This attracted the attention of the MPAA who launched an investigation which eventually led to the arrests of four U.S. residents.

These IMAGiNE members were charged with several counts of criminal copyright infringement and they eventually received prison sentences ranging from 23 months up to five years in prison.

Among the sentenced was the then 53-year-old IMAGiNE sysop Gregory Cherwonik, mentor of a robotics team from Canandaigua. Cherwonik was sent to prison January last year and has now served half of his sentence.

Through one of his family members, TorrentFreak recently received an open letter from Cherwonik, where he shares his thoughts on his prosecution, the life he’s living now, and what awaits after his release.

The letter doesn’t lend itself to be excerpted or evaluated in detail, so with permission from Gregory and a close family member we have decided to post it pretty much as it arrived. It’s definitely controversial, but written from the heart.

—-

A Letter From Prison – by Gregory Cherwonik

This is the fourth time writing this, trying to get it to sound good to me. It’s hard to complain without sounding whiny.

Anyways. I’m past the halfway point of my sentence. 21 of 34 months paid in my debt to the MPAA. Usually when you’re sentenced to prison you’re sent for crimes against society or the government. Unfortunately it no longer works that way in the United States of America.

The IMAGiNE group provided society a service, so I owe it no debt. We gave those that couldn’t afford or have access to first run movies access to them. The poor, the service men and women, those that didn’t want to get their wallets raped to see for the most part poor quality movies. Seems only half (if even) of the movies produced these days are worth seeing.

We didn’t do it for money or fame, we did it because the government and the corporations gave us the tools. The government with the “Disabilities Act” where all theaters had to have a secondary audio signal for those with hearing disabilities. The Corporations by providing higher and higher quality video cameras WITH 24fps speeds. It’s like they wanted us to pirate movies. There was never any expectation of cash for this service. The fact of the matter is we voted on whether we should make money from it… it was voted down.

But what we did get out of this was a government that would lie and cheat to achieve its end result, a government that feels it can do what it wants to whoever it wants, anytime it wants, no matter where in the world they live. A government that no longer takes the people’s interest to mind when it makes laws. Now it’s a matter of who’ll pad their pockets the most. In my opinion we as a country took a nose dive when we started treating corporations as people.

While I was first getting into torrenting long before IMAGiNE was even thought of, I read the law. As I understood it, as long as there was no “Financial Gain” it was a misdemeanor. I see the newer DVDs new state that whether there’s Monetary Gain or not. Did they amend the law, or is it that the MPAA feels it can also do as it pleases?

Did the lMAGiNE case have something to do with this? I’m sure the prosecutors were fit to be tied when we stated we never received or expect any monetary gain from our endeavors. In fact it problem screwed them when they found out we actually paid money to do what we did. I guess not many people do things for a simple “Thank You” any more.

But the reason I myself am in prison is because my “Financial Gain” was invented. When the US attornies couldn’t prove any monetary gain they decided to lie. They said my gain was the “THOUSANDS” of DVDs I downloaded. If you added up all the VCDs, SVCDs, Xvid, and DVDs I’ve download over the 10 years I’m sure you’d struggle to make 1,500 titles. If in fact I downloaded “THOUSANDS” over the last three years I’m sure my ISP would have shutoff my service.

I currently have a library of over 400 bought and paid for titles; if the movie is good I buy it. You still can’t replicate the DTS sound, besides I am aware that if you don’t support those that make good, quality movies the industry will die. Many of the confiscated DVDs they took from me were nothing more than copies of my library.

If it wasn’t for this made up “Financial Gain”, [co-defendants] Willie, Sean and myself would have only been charged with misdemeanors. Of course that wouldn’t look good in the press or on resumes. It wouldn’t send the right message. So let’s lie and make things look a lot worse, show everyone how terrible those “PIRATES” are.

Please, do they really think the public bought that crap? 1 in 3 people aged 13 – 50 have downloaded or purchased bootleg or counterfeit goods. Yes we broke the law, I never said we didn’t. But we didn’t break the law we were charged with, and we sure as hell didn’t deserve the stiff sentences handed down.

So here I sit waiting for my release date. Then I can get back to doing what I do best… care for my family. Providing for them, working, paying taxes, volunteering my time and money for and in the community. Just as I was doing before I was sent away to waste my time and the government’s money. Let me tell you, from what I’ve seen the government is great at wasting money. It’s no wonder the MPAA has to “CONTRIBUTE” millions to the Dept of Justice, to Homeland Security, to the people who are supposed to be representing us, the citizens of this land.

Do you see the pattern here? Let me show you how I see it. The MPAA pays the Senators and Representatives to pass its laws via campaign “Contributions”(aka bribes, just about confirmed from Chris Dodd’s own mouth). They then contribute to Homeland Security to police these bought and paid for laws. Then to top it all off they contribute to the Justice Dept to enforce them. You would think there would be a conflict of interest there somewhere. Oh I forgot, we’re talking about people who the law doesn’t apply to.

But as we say here, it is what it is. So I’ll finish my time out, go back to my family, my job, my life with a felony conviction hanging over me. At least I’m old and only have to carry it a short time. The three years the MPAA took from me is actually a very high percentage of the time I had remaining in my life.

It would have been, except I did get some positive things out of this whole debacle. I came in weighing 300lbs, 20 months later from the lack of any stress, crappy meals and being so bored, all I do is walk and run, and I’ve managed to get my weight down to 180lbs. My blood pressure is good, as is my sugar. You might say I’ve lost three years but gained 10 back.

I’ve found out my wife of 26 years is my one, my only. My soul mate. That’s a wonderful feeling to have, to know you are loved as much as you love. I’ve found out that blood is definitely thicker, family is there for you always, but then I’ve also found out that friendship isn’t.

I’ve often wondered if piracy actually hurt or helped the industry. I really wish an independent source would release a study on it. On one hand it might take away from the ticket and DVD sales. But on the other hand would these people actually have gone to the theaters or bought the DVD? What l do know is that if l watched a pirated movie and it happened to be good, I would tell people just that. The movie was good. I’m sure others do the same.

Does this increase sales? Lets take the movie “The Hurt Locker“, it had a dismal showing at the theaters. It won an Oscar if I’m not mistaken, which doesn’t make it a good movie. But it also topped the lists for downloads at the time, and I’m sure the DVD sales went very well. Were those DVD sales because of the awards? Or were they because of word of mouth? I think it would be interesting to see the results of a good study. Then and only then can we know if we are criminals or not.

Oh BTW would I do it again if I had to do over????? You bet your ass, but I would do it differently. I told the group from the very start that a website [Unleashthe.net] would be the biggest security threat to the group. Obviously I was right.

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

In September 2011 IMAGiNE was dismantled when its U.S-based members were rounded up and arrested. In the months that followed IMAGiNE members were brought to justice and handed some of the harshest copyright infringement sentences on record.

Lower ranking members of the group received 23 months in prison but a sysop, cammer and group leader were hit with jail sentences of 40, 48 and 60 months respectively, the latter being the longest sentence ever in a case of this type.

One of the witnesses to be heard in the IMAGiNE case was Toronto-based anti-piracy group Deluxe. They were hired by the studios to spy on group members and produce an intelligence report on their activities. A copy obtained by TorrentFreak reveals some interesting facts.

Deluxe lists IMAGiNE’s strengths as being able to get a movie online shortly after its theatrical release, ability to provide consistently high audio captures, maintaining a high volume of releases, and their connections to international suppliers.

The following chart shows a league table of release groups between September 2009 and December 2011, a period in which IMAGiNE is said to have been “easily the most significant release group in terms of volume.”

IMAGiNE are said to have been responsible for 41% of all English language movie audio piracy from September 2009 until they were busted in 2011, five times the amount of their closest competitor. The group used a total of 15 video sources between September 2009 and September 2010, and a further 39 between then and the group’s demise in September 2011.

Deluxe obtain some of their evidence by analyzing forensic codes embedded into video and audio of new movies. They note that IMAGiNE successfully removed the codes from seven movie releases including Fast Five and X-Men:First Class. However, Deluxe were able to trace many back to the theater in which they were originally recorded, as the chart below shows.

Interestingly, IMAGiNE themselves were also victims to piracy. Deluxe report that for some pirated movies released online by other groups, every audio track could be traced back to IMAGiNE. Over a single year period IMAGiNE were responsible for 54% of all English language audio tracks examined by Deluxe.

Of course, the raids had an immediate impact.

“The enforcement actions occurred in early September 2011, and there was a decrease of unique pirated English audio sources this month. In fact, September 2011 had the lowest amount of English-language piracy instances in the entire dataset,” Deluxe report.

But the downturn didn’t last.

“However, in the following month, the amount of new English audio sources shot up dramatically, with more English-language release than each of the nine months prior to the enforcement actions. Electronic audio, which is typically higher quality (and more difficult to obtain) continued to be captured and released,” Deluxe reveal.

“October 2011 [the month after the IMAGiNE raids] had more electronic English audio theft than most other months in the dataset. This content was released by many groups including ILLUMINATI, MISTERE, FYA, UnKnOwN and DTRG. Since the enforcement actions against IMAGiNE we have seen several groups with similar release patterns emerge to provide pirated English audio captures.”

“The data implies that the enforcement action towards IMAGiNE impacted the volume of English language audio piracy strongly in September, and other release groups increased their activity in response to IMAGiNE’s departure,” Deluxe add.

The anti-piracy group further notes that audio piracy in December 2011 was down on the same month in the previous year but there was still a high volume of pirated releases in the months following IMAGiNE’s demise. But there was more bad news when Deluxe examined piracy latency – the number of days between a movie being released and subsequently being pirated online.

“The latency period during September 2011, the month of enforcement actions, increased substantially. During the following three months, there was another significant change, with the latency period decreasing substantially.

“This implies that the piracy community re-oriented itself following IMAGiNE’s departure. English language audio was, on average, available online sooner after the theatrical release date than was previously normal when IMAGiNE was active,” Deluxe note.

While the information produced by Deluxe suggests that busting IMAGiNE yielded only short-term success, the report only goes as far as December 2011 and therefore omits the important period starting January 2012 when everything had settled down. We shall have to wait for further information to become available to assess the long term impact the IMAGiNE busts had on movie piracy and whether or not it was worth all the effort.

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

Since then, slowly but surely IMAGiNE members have been charged with criminal copyright infringement and given sentences ranging from 23 months in prison up to an unprecedented five years.

Yesterday, 41-year-old Javier E. Ferrer, an IMAGiNE founder, was also brought to justice.

Ferrer’s downfall began on September 8th 2011 when Homeland Security Investigations agents raided his Florida home, seizing computers, cellphones and other evidence.

During the search Ferrer appears to have co-operated. Waiving his rights he said he had knowledge of IMAGiNE’s torrent site UnleashTheNet and admitted paying for a group server in France. Ferrer also revealed he had cammed movies at the Palm Harbor Movie Theater.

Court documents further reveal that the 41-year-old admitted to using the nickname “bigdaddykane” which HSI agents matched with a user of the same name on the UnleashTheNet forums.

That user was indeed Ferrer and on several occasions he had been seen discussing the camming of movies. During November 2010, Ferrer responded to a question asking him where he illegally recorded movies to which he answered that he had “done several already but I won’t give away the place.”

In January 2011, Ferrer was again making things worse for himself on the site’s forum, giving advice on how to hide a camcorder by putting it “inside a black sock with a hole at the end to let the lens out.”

Ferrer later admitted to being part of IMAGiNE between April 2010 and September 2011 and accepted that he had knowingly conspired to infringe copyright for private financial gain. He pleaded guilty to willfully infringing copyrights by distributing at least one copy of a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution by making it available on a computer network accessible to the public.

The movies cammed and uploaded included Captain America: The First Avenger and Fright Night. Ferrer also admitted to being involved in selling early copies of movies to generate funds to pay for IMAGiNE’s servers in France. Copies of The Town, The Social Network and Fright Night were sold for $300, $400 and $200 respectively.

In September 2012, United States Attorney Neil H. MacBride filed charges in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Ferrer. In common with other members of IMAGiNE, Ferrer stood accused of Conspiracy to Commit Copyright Infringement. He pleaded guilty.

Ferrar was sentenced yesterday by Senior U.S. District Judge Henry C. Morgan in the Eastern District of Virginia. In addition to his 23 month prison term, Ferrer was sentenced to three years supervised release and ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution.

He is the fifth member of the group to be sentenced. In November 2012, Sean Lovelady of California, a site moderator, received a 23 month sentence and in the same month Willie Lambert of Pennsylvania, an administrator, received a 30 month prison sentence.

Later, 53-year-old group sysop Gregory Cherwonik of New York was jailed for 40 months. In 2010, Brad Newell, a cammer for the group, received a sentence of 48 months.

In January 2013, Jeramiah B. Perkins, the leader of IMAGiNE, was sentenced to 60 months in prison, the harshest sentence in history for a file-sharing offense.

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

This attracted the attention of the MPAA who launched an investigation which eventually led to the arrests of four U.S. residents.

These IMAGiNE members were charged with several counts of criminal copyright infringement and they eventually received prison sentences ranging from 23 months in prison up to five years.

Among the sentenced is 53-year-old IMAGiNE sysop Gregory Cherwonik, mentor of a robotics team from Canandaigua. According to his sentencing papers Cherwonik was transferred to prison last Friday, but not before speaking out on the case for the first time.

TorrentFreak received a series of documents from an email address that appears to belong to the 53-year-old IMAGiNE member. While our requests for clarification remained unanswered, we have good faith belief that they are indeed Cherwonik’s writing.

The full documents are available here and appear to have been written at different times, both before and after his sentencing early January. Below we’ll go over some of the statements the sysop makes.

“Well if you’re reading this, I guess I must be in Jail,” one note starts.

“Spunky here … most of you know me by my real name Greg Cherwonik, thank you DOJ for splattering that on the internet. I’ve got a few parting comments to make before I slip into the shadows of prison life.”

Cherwonik goes on to explain that he never made any money from his work at IMAGiNE or their UnleashThe.net BitTorrent tracker.

“Serving time for copyright infringement, a victimless crime that I never made a single dollar off of. In fact over the years I bet I paid a thousand or so in site donations and server costs, not even including the time I spent doing code work for a dozen or so places,” he writes.

The IMAGiNE sysop further mentions that in his opinion the case should have been a civil one, and he doesn’t see why copyright infringement is a federal offense.

“Pirating a federal offense? It’s beyond me how this has happened. Federal offenses were always the most serious of crimes. You tell me how copying a little audio or video has fallen into this category.”

He goes on to blame copyright groups for influencing legislation in their favor.

“I guess if you pay off enough politicians and ‘give’ so many millions to [the] right law enforcement agencies you can get anything you want. Throw in a couple high paid lawyers to twist the words of the Patriot Act around, and viola …. PIRATING is a Federal Offense.”

Consequently, the maximum penalty of 5-years prison is too harsh according to Cherwonik.

“It’s bad enough they call you a terrorist in front of your kids (I think it’s their way of justifying it), but then there’s the 5 year MAX for the first offense. WTF is that, you’re telling me a person with no previous criminal convictions can get up to 5 years for releasing a movie.”

Concluding one of his notes the sysop says that his involvement in IMAGiNE and UnleashThe.net was not worth the time he has to spend in prison now. He learned a lot from the experience, but perhaps lost even more as it is unlikely that he can continue his mentor work when he’s released.

“As for my incarceration. Was it worth it? NO.”

“Nothing is worth losing your freedom, would I do it again … hmmm I don’t know. I learned so much from it. Without it I wouldn’t have learned HTML and PHP. Both of which I use on the website I made for the Robotics teams I used to Mentor. They probably won’t want a felon to Mentor the kids.”

“Too bad, I really enjoyed working with them.”

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

Members of IMAGiNE were arrested and charged with with several counts of criminal copyright infringement, and one by one they have been receiving their sentences.

In November 2012, Sean Lovelady of California, a moderator with the group, received a 23 month sentence. In the same month Willie Lambert of Pennsylvania, an administrator, received a 30 month prison sentence.

An even tougher sentence was handed to 53-year-old group sysop Gregory Cherwonik of New York. He was jailed for 40 months by Virginia District Court Judge Arenda Allen and ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution to the MPAA.

At the time Cherwonik’s sentence appeared to be the harshest ever handed out in a case of this type, but court documents show that another IMAGiNE member, Brad Newell who “cammed” movies for the group, received a sentence of 48 months in 2010.

But even that hefty punishment was surpassed today with the sentencing of Jeramiah Perkins of Portsmouth, Va.

In the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Perkins – a sysop with IMAGiNE – was sentenced to a record-breaking five years in federal prison and ordered to pay $15,000 restitution.

After his imprisonment ends Perkins will be subjected to a further three years of supervised release and will be banned from possessing “any electronic device with the capability or reproducing and distributing copies of copyrighted materials.”

Guidelines of between 70 and 87 months had mentioned in a December 2012 court memorandum. United States Attorney Neil MacBride eventually asked for 60 months, an amount matched precisely today.

“The nature and circumstances of defendant Perkins’ offense are serious, as he both organized and led the IMAGiNE Group – one of the largest and most effective organized copyright crime groups on the Internet,” MacBride wrote.

IMAGiNE as whole achieved their aim of being the group that first released many new movies on to the Internet, the attorney notes, and were responsible for 41% of all English language theatrical audio piracy from September 2009 to September 2011.

MacBride said that Perkins was responsible for establishing IMAGiNE’s BitTorrent tracker, Unleashthe.net, registering domain names for the group, and carrying out numerous technical tasks such as encoding and syncing. He was also responsible for opening PayPal accounts to receive donations from Unleashthenet members and selling advance copies of new releases to “outsiders” in order to generate funds to keep the group going.

“Simply stated, defendant Perkins not only led and served as the chief executive officer of the IMAGiNE Group on a day-to-day basis for well over a year, but also proactively and regularly participated in the many tasks that were essential to the Group’s criminal objective — to release a steady stream of infringing copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted works.”

The five year sentence handed down to Perkins should be a deterrent to others engaging in similar conduct, MacBride adds, noting that it is appropriately longer than the sentences handed to lower placed members of the group who all “received credit for substantially assisting the United States in the investigation and prosecution of others.”

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

A few months later confirmation arrived when the group was indicted by the U.S. Government.

In April, Jeramiah Perkins of Portsmouth, Va., Gregory Cherwonik of New York, Willie Lambert of Pennsylvania, and Sean Lovelady of California, were all arrested and charged with several counts of criminal copyright infringement.

Earlier this month Lovelady and Lambert received 23 and 30 month prison sentences respectively, and yesterday 53-year old Cherwonik was jailed for 40 months by Virginia District Court Judge Arenda Allen.

In addition, Cherwonik was ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution to the MPAA.

After he serves his prison sentence, Cherwonik will be placed on probation for three years during which time he will be forbidden from possessing any electronic device with the capability of reproducing and distributing copies of copyrighted materials.

The 40 month jail term is the longest for a file-sharing related case in the United States. According to the U.S government Cherwonik deserved a higher sentence than the previously convicted defendants. As a “sysop” he was higher in rank than Lambert and Lovelady who were “administrator” and “moderator” respectively.

Despite having a clean slate when it comes to criminal encounters with the law, the prosecution called for Cherwonik to be harshly punished, not least because he continued his work at IMAGiNE for more than a year after his house was first searched.

“Rather than use the search of his residence as a reason to reconsider his participation in the IMAGiNE Group and to end his role in the conspiracy to commit copyright crime, Defendant Cherwonik and his co-conspirators continued and accelerated their illegal conduct in defiance of the law,” United States Attorney Neil MacBride wrote to the court.

MacBride further cited a report, prepared on behalf of the major movie studios, which states that IMAGiNE was responsible for 41% of all instances of English language theatrical audio piracy from September 2009 to September 2011, which amounted to almost five times more releases than the next leading English language release group.

The report claims that the release group was so successful because of the “short latency periods between the theatrical release and their pirated release, their consistently good quality of audio captures, their high volume of releases, and their connection to international suppliers.”

IMAGiNE started their activities in 2009 and the feds started looking into the group early 2010 after they were tipped off by the MPAA.

In May 2010 investigators searched the home of Cherwonik, but the group continued to operate after that and even launched their own private BitTorrent tracker “UnleashTheNet” in the same year. Aside from releasing copyrighted films on their private tracker they also “capped” films at local movie theaters.

On the same day as Cherwonik’s sentencing a fifth IMAGiNE member also pleaded guilty. Javier Ferrer, 41, of New Port Richey, Florida, was not included in the original indictment but was charged September this year. Ferrer admitted to camming the movie “Fright Night” at a local movie theater and he will be sentenced March 2013.

The fourth member from the indictment, Jeramiah Perkins, is also scheduled to be sentenced early next year.

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

A few months later confirmation arrived when the group was indicted by the U.S. Government.

In April, Jeramiah Perkins of Portsmouth, Va., Gregory Cherwonik of New York, Willie Lambert of Pennsylvania, and Sean Lovelady of California, were all charged with several counts of criminal copyright infringement.

According to the indictment the four worked together to cam, rip and release many pirated films to the public, The authorities described IMAGiNE as “one of the largest and most effective organized copyright crime groups on the Internet.”

A report prepared on behalf of the major movie studios further alleged that IMAGiNE was responsible for 41% of all instances of English language theatrical audio piracy from September 2009 to September 2011, which amounted to almost five times more releases than the next leading English language release group.

Yesterday, Lambert and Lovelady were the first IMAGiNE members to be sentenced by Virginia District Court Judge Arenda Allen.

Willie Lambert, 57, received a 30 month prison sentence and three years of supervised release. Sean Lovelady, 28, was sentenced to 23 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

In addition, the four defendants were ordered to jointly and severally pay $449,514 in restitution to the MPAA.

The sentences are lower than the advised 46-57 months prison term suggested by the Department of Justice, but higher than any file-sharing related conviction in the past. Both Lambert and Lovelady were reported to have no criminal history and had plead guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement.

IMAGiNE started their activities in 2009 and the feds started looking into the group early 2010 after they were tipped off by the MPAA. In May 2010 investigators searched the home of one of the defendants, but the group continued to operate after that and even launched their own private BitTorrent tracker in the same year.

Aside from reproducing and releasing copyrighted films on their private tracker UnleashTheNet they also “capped” films at local movie theaters.

The two remaining IMAGiNE defendants also plead guilty in previous months. They are awaiting their sentencing later this month and early 2013.

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

A few months later the confirmation arrived that this was indeed the case.

In April, Jeramiah Perkins, 39, of Portsmouth, Va., Gregory Cherwonik, 53, of New York, Willie Lambert, 57, of Pennsylvania, and Sean Lovelady, 27, of California, were all charged with several counts of copyright infringement.

The four worked together to cam, rip and release many pirated films to the public, and according to court papers they were fully aware of the legal trouble their activities could land them in.

“You need to realize that IMAGiNE is the P2P top group. I’m actually surprised that we aren’t nailed yet,” Cherwonik told Perkins July last year in a chat.

“I’m not going to jail over this s***,” Perkins replied.

However, a year on it appears that Jeramiah Perkins will have to retract his statement. Perkins pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

He now faces a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, plus any damages copyright holders may claim for their alleged losses.

Perkins is the last of the four IMAGiNE defendants to plead guilty and all will be sentenced on different dates during the months to come.

IMAGiNE started in 2009 and the feds started looking into the group early 2010 after they were tipped off by the MPAA. In May 2010 investigators searched the home of one of the defendants, but the group continued to operate after that and even launched their own private BitTorrent site in the same year.

Aside from reproducing and releasing copyrighted films on their private tracker UnleashTheNet they also “capped” films at local movie theaters, an activity Perkins was heavily involved in.

Along with the other defendants who plead guilty in previous months, Jeramiah Perkins is out on bail awaiting his sentencing which is currently scheduled for early 2013.

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

Three weeks ago four members of the group were arrested and charged with several counts of criminal copyright infringement. Aside from reproducing and releasing copyrighted films on their private tracker UnleashTheNet, they also “capped” films at local movie theaters.

With his guilty plea Lovelady faces a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, plus damages that might be claimed by copyright holders.

In the plea agreement Lovelady further agrees to “cooperate fully and truthfully with the United States, and provide all information known to the defendant regarding any criminal activity as requested by the government.” This might affect the cases against the other IMAGiNE members who have not pleaded guilty according to the arraignment sheets.

In addition to the guilty plea, an overview of “facts” which Lovelady signed as true and accurate gives an overview of some of the copyright infringements that took place, that UnleashTheNet was operated by IMAGiNE, and that the group also sold releases.

In furtherance of the conspiracy and to provide a platform for IMAGiNE Group members to share and to ready copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted works for dissemination over the Internet, in July and August 2010 a conspirator in the Eastern District of Virginia took a series of steps to facilitate the use of a new website for the IMAGiNE Group, titled “unleashthe.net.” In the Eastern District of Virginia and elsewhere, this conspirator: (a) rented computer servers in France and elsewhere for use by the IMAGiNE Group and to host its website; (b) registered domain names for use b the IMAGiNE Group; and (c) opened email and PayPal accounts to receive donations and payments from persons downloading or buying IMAGiNE Group releases of infringing or “pirated” copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted works and to fund payments for computer servers.

The same document also reveals that the MPAA was the main motivator behind the investigation.

“Following contact from a representative of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in March 2010, investigators with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement(Homeland Security Investigations or HSI Norfolk) began investigating an Internet release group, identified as the IMAGiNE Group,” the document reads.

This is identical to the case against Megaupload, where the MPAA was also the driving force. And there are more similarities. Both cases are being handled by US Attorney Neil MacBride, who was also on the NinjaVideo case. Considering MacBride’s past work as Vice President of Anti-Piracy for the lobby group BSA, he is probably well-connected with the MPAA.

Thus far MacBride and his team have booked some successes in the NinjaVideo case. Five people connected to the site were arrested last year and four received jail sentences.

Lovelady and the others have been released from custody and await their sentencing, which is scheduled for this fall.

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

The year before IMAGiNE had launched their own private BitTorrent tracker that failed massively in its quest to stay under the radar. The site, UnleashTheNet (also known by its acronym UtN) attracted plenty of attention and it now appears it was the group’s Achilles’ heel.

As revealed by an indictment returned on April 18, 2012, and unsealed yesterday, four individuals have now been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia for their alleged roles in IMAGiNE.

Jeramiah Perkins, 39, of Portsmouth, Va., Gregory Cherwonik, 53, of New York, Willie Lambert, 57, of Pennsylvania, and Sean Lovelady, 27, of California, are all charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.

Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert are charged with two additional counts of criminal copyright infringement, and Perkins and Cherwonik are charged with a sixth count of criminal copyright infringement of a work being prepared for commercial distribution.

The indictment lists several movie titles that were reproduced, distributed and seeded on BitTorrent prior to the U.S. DVD release data including “The Green Hornet,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and “Yogi Bear.” All films carried the group’s “IMAGiNE” tag.

According to the announcement from Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil MacBride and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert were arrested Monday. Lovelady reported to the authorities yesterday.

“These four defendants are charged with serious intellectual property crimes. Through IMAGiNE, they allegedly sought to become the leading source of pirated movies on the Internet,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

“This Justice Department, working with our partners at ICE, has made fighting intellectual property crime a top priority, and we will continue to bring cases against individuals and entities devoted to cheating consumers and undermining artistic pursuits.”

Given the claims in the indictment and how the group’s activities are being portrayed, the IMAGiNE defendants are in serious trouble. First, it quite rightly points out that between 2009 and September 2011, IMAGiNE obtained video and audio for the latest movies from different sources, combined them, and then released them online.

But then, presumably because of their involvement with the UtN tracker, they are blamed for the subsequent infringing actions of UtN members. According to the indictment the four are responsible for the reproduction and distribution of “tens of thousands of illegal copies of copyrighted works.”

The maximum prison sentence for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and for each count of criminal copyright infringement is five years in prison. All four defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on May 9, 2012.

As reported by TorrentFreak last year, rumors persist that IMAGiNE were led to the slaughter by a rival group with a grudge.

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