RSSBitTorrent Uploader Faces 5 Years
By Nate Mook | Published April 18, 2007, 5:00 PM
The United States Department of Justice said this week that a fifth defendant has plead guilty to copyright infringement stemming from the crackdown on the Elite Torrents BitTorrent network, which was illegally spreading music, movies and software.
24 year-old Sam Kuonen of Columbus, Ga., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement. He faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for July 16.
The first conviction related to the BitTorrent effort, dubbed "D-Elite" by authorities, came last October, when 23 year-old Grant Stanley from Virginia was sentenced to five months in jail and three years of supervised release. Stanely was an administrator for Elite Torrents.
Although Kuonen was not involved in the operation of the BitTorrent network, he was an "uploader" of copyrighted material. Kuonen supplied the first copy of movies and other illicit content to be shared with others. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) helped provide evidence in the case.
Elite Torrents was shut down by federal regulators in May 2005. At its peak, the network distributed more than 17,800 titles -- including movies, software, music and games -- which were downloaded over two million times. However, that hasn't stopped piracy on other BitTorrent networks.
Although its namesake company has made a push for legitimacy and launched a legal download service, the BitTorrent technology is currently used almost exclusively for the illegal distribution of copyrighted material by end users. Recent statistics have estimated that 33 percent of P2P traffic is attributable to BitTorrent.
BitTorrent itself is not the culprit, however. It is simply a communication protocol that facilitates efficient distribution of very large files. On the flipside, it is not uncommon for those particular files to be copyrighted music, movies or television shows. Still, it has found some legitimate uses - most notably helping to distribute Linux distributions from Red Hat and Mandriva, which are comprised of multiple 650MB CD images.
Why can't this same effort be put into tracking down and finding real criminals like, I don't know... Bin Laden!!!!
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|Silly, he didn't download any mp3s.
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|I'm surprised that this keeps getting missed on every article.
Blizzard now has 7 Million + active subscribers for World of Warcraft. The default method enabled by the game is to distribute the patches via BitTorrent.
IMHO, its another sign that people don't pay attention or collect statistics objectively.
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|Or you can do it out side the USA were it not illegal like Canada ;-)
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|When noobs use computers this is what happens. PeerGuardian is your friend people.
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|Ouch. It's always the uploaders that get screwed and not the jerks who only leech.
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|Perhaps they think that if they nail the uploaders, there won't be anything to leech.
Nah...that makes too much sense.
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|hmmmm...... nah
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|you dont want to get caught using torrents? then proxy yourself with Tor and block the RIAA and MPAA with PeerGuardian. simple.
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|This is why only idiots download using torrents.
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|Agreed. I got one warning from my cable provider that HBO wanted my info and I have never used it again!
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|I think you mean upload.
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|You don't have to upload to get caught on B.T. Your IP address is part of the pool even if you just download.
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|Agreed. Your IP address is logged somewhere, but currently to be charged with an offence you do have to upload.
Downloading has yet to be cracked down on.
I am of course saying this from memory, and I may be wrong.
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|That is the problem, you are uploading whenever you download with torrents. That's how they work, anything you download you are simultaneously uploading to others. I should also clarify that I mean it's dumb to use torrents for pirated material. There is nothing wrong with using them for legitimate stuff like Linux distros.
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|Again I don't mean to be arsey about this, but you can just turn off uploading.
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|Correct. Downloading is still not being flagged as much as uploading it. They want the people that are sharing with everyone else, not the people that are taking just for themselves. Granted the structure for BT is to share everyone with everyone. However, its not impossible to prevent BT from uploading and only soaking.
"When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again." –Bill Clinton
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|Uh, I don't think you know how torrents work.
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|Nobody can harm you while you're uploading while downloading. Not as long as you don't have the whole file. Then, you could be held accountable. This guy is going to jail cos he supplied the movies, meaning he'd get them in the retail store he worked or whatever. US Laws on Download/Upload are ridiculous anyway...
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