torrent user found guilty of copyright enfringement..

[disciple]

Scott McCausland pleaded guilty today to “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement” and “criminal copyright infringement”. McCausland was a vivid member of the “private” BitTorrent tracker Elitetorrents, that was taken down by the FBI, May 2005.

This case is the first BitTorrent related criminal enforcement in the US. 24 year old McCAusland could be sent to prison for a maximum of five years.

The plea was announced by Attorney General Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Buchanan of the Western District of Pennsylvania earlier today. In a response to this case U.S. Attorney Buchanan stated:

    “This groundbreaking case demonstrates the commitment of the Department of Justice to prosecute individuals who use new technologies to undermine the copyright laws. It also serves as an example to those who believe that there is anonymity in cyberspace.”

When Elitetorrents was taken down May last year, the frontpage was replaced by this FBI takehome message.

elite torrents fbi

FBI’s Operation D-Elite resulted in the permanent shutdown of the Elitetorrents community. The irony of this case is that it concerns a so called “private tracker” that is believed to be “more anonymous” than public trackers. Strange enough, there is no “we told you so” press release from the MPAA yet, but I bet it wont take long.

McCausland is scheduled to be sentenced on December 12, 2006.

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-user-pleads-guilty/


 hmm.. okay.. kinda worrid.. lol

[vivman1107]

After reading some more on this case ... This guy was one of the guys who seeded stuff at EliteTorrents. Also, they were the guys who released Star Wars Episode III before it was released in theaters. That is the reason the MPAA and consequently the FBI came down so hard on the site. It was just a high profile case. I don't think end users have much to be worried about ... yet. As someone on another site said, as long as they have bigger fish to fry, they will not bother with the little people. The distributors of pirated material are the ones who go down first, not end users. I personally don't download pirated movies and stopped downloading music a long time now so I think I am safe.

[Qloxx]

Yoy are never safe BIG BROTHER keeps a PERMANENT record.

[Red Paradox]

Thank God for ARES!
That's all I gots to say