Another EliteTorrents Uploader Facing 10 Years in Prison

[Hairbautt]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v383/Hairbautt/News%20Images/FBIAnti-PiracyWarning.png"The fallout from the FBI raid on EliteTorrents in 2005 continues, with a seventh defendant associated with the uploading of Star Wars Episode III facing the prospect of 10 years in prison coupled with a $500,000 fine."

"Every few months it seems the FBI manages to come up with yet more people to charge in connection with Operation D-Elite - the joint ICE and FBI raids against the US-based BitTorrent tracker, EliteTorrents, in 2005. Everyone charged so far has been accused of being involved in the uploading of Star Wars Episode III which, at the time, was a pre-release movie, carrying criminal implications for the uploaders under the Family Entertainment Copyright Act.

According to an announcement by Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a seventh defendant has pleaded guilty. An Duc Do, aged 25, of Orlando, Florida, has pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on a two-count felony. He’s charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement.

Do is the latest in a line of people pleading guilty in this operation against EliteTorrents. Previous guilty pleas and convictions include those of Scott McCausland, Grant Stanley, Sam Kuonen and Scott D. Harvanek. In this copyright case tried in the criminal (rather than civil) legal domain, potential punishments are harsh. Do is facing up to 10 years in prison coupled with a fine of $500,000. He will be sentenced on February 27th, 2008."

:source: Source: TorrentFreak (http://torrentfreak.com/another-elitetorrents-uploader-facing-10-years-in-prison-071117/)

[dave12]

thats a very bad news but i hope that he doesn't get imprisoned for 10 long years

[TheFoX]

Do ALL murderers get 10 years or more, or do some get less than 10 years?

I like the way that the FBI is dribbling out the charges, so that it can keep D-Elite on the tops of everyone's tongues. I do find it amazing that all charges were not brought within the first six months to a year, but it has become obvious that they want the high profile to convince the rest of us to STOP doing it.

Of course, handing out a 10 year sentence for what is essentially simple theft is disgusting. If someone was to break into my house and steal my furniture, I would be lucky if the police even bothered to take an interest, yet steal from an organisation and not only do the police take a serious interest, but the penalty is way out of proportion to the crime committed.

My opening statement says it all. While some do wait on Death Row, there are many people convicted of murder who do not serve sentences in relation to the crime they have committed. Can anyone actually say that stealing someone else's work is a more heinous crime than stealing someone else's life?

So, once the person has paid the price with 10 years of no liberty, they still owe $500,000 (probably with interest as well). Do the victims of other crimes get compensated as such. Do the loved ones of someone who was murdered (or burgled) get a serious payout?

The whole issue smacks of something that has gone seriously wrong. Everything to do with this scenario has been blown way out of proportion. I have never seen any other sort of transgression being pursued so vigilantly as prosecuting filesharers, and that includes acts of terrorism (in fact, after the Bin Laden episode with the Twin Towers, the US Government were actually ushering members of the Bin Laden family out of the US, rather than following a natural line of enquiry).

Makes you wonder what is next? When will the first file sharer be sentenced to Death Row?

[sameer0807]

Do ALL murderers get 10 years or more, or do some get less than 10 years?

I like the way that the FBI is dribbling out the charges, so that it can keep D-Elite on the tops of everyone's tongues. I do find it amazing that all charges were not brought within the first six months to a year, but it has become obvious that they want the high profile to convince the rest of us to STOP doing it.

Of course, handing out a 10 year sentence for what is essentially simple theft is disgusting. If someone was to break into my house and steal my furniture, I would be lucky if the police even bothered to take an interest, yet steal from an organisation and not only do the police take a serious interest, but the penalty is way out of proportion to the crime committed.

My opening statement says it all. While some do wait on Death Row, there are many people convicted of murder who do not serve sentences in relation to the crime they have committed. Can anyone actually say that stealing someone else's work is a more heinous crime than stealing someone else's life?

So, once the person has paid the price with 10 years of no liberty, they still owe $500,000 (probably with interest as well). Do the victims of other crimes get compensated as such. Do the loved ones of someone who was murdered (or burgled) get a serious payout?

The whole issue smacks of something that has gone seriously wrong. Everything to do with this scenario has been blown way out of proportion. I have never seen any other sort of transgression being pursued so vigilantly as prosecuting filesharers, and that includes acts of terrorism (in fact, after the Bin Laden episode with the Twin Towers, the US Government were actually ushering members of the Bin Laden family out of the US, rather than following a natural line of enquiry).

Makes you wonder what is next? When will the first file sharer be sentenced to Death Row?

^^
well said

[DyNast]

They are crazy
Ruin someone's life for uploading star wars...
Somebody should do something about that, that's not moral and of course not reasonable
:\...

[Hairbautt]

Like the man said (or Fox :unsure:) it's disproportionate.

[WHiKWiRE]

He should be thankful that sentencing doesn't correlate on the quality of the movie. Imagine if he would of uploaded The Great Escape he'd be looking at 500 years. :lol:

And essentially shouldn't the crime fit the punishment. :dabs:

[tvfreakazoid]

I don't think that person will get 10yrs in prison. It's more like scaring the hell out of him or it looks very scary on paper.
I just saw in the news that barry bonds was convicted of perjury and he may get 30yrs in prison. Yea that's going to ever happen. But I hope everything goes well for him

[psxcite]

The feds have certain sentencing guidelines they must abide. It's a point system with various criteria that will determine your incarceration period. Learned alot about the Fed system from a friend who was a big drug dealer. Never could catch him with the narcotics, but eventually he did 5 years for conspiracy.

With a 96% conviction rating, everyone pretty much pleads guilty. And you MUST do 80% of the time in the Fed system now.

[Sextent]

How do people know it's disproportionate if they don't know how much profit he made from the crime.

If it's anything like the UK he can get up to 50% off that for an early guilty plea, why else would anyone plead guilty other than to get a reduced sentence. The Judge will then take other mitigation into consideration so he may get about 4 years.

I don't know about this 80% rule (in the UK it's up to 50% for good behaviour). However if it's only 20% in the USA then he will serve about 3.5 years.

Again if it were in the UK he would serve the vast bulk of that in a low security prison, as he is no real threat to anyone. No risk of violence etc. Once someone is established in one of these places they can do things like go to College, unaccompanied. They can do supervised work outside of the prison. Near the end of their time they can go home for the weekend, that type of thing.

Let's get some perspective here. A possible 10 years (no way) for this type of crime is not the same as being put in a high security prison for murder.

[TheFoX]

Let's get some perspective here. A possible 10 years (no way) for this type of crime is not the same as being put in a high security prison for murder.


That may be so, but in the UK it is a well known fact that the police are not interested in the bulk of domestic crimes, unless they are of a serious nature, such as murder or serious wounding.

I have been burgled once, and some of my friends have also been burgled. It's amazing that they can DNA a suspect for murder, but such detection techniques, which would easily identify a burglar, are not applied (apparently the cost outweighs the benefit to the legal system).

I find it amazing that some 17 year old toe rag can steal one car after another, yet all the judicial system does is to ban him from driving (only enforceable if a copper happens to see you breaking into your next car).

A local estate near me was recently plagued by young tearaway's who felt it was their god given right to steal other people's cars, yet the police are powerless to do anything about it.

The misery caused to many by society's delinquents is out of control, yet we have a legal system geared towards keeping this misery makers out of prison.

So, how can prosecuting a file sharer, who isn't making any money from their sharing habit, be proportionate to those arseholes who make day to day living a burden?

Of course, I forgot to mention that Execs don't live in normal areas and probably have security to ensure their Bentley remains where it is...

[Sextent]

How do you know he wasn't making money from his crime?

People make the assumption that everyone involved in filesharing is just like them, a guy sitting in his room sharing music, movies etc. That's simply not true. At the heart of it there are people making loads of money. Particularly where it involves movies or music which haven't even been released yet.

Yes chaps, your "donations" can go to funding organised crime and terrorism.

I'm not going into your dna argument. It's a distraction from the point and it doesn't really work the way you think.

[Roark]

sk0t got 5 months + 5 months house arrest. I doubt this guy will get much more. I've never believed nonviolent crimes should get prison time, but this sentence does not seem that disproportionate. Suffice it to say, a movie worth hundreds of millions is naturally not going to garner as much attention as your friend's valuables. And even in the filesharing space, when one considers the actions the police could take (prosecute every IP on mininova for example), these once a year prosecutions are almost halfhearted.

[Sextent]

Good points well made. However may I remind chaps that in the UK copyright theft is for the most part a civil matter. i.e. the Police would not be involved and the copyright holder would sue the copyright thief.

It's only when piracy is for financial gain that it becomes a criminal matter and the Police and other prosecuting authorities become involved. In addition the Police would only really become involved when there were substantial gains involved.

[TheFoX]

Your right for the most part. The only time that copyright theft becomes criminal is when material is stolen prior to release (pre-release) rather than simply copied from available sources (DVDs or CDs). That then is considered a criminal matter.

With regards to 'donations' and organised crime, while the bit torrent world is fairly organised, I would not say that SysOps or tracker owners are criminals who are utilising another form of scam. Most people who set up trackers do it out of a desire to share, and not to defraud.

I should point out that there is a big difference between a group of people who share, and a group of people who mass produce DVDs then sell them at car boot sales. The second group is, by definition, scamming the public, whereas the first group just wants to share.

Now we also know that of the file sharers, there are those who try to earn an extra buck out of sharing, by burning, then selling, the material they have gained. This is criminal, as the simple act of selling something that does not belong to you is classed as fraud, or selling something as something else (selling a bootleg as a genuine article).

There will always be undesirables around.

As for whether OiNK is a criminal, remains to be seen. If he, as stated in the media, forced members to donate for access, then he would be guilty of extorting money for material that was not rightly his to charge for. On the other hand, if donations were purely voluntary, and he can prove that (which he probably can), then no one can charge him for selling a service.

This is a grey area of the law. His site hosted only links, but he does stand accused of facilitating filesharing, but he did NOT charge for his service. Any money received was done on a purely voluntary basis, and no goods were exchanged for the money.

I won't comment on the funding of terrorism issue, as that is best left to another thread completely.

In both cases though (Elite Torrents and OiNK), bother were considered criminal simply because they hosted pre-released material, which should not have been public. You quite rightly point out that copyright theft is a civil matter, but pre-release is criminal because someone has physically removed a copy from private storage and made it public, unlike normal copyright theft where someone is making something that is already public, free for all...

[Sextent]

"Your right for the most part. The only time that copyright theft becomes criminal is when material is stolen prior to release (pre-release) rather than simply copied from available sources (DVDs or CDs). That then is considered a criminal matter."

I'm afraid that's simply not true, the criminal aspect is in relation to the commerciality of the piracy, not the nature of the material. The fact that it is pre-release would be taken into consideration but it is not an essential element of the offence.

"This is criminal, as the simple act of selling something that does not belong to you is classed as fraud"

Again that isn't true, fraud requires an element of deception, it is rare that someone buying a pirated DVD will be deceived into thinking it is anything else.

"As for whether OiNK is a criminal, remains to be seen. If he, as stated in the media, forced members to donate for access, then he would be guilty of extorting money for material that was not rightly his to charge for. On the other hand, if donations were purely voluntary, and he can prove that (which he probably can), then no one can charge him for selling a service."

He didn't force people to "donate" he lied about the levels of donations he received. Where he claimed that he had only received a few hundred pounds for "server costs" he was actually receiving thousands and making huge profits. I'm also confused with your use of "extorting" as no-one appears to even have hinted that he did that.

[Mems]

Bad bad news every day one fall down :(

[Hairbautt]

Really any years served is just bad so...:unsure:

[Something Else]

I didn't upload a crapload on elite torrents honest :fear:
Any prison is too much prison for this IMO.

[Kebert]

Scary, hope they don't start going after the old userbase.

[TheFoX]

He didn't force people to "donate" he lied about the levels of donations he received. Where he claimed that he had only received a few hundred pounds for "server costs" he was actually receiving thousands and making huge profits.


Is that a fact?

Does anyone have any actual proof that he was profiting on a large scale?


I'm not saying he didn't pull in some serious donation money, but then his servers were not cheap either, and if you add in the cost of a few seedboxes, which he probably had, then the cost of running something like OiNK starts to mount up.

[mbucari1]

I believe oink had 4 servers mirrored servers for the site+tracker. I remember reading about it a few months ago during the anniversary celebration.

[Chip Monk]

He didn't force people to "donate" he lied about the levels of donations he received. Where he claimed that he had only received a few hundred pounds for "server costs" he was actually receiving thousands and making huge profits.


Is that a fact?

Does anyone have any actual proof that he was profiting on a large scale?


I'm not saying he didn't pull in some serious donation money, but then his servers were not cheap either, and if you add in the cost of a few seedboxes, which he probably had, then the cost of running something like OiNK starts to mount up.


The UK is covered by the European Convention on Human Rights. One of those is a person's right to privacy. In order for that right to be breached the Police must demonstrate that they have reasonable grounds to believe that a crime of a serious nature has been commited, or is being commited. If they wish to use a search warrant they must be able to demonstrate that the use of that warrant is proportionate to the crime being commited (see Reulation of Investigatory Powers Act). They could not get a search warrant for a private house if they were dealing with a minor offence.

In short, at the very least the Police had enough evidence to prove to a Court that a serious offence was being commited. The Dutch authorities (also covered by ECHR) obviously agreed.

Let's get serious here, they had accessed his bank account, paypal account and anything else they wanted prior to his arrest and the searches/seizures. The only question left is how helpful he is willing to be in their other enquiries. This chap must have been well connected and I'm sure he would be of great use to them.

[yetmae]

Laws in their initial concept are a great idea. The concept being
that, if we write down the behavior that people find unacceptable
to the degree that it will rouse them to violence, then everyone
has a better chance of knowing what is unacceptable, and less
violence will result. When used in this way, the law is just a
reflection of an existing moral code that would be enforced even
if it were not written down. The problem begins the moment people
start viewing laws the other way around, and start enforcing rules
just because they are written down. As soon as this change occurs,
anyone who gains the power to write the rules, gains the power to
rouse a whole society to violence in an unjust cause. "Law enforcement
is a cheap substitute for justice." Since all law enforcement
involves the threat of, or actual use of violence, the test of a
law should be the question "Would a reasonable person act violently
to prevent another person from doing this?"

So I guess the question here is, "Notwithstanding what the law says, would a reasonable person act violently to prevent others from sharing files?" I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone a significant percentage of the general population who would agree with the use of violence here.

Unfortunately, I think it will be an uphill battle convincing people that laws should not be enforced just because they have been written down -- usually by those who are in the pockets of the large corporations who will benefit from them.

[TheFoX]

So I guess the question here is, "Notwithstanding what the law says, would a reasonable person act violently to prevent others from sharing files?" I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone a significant percentage of the general population who would agree with the use of violence here.

Unfortunately, I think it will be an uphill battle convincing people that laws should not be enforced just because they have been written down -- usually by those who are in the pockets of the large corporations who will benefit from them.


Very concise viewpoint. I think, though, we need to differentiate between reasonable and unreasonable. We know, for a fact, that the actions of the RIAA and their John Doe subpoenas is unreasonable (what reasonable person or organisation would attempt to sue someone who had been dead for years?).

We are talking of copyright infringement, or more to the point, concept infringement. Intellectual property is a grey area. What constitutes property, and what constitutes public domain?

Take the alphabet for example. If the creators of the alphabet had decided to copyright the concept, then we would need a license to write words. What about the concept of writing? You see that the whole concept of copyrighting concepts if malformed (even this concept could be copyrighted).

I'm not saying that relevant art should not be exempt from copyrighting, but imagine that a new genre of music was created by an artist (Ska, for example). Who would own the concept, or would it be public domain?

I know this is leading away from the subject in question, but there is more than simple theft issues here. The whole concept of music distribution is in question, along with the heavy handed tactics of the organisations who want to keep the status quo.

Lets remember that the music industry only duplicates the work of the artist. It doesn't create the work of the artist. Maybe we should ask the artists what their viewpoints are, in these matters.

[Polarbear]

George Lucas started as a small independent film maker a long time ago.

nowadays he made a fortune with his movies.

why doesn't he have the dignity to stand up for those guys?

they may end up in prison just because they shared one of his movies with others.

the movie made $380,262,555 dollars only in the us (other countries not included)

how the hell did those guys influence anyone's business.

it's a shame for george lucas, the producers and the whole complex called entertainment industry.

and it's even a bigger shame for the u.s. law sytem.

[DanielleD87]

this is why i proxy everything, even his web site.

also, behind my proxy chain goes to internet that isn't registered (hacked internet) so miraculously if someone got my real ip and not the spoof comcast one i'm using as a header then they would have an awful hard time finding me. to be precise they wouldn't be able to be more accurate then a 60 mile diameter.

[psxcite]

Yep. Same here. They can trace my node, but that would narrow it down to about 2000 homes in my area.

[Polarbear]

you are going a bit off topic here, but let me tell you one thing. if they want to find you, they will.
everything that has a wire on it and sends or receives data can be found.

in addition there's something called dragnet investigation. 2000 homes for a good one would be a piece of cake.

[LoKaLiRi]

10 years :( it is very long time

bad

[saffir]

DanielleD87 (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/../../members/danielled87-175825), I didn't know you could use p2p (BT specifically) over proxy chains. Are you saying it is possible? Or is your proxy chain for http only? I use tor for anonymous http, for BT it's a no go.

Anyway, yes, this is of topic, but if you could point me in the direction of safe BT I'd much appreciate it.

PsxCite - if you spoof your ip, how does the return traffic find you? I dont' see how you're doing it. I've been studying network security for a while now and would like to know how you do what you're doing please. Thanks.

[yetmae]

If you don't mind your torrents taking 10x longer to download, head on over to www.i2p.net and download the i2p software. The software anonymizes your network connections to other people also on the i2p network. It contains (among other things) a bittorrent client. There are at least 6-7 trackers on the i2p network at present (although they are all tiny by open internet standards). Still, this could be the future. The anonymity is more than strong enough to stop the RIAA, MPAA, and ilk, and likely strong enough to confound even 3-letter government agencies. This (or something like it) could well be the future of P2P if the corporate-sponsored government raids and arrests continue.

[saffir]

Thanks. I'll definately check it out. I used it a few years ago but it wasn't really practical. If it's working now and is secure, it sounds good.

[fsephie]

Something tells me that most people would rather move to the next less well-known standard than give up speed for anonymity. The whole point behind bittorrent is that it not only alleviates stress on single uploaders but also provides blazing fast speeds, so to make them 10x slower would be a horrible blow to the community which prides itself on fast delivery.

Just a thought, though.

[yetmae]

Something tells me that most people would rather move to the next less well-known standard than give up speed for anonymity. The whole point behind bittorrent is that it not only alleviates stress on single uploaders but also provides blazing fast speeds, so to make them 10x slower would be a horrible blow to the community which prides itself on fast delivery.

Just a thought, though.

I2P is just a transport (like tcp/ip, but providing encryption and anonymity). So you can run bittorrent over it, or gnutella, or whatever you like. The problem is that in order to provide anonymity, your packets must be encrypted and routed through intermediate nodes. Tor works the same way, and if you've used it (for anonymous web browsing), you are aware of the cost in speed.

There is a fundamental tradeoff between anonymity and speed. Unfortunately, there's no getting around this.

A faster solution is to use a VPN based in some country that doesn't forbid P2P. The relakks service (recommended at Piratebay, I believe) is one example of this. For the time being, this is probably reasonably safe. The problem with this type of thing is that you have to trust the company providing the service not to betray you. With I2P and similar systems, you don't need to trust anyone as your anonymity is built-in to the system. Also, I2P, Tor, etc. are free to use.

[DanielleD87]

*shrugs* i get around 20 to 40 megbit/s download and around 1.5 to 2megbit/s upload and i'm proxied.

[yetmae]

*shrugs* i get around 20 to 40 megbit/s download and around 1.5 to 2megbit/s upload and i'm proxied.

Your anonymity can be compromised in at least three different ways when you use a proxy:

1) A proxy only works on your outgoing connections. Unless you have firewalled your computer AGAINST incoming bittorrent connections, other people can (and will) connect directly to you. If you do firewall your computer against incoming connections, your performance (speed) will be lower than optimal (although this is a reasonable tradeoff).

2) The proxy operator can turn his log files over to the authorities, either voluntarily or through legal compulsion. You need to make sure you are using a proxy based in a country where P2P is legal, and where they give you some kind of assurance that your anonymity won't be compromised. Still, your anonymity is in their hands.

3) Unless you are connected to the proxy by SSL, your torrents are traversing the network in unencrypted form. This means your ISP can see them, and could (theoretically) detect that you are sharing files and report you. I don't think this is a problem today (except when it comes to companies like Comcast throttling torrents), but it certainly could become a problem in the future as more laws are passed in order to protect the fat cat corporations' profits.

A VPN eliminates two out of three of these concerns. An anonymizing (and encrypting) transport layer like I2P or TOR eliminates all of them.

[haitham334]

cool ... nice post

[CrabShack]

That's nasty

[Colt Seevers]

*shrugs* i get around 20 to 40 megbit/s download and around 1.5 to 2megbit/s upload and i'm proxied.

Your anonymity can be compromised in at least three different ways when you use a proxy:

1) A proxy only works on your outgoing connections. Unless you have firewalled your computer AGAINST incoming bittorrent connections, other people can (and will) connect directly to you. If you do firewall your computer against incoming connections, your performance (speed) will be lower than optimal (although this is a reasonable tradeoff).

2) The proxy operator can turn his log files over to the authorities, either voluntarily or through legal compulsion. You need to make sure you are using a proxy based in a country where P2P is legal, and where they give you some kind of assurance that your anonymity won't be compromised. Still, your anonymity is in their hands.

3) Unless you are connected to the proxy by SSL, your torrents are traversing the network in unencrypted form. This means your ISP can see them, and could (theoretically) detect that you are sharing files and report you. I don't think this is a problem today (except when it comes to companies like Comcast throttling torrents), but it certainly could become a problem in the future as more laws are passed in order to protect the fat cat corporations' profits.

A VPN eliminates two out of three of these concerns. An anonymizing (and encrypting) transport layer like I2P or TOR eliminates all of them.


Not feeling so smug and safe now are we DanielleD87? :dry:

[helsing]

Tor is pretty much safe, but if the authorities really wanna make an effort they can break tor too. I dont think they are going to hunt highly protected users, they are primary looking for the ones that seed enourmosly and have no proxy or whatsoever. The point is, whatever protection you use, you are never completely safe, and if the authorities really want, they can capture everyone, but their mission is to hunt a few to scare the rest.

[digmen1]

It does say at the start of most DVD's these that there are heavy fines etc.

But I wish they would get tough on other sorts of crime eg murder, street violence and child abuse.

Regards

Digby

[grimms]

It does say at the start of most DVD's these that there are heavy fines etc.

But I wish they would get tough on other sorts of crime eg murder, street violence and child abuse.

Regards

Digby

Agreed. Also facing 10 years for uploading? Thats steep.