months of home confinement.
Steven Fiatarone of Spring Hill, Florida, also faced a harsh sentence of 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. However, he pleaded guilty on July 8th this year to one count of conspiracy, making a similar deal to Hardwick in return for a more lenient sentence.
On Thursday, Fiatarone appeared in the U.S. District Court for Connecticut, for his offenses linked to his operation of the warez server known as NRH (Nite Ranger Hideout), which was actually located in a school in Emporia, Virginia. Fiatarone, also known as ‘kidzap’, setup the server in 2001 and was alleged to have uploaded over 23,000 files and downloaded more than 40,000 in his role as administrator of NRH during 2002 and 2003.
Senior United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns sentenced Fiataroine to three years of probation for conspiring to commit criminal copyright infringement, with the addition of a $2,000 fine.
Previously: RIAA’s Week of Hell
Next: Legal Bullying Continues for Icelandic BitTorrent Tracker
50 Responses
the sooner the refined distinction between filesharing and piracy the better for everyone
petty filesharing is not criminal piracy but suffers from association with people with criminal characters who knowingly break the law for profit
pirate are career criminals
filesharers are ordinary people sharing for a better future
http://www.h33t.com filesharing PROPER
H33t that’s a stupid comment man. Wow.
Haha. “kidzap” is 55 years old. I wonder if that was his name on his porn chats as well!
You know.. I think it’s a common misconception that people in the “scene” or general file sharers are all under 20. I remember sharing cassette programs back in the early 80’s. Razor1911 have been around for a hell of a long time. Different people, but goes to show, it was alive for a long time now.
@1: You are wrong.
Warez scene’s “closed circle” filesharing is far less commercial than p2p filesharing.
The crackers are the scientists making the new drugs.
The scene are the trafficers.
The p2p software companies are the dealers.
And we are the junkies.
iTunes is Methadone for P2P Addicts.
p2p is for people with small brains
lulz !
@1 : Jesus H. Christ: GET A F***ING CLUE – if you upload copyrighted content via p2p you ARE A PIRATE.
No amount of “better world” and “sharing gives me a warm fuzzy feeling” bullcrap changes that. Seriously, get a grip and recognise yourself for what you are.
You a pirate – a thief and lawbreaker – just as I am.
@8: That is until the laws are changed and filesharing is decrimilised.
Then it will be no fun ;(
@9: STFU. This blog uses wordpress and YOUR ip-address has be logged. TF can just go to http://dnstools.com/ and http://www.maxmind.com/ to find out the EXACT town you posted from.
You are not the RIAA. Even if you were, it is impossible to track the access of websites from a third party unless you have snoops in every ISP connection like the government. The RIAA is merely a lobby group that succeeds at failing somethings.
Even so, HAVE YOU HEARD OF FREE SPEECH. Obviously not!
Also, I don’t even live in the US so fark off. The European Government are all fileshares judging from the lasts weeks activity unlike the USAFAGS.
I reckon you are a teenage sript-kiddie-wannabe that is utterly misguided about what you are saying, and you feel proud that you have learnt the word “ip address” or just want to troll. Well done.
VEGETA, WHAT DOES THE SCOUTER SAY ABOUT CRANDOM’S FAKE DETECTION POWER LEVEL?
IT’S OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT?
EPIC FAIL.
Seems #8 was moderated. Can we have his IP address TF. Please?
@9 – LOL
@2 – Actually #1 has a point if you read it thoroughly. He is talking about commercial gain and profit. That is not what most warez groups and most P@P sites are about.
@8 – Why the attitude? I don’t think anything in this thread called for this type of mudslinging, wow.
#8 is the same guy spamming in all the threads. I got a feeling I know who he is. I’m watching pal! And i’m logging all your admission of being a pedo. Better watch what you say.
The public doesn’t take too kindly to people like you.
@11
As far as I recall, most P2P sites are non-profit, although I don’t know exactly how many, but I think that this is true for the vast majority.
In any case, this kind of stuff is typical, and emphasizes the need for the law to be changed. Perhaps everyone could set up their own personal P2P group – the police can’t arrest everybody!
Roze
http://www.28chan.org/apstdt/
a $2,000 fine says the judge did not find a criminal financial venture. the judge found copyright infringement not piracy
but average joe is gonna call these guys pirates because he is like the freed slave who has taken to wearing his master’s clothes and living in his master’s house and speaking his master’s language
i dont want to live in that house
i am a filesharer and my technology has liberated me from the tyranny of the media cartel. i am not a thief, i am not a criminal, i am not a pirate. my clothes are new and i speak filesharing
http://www.h33t.com where filesharing is liberating people all around the world by providing open access to software and media content
Some people call p2p stealing, others sharing. When a blu-ray costs 40 dollars, it’s hard for many people to support such prices. For most of America, that’s not even a half a days wage.
“He collects a $2,000 fine.” He PAYS the fine…
And with the economy getting worse, the LEGAL PAYING CONSUMERS aren’t going to shell out as much money for entertainment as they did because they are worried about more important things, like bills.
“You a pirate – a thief and lawbreaker – just as I am.”
Pirate, yes, Lawbreaker, yes. Thief? No. Copyright infringer.
“the judge found copyright infringement not piracy”
Piracy is another term for copyright infringement.
“For most of America, that’s not even a half a days wage.”
Not even half true… but when a low price dwelling and the associated other costs of living there take up 3 1/2 weeks of pay and you still need to buy food where are you going to get the money to spend $40 on a disk that cost maybe $2 to physically make?
those guys are all really old, wow.
sharing is stealing. it decreases potential revenue.
piracy is copying somebody elses copyrighted material and selling it for profit!
WOW? you idiot, can you not read english! its plain and simple!
filesharing is exactly that, sharing and caring, neither i nor anyone else on h33t makes money out of filesharing!
Before you get on your HIGH HORSE! donations to a filesharing site are to pay for the server time …
NOT THE FUCKING CONTENT!!
Sharing is stealing? ok, the next time you buy a news paper and give it to your mate when you have finished with it?
I gonna send a copper over to knick you for sharing your news paper!
are you getting the point yet?
may i ask a question?
is it true then, when you spend YOUR money to buy a product YOU are not actually the owner of it? and does it state this on the packaging?
is it true then that playing a radio in a public place (like a park) is piracy? .. in fact according to the law (UK) if you are in a public place (park) with a radio or a builder on a building site pasting bricks and playing a radio .. YOU NEED A LICENSE OR YOU CAN BE FINED UPTO £1000 !!
might it be also possible you are a pirate for giving presents! say at christmas?
so the real question? when you buy a product from a shop are you or are you not the owner of that product?
YES or NO ??
if you are the owner? then is it not YOUR RIGHT to do with that product exactly what YOU like!?
if you are not the owner, then who is?
in which case, wht the hell am i buying something that, according to the law!!, belongs to somebody else!, and why does it not state this on the packaging?
(Now i am beginning to understand the real story behind CODEX ALIMENTARIUS)
This could serve as a kind of encouragement to all the middle-aged-and-older crowd who might would otherwise feel out-of-place in The Scene dominated by people half their age.
I suspect that these 50+ year-olds may have been involved in the Scene since the early days of personal computers.
“Not even half true…”
Haha, yeah if you want to include the top 1% in your median. Then exclude the industries primary targets, young adults of which most work part time.
having past the half century, having been programmed by the system for 6 years in the 70’s !! and having been playing with puters from that time!
i dont feel in the least bit out of place, quit the opposite :-D
oh! a creationist! .period!
No justice no peace.
All these Entairtainment parasites are foolish pulling this type of crap.
We already know that their business will become extinct soon no matter what.
meanwhile if they really think that we are going to go back buying their shits they are dead wrong and dead.
Each time they pull soemthing like that It enrage more people and help us expend the boycott.
They have no idea how many people I could convince to boycott after this new came out.
Some gangs near holywood and DC are starying to realize who are their real enemies.
@#22
“piracy is copying somebody elses copyrighted material and selling it for profit! WOW? you idiot, can you not read english! its plain and simple!”
————————————
my dictionary disagrees with you. i think you need to work on your vocabulary.
“Sharing is stealing? ok, the next time you buy a news paper and give it to your mate when you have finished with it?”
————————————
not the same thing at all. if you really don’t see a difference between sharing a newspaper to one person and sharing a movie to an infinite number of potential strangers…then YOU SIR ARE THE IDIOT!
so now, suffice to say, i am not “getting” your illogical retard “point” yet.
you are all script kiddies anyways…
you are just costing on the hard work of the people before you.
It takes time, effort and CAPITAL to create things…
and you just want it for free.
Go live in the Soviet Union, if you want free electricity, water, heat, telecommunication, and transport…
Out here in the real world, it takes MONEY to make things you all like… so fucking PAY for it you fucks
@12 : Paul – nope, you’re wrong, actually I rarely post here although I read almost everything.
I’m not the pedo spammer – in case you hadn’t noticed he/she seems to be against p2p in his postings, I admit Im a p2p user above. I just get sick and tired of people trying to say they’re not petty criminals when they are. Like I am.
That’s a laughably sad attempt at scaring someone, it’ll never work on me or anyone else unless they’re about as clueless as you are.
@29: I disagree with you…
People like use that use p2p have at least a small level of proficiency when it comes to using computers and applications.
There are many thousands of times more people that don’t and aren’t willing to try.
The entertainment industry will be around in it’s current form for a long time to come yet.
Stop buying anything that’s from a major, movie or music.
I don’t even download the mainstream crap anymore, and thanks to indie artists, small labels, older (and far, far, far better) movies, that I support everytime I find something I like, I don’t NEED their petty industry anymore.
And filesharing is not a crime. The main concern of the movie industry, in my opinion, is that they fear people will think “hey, that’s just crap” when watching a CAM of a movie they might have gone watching.
So of course it’s a potential loss, but a justified one. That goes against the marketing plans that try to get people into buying crap to feed those millions-rich retards who don’t know anything about art.
feck off, hollywood, sony and all
Some of these Anti-Piracy people a fucking stupid arn’t they? Look at the comments. They’re either bald old senile men or just social retards.
-=Crysis Warhead CRACKED Server List =-
hxxp://www.crysisw-cracked.moo.no
Play online without a cd-key!s
Filesharing is against the law in most jurisdictions therefore it is a crime.
The main concern of copyright holders is losing money.
#22 was not me, altho it sounds like a rough version of me, it was not me
“#35 Sep 28, 2008 at 13:54 by Diji1
Filesharing is against the law in most jurisdictions therefore it is a crime.
The main concern of copyright holders is losing money.”
wrong
wrong
filesharing is not against the law in ANY jurisdiction ANYWHERE. worse case a problem may arise where there is potential legacy copyright issue attached to the files being shared but in no case is filesharing against the law. here is the important bit >> civil law is not about breaking rules it is about settlement of equity claims
at the most filesharing can cause a civil equity dispute which is not a breach of any law
you are not a criminal when you fileshare, you are not a pirate. anyone who says a filesharer is a pirate is anti-p2p and needs stamping on hard
http://www.h33t.com/ when thinking outside the box we take a picnic
“The main concern of copyright holders is losing money.”
no
copyright holders are not involved in the chain. the people with issues are commercial enterprises purportedly representing copyright holders
fact is, bodies built on ages of strata are dinosaurs when a technological shift like bittorrent happens
that single copyright holder is reaping the benefits of sudden worldwide brand equity because of filesharing
i would much rather have a small slice of a big pie than all the little pie
conclusion: the parasitic middleman, the distributor, is cut out of the equation and the benefits are all for the artists
when the fuk is the debate gonna up? cummon guys, the wealth of our nations has been stolen by the MAFIAA, the credit crunch is down to the real thieves wearing suits. deal the death blow
“Filesharing is against the law in most jurisdictions therefore it is a crime.”
It’s against the law… But not criminal law. It’s a case of civil law.
OK h33t, I should have said filesharing copyrighted content is against the law and therefore it is a crime, you happy ?
And it is not a civil matter, it is breaking criminal law: if this is not so would you like to explain why some members of elite torrents are in jail now ?? How about the many other cases heard and being heard in criminal courts across the world – that is not a civil matter.
What planet are you on mate ;)… please explain what benefit copyright holders are “reaping” from me, you and the rest of the gang downloading files for free. The financial benefit to them is zero unless you buy the product.
Artists are not benefitting from filesharing – what: are you paying for what you download – I aint. Sure, some artists have accepted the reality that some portion of their audience won’t pay for content anymore but they aren’t getting compensation from us.
And er… I say filesharers are pirates – no amount of self-justification is going to change this: I just accept what I am. Don’t egt me wrong, I prefer to get content for nothing and I’m certainly not anti-p2p.
You seem to have a tendency to blindly avoid facts in order to avoid internally labelling yourself as a criminal (according to current law) – I’m with you, I just try not to delude myself
no law has been broken
filesharing is not against the law
if you think that you have lost money because of my fileksharing then you can make a claim under civil law for your lost equity
i have broken no laws by filesharing
likelihood is that the court will find you have lost no equity by my filesharing. justice will find that i have increased your brand equity by my filesharing
http://www.h33t.com where the labor of love is loving your labor
this is school for 3 year olds. it delights me the MAFIAA as so weak :-)
the guys at elitetorrents convicted of criminal conspiracy to commit copyright fraud were guilty of procuring pre-release stolen content which released on elitetorrents increased the substantive value of the site
not only were they convicted of a single instance but of a systematic conspiracy to defraud
the keys are: organisation, conspiracy, substantive
the petty filesharer is guity of none of those
proportionality and dimensionality are significant when appraising the activity of the petty filesharer. indeed it may be the case that 1,000,000,000 petty filesharers make a big hit … but then you are swimming against the tide if you are not a filesharer
http://www.h33t.com/ where swimming against the tide is silliness
how do artists benefit from filesharing?
by cutting out the middleman
*daah*
look at the tv series “Friends”. it costs 100,000,000 per episode. where is the value?
the value is not in the fact that you and your friends are gonna pay 100,000,000 to watch it … if you did then *hooorah* because the owner is gonna sell it again for another 100,000,000 on another network. that is the absolute absurdity of the copyright regime
reality is, the way it works in real life, the tv show is a vessel for brand promotion. the tv show is sold by syndication to networks who sell the vessel to advertisers who pay to be associated with the kudos of the show
digital content that can be copied at no cost has zero value. the value is in the vessel and the application of the vessel to the audience
here we goooo with an almighty *kaaaadaaaaah*
go to fukin school you moron
http://www.h33t.com/ where we lurve torrentfreak :-D
if i remember correctly, some music makers actually started to provide there music on P2P !!
interesting :D
I am Legit.A total is faker is a cloned arsehole.
Long Live whoever that’s not me.
2000 pounds and probation .. it hardly seems worth it especially after 3 years and shit loads of tax payers money …. riaa and mpaa why dont u take up knitting and let the cops catch real criminals instead of wasting their time … any 1 agree ?
Wow dudes.. Ive been to emporia VA several times.. its like middle of nowhere nothing town.. lol. Its just one of those towns you go through when your traveling somewhere else.
h33t: the fact that they were convicted of criminal conspiracy to commit copyright fraud just proves my point. Breaking copyright by transmitting content is still against copyright law – ie. it’s a criminal act. It doesn’t matter one bit if a filesharer is making the tiniest infraction, it’s stiull an illegal act.
Proportionality has precisely nothing to do with whether an act is criminal or not. A supermarket will prosecute you if you steal a 10c chewing gum or $500 worth of meat products – it’s still larceny. Laws are very precisely worded. It does have something to do with whether LEA will choose to prosecute the law against an individual but this doesn’t mean it not criminal.
Your friends example is laughable: for a start it doesn’t cost 100,000,000 (or whatever huge figure it is) per episode, that’s the amount that the network is making from advertisers. Advertisers pay that because people like the show and will hence view advertisments during the show itself. Someone who doesn’t do that – like me – has avoided viewing the ads. The artist (producers, actors etc.) gets zilch from me. The network has less money to provide value to the makers of Friends now which makes it more risky to produce a new series because the value provided is lessened. Where’s the value eh? Also, the distributors are *not* going to turn around and sell to another network because no network would purchase it without a contract prohibiting this. You’re absurd with that point.
Making TV shows is an extremely risky business as who knows what will be successful – higher risk means there has to be a large amount of money made on something successful because if there wasn’t investors would place their money elsewhere. You know, in real life and reality.
Once again, to be clear: I like obtaining copyrighted content without duely compensating the owners of it – I’m pro p2p. It’s not always the middleman that gets screwed, there’s a myriad of tiny software companies I also defraud.
Just because I like it doesn’t mean it’s not breaking laws though.
I’m a little late on this, but TEN and TBR have been around forever and some of the guys in this bust were doing it long before DOD,RZR,WLW,RISC,and alike were busted ages ago.
For a guy like tcut and his apc cronies to still be doing this after all these years is completely idiotic. I guess they didn’t know “it’s only a matter of time” applied to them too.
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