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Virginia Man Gets 5 Months in BitTorrent Copyright Conviction

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 30, 2006 - 2:49pm.
Roanoke, Va. - A Virginia man convicted of criminal copyright infringement for using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network has been sentenced to five months in prison, another five months of house arrest, three years of probation and a $3,000 fine.

Grant T. Stanley, 23, of Wise, Virginia, pleaded guilty to the charges related to Elitetorrents, a site for which he was a network administrator that made the latest "Star Wars" movie available online hours before its official release.

"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."

Stanley was one of three defendants convicted so far as part of Operation D-Elite, a federal crackdown on the Elite Torrents network, which the government said counted 133,000 members and facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 2 million copies of movies, software, music and games.

Related Links:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/vaw/press_releases/stanley_17oct2006.html
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8L13AJ01.htm (AP)
http://www.elitetorrents.org

tags: Video | Law | Tech | P2P | Piracy | Music | Copyright | BitTorrent | Law Enforcement | Convictions | Star Wars |



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