EliteTorrents Admin Heads to Prison

[slca]

What at first appeared to be hoax turned into the first enforcement action against a US based BitTorrent tracker. On May 25, 2005, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) successfully shut down the largest US based BitTorrent tracker, EliteTorrents.com. The operation was known as "D-Elite.

TorrentFreak reported recently that EliteTorrents' other administrator, Scott McCausland, pleaded guilty on September 12, 2006, to “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement” and “criminal copyright infringement”. He is to be sentenced on December 16, 2006.

According to an October 17 press release from the Department of Justice, Grant T. Stanley will spend the next 5 months in prison, followed by an additional 5 months of home detention. Once released, Mr. Stanley will endure an additional 3 years of supervision, which will likely include limited access to the Internet or computers.

The least of Mr. Stanley's concerns will be a $3,000 fine.

This is the first criminal enforcement action against copyright infringement on a P2P network using BitTorrent technology,” said United States Attorney John Brownlee. “We hope this case sends the message that cyberspace will not provide a shield of anonymity for those who choose to break our copyright laws.

Source: http://www.slyck.com/story1323.html

[mikeco]

some crazy shit.

ah well, hope people donate some money to the poor guy after he gets out to pay that fine.

[Kruger]

Yeah, poor guy! :/

[abu_has_the_power]

didn't george lucas tell his team of well fed preppy lawyers that he wants someone's head on a platter for the release of ep3 workprint? guess this is one of the poor guys

[Ivanov]

A network administrator for a peer-to-peer Internet file-sharing system has been sentenced to five months in prison for copyright infringement.

Grant T. Stanley, 23, was also given five months of home detention, three years of supervised probation and a $3,000 fine for his role in the Elite Torrents service, which used a sharing technology known as BitTorrent. Stanley, who had pleaded guilty to copyright-related charges, was sentenced Oct. 17.

Stanley is one of three people convicted through Operation D-Elite, a federal crackdown on suppliers of pirated works to Elite Torrents, which agents shut down in May 2005.

Read more here or here
Please, comment it!

[syD]

is it just me or does the date of the article read Wednesday, May 25, 2005 ?

[Ivanov]

is it just me or does the date of the article read Wednesday, May 25, 2005 ?

Yes, I corrected the link. Elite Torrents was shut down in May 2005, but their admin has been sentenced to five months in prison now, this month.

[erax]

you mean he has been sentenced to five months in prison on 30 OCT 2006

since he had been caught !

[erax]

At one time, the Elite Torrents network had more than 133,000 members and allegedly facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 2 million copies of movies, software, music and games. Federal officials said "Star Wars: Episode III _ Revenge of the Sith" was available through Elite Torrents six hours before it even debuted in theaters.

watch that out

[digitrifecta]

Yes, I corrected the link. Elite Torrents was shut down in May 2005, but their admin has been sentenced to five months in prison now, this month.

This is yet another prime example of why people should just use the usenet for sharing content, sure it costs a couple bucks a month but it is much safer to use than BitTorrent and spending 10-15 bucks to be able to download all the data you want at the full speed of your internet pipe, usenet is the best option.

Bottom line, the usenet is the safest and still untouched place on the net to get the goods you want.

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