Announces Guilty Plea in Peer-to-Peer Piracy Crackdown
Contact: US Department of
Justice, 202-514-2008, TDD 202-514-1888
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /Standard
Newswire/ -- An Erie, Pa. man pleaded guilty to copyright
infringement in U.S. District Court in Erie, Assistant Attorney
General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Mary Beth
Buchanan of the Western District of Pennsylvania announced today.
Scott R. McCausland, 24, pleaded
guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and one count
of criminal copyright infringement in violation of the Family Entertainment
Copyright Act. His guilty plea
stems from his involvement in the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) network
previously known as Elite Torrents.
The plea was entered before U.S. District Court Judge Sean J. McLaughlin
for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
McCausland, who is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec.12, 2006, faces up to
five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release.
"This groundbreaking case
demonstrates the commitment of the Department of Justice to prosecute
individuals who use new technologies to undermine the copyright laws," said U.S.
Attorney Buchanan. "It also serves
as an example to those who believe that there is anonymity in
cyberspace."
This is the first criminal
enforcement action against copyright infringement on a P2P network using
BitTorrent technology. McCausland's
conviction is the third in a series of convictions arising from Operation
D-Elite, a federal crackdown against the first providers (or suppliers) of
pirated works to the technologically-sophisticated P2P network known as Elite
Torrents. At its prime, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000
members and facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 2 million copies
of movies, software, music, and games.
On May 25, 2005, federal agents shut down the Elite Torrents network by
seizing its main server and replacing its log-in web page with the following
notice: "This Site Has Been Permanently Shut Down by the FBI and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)." Within the first week alone, this
message was viewed over half a million times.
The Elite Torrents P2P network
offered a virtually unlimited content selection, including illegal copies of
copyrighted works before their availability in retail stores or movie
theatres. For example, the
defendant supplied the network with the final entry in the Star Wars series,
"Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," more than six hours before it was first
shown in theatres. In the next 24
hours, it was downloaded from the Elite Torrents network more than 10,000
times.
Operation D-Elite is a joint
investigation by ICE and the FBI as part of the Computer and Technology Crime
High-Tech Response Team (CATCH), a San
Diego task force of specially trained prosecutors and law
enforcement officers focused on high-tech crime. Federal and state member
agencies of CATCH include ICE, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the San Diego
District Attorney's Office, San Diego Police Department, the San Diego Sheriff's
Department, and San Diego County Probation.
Andrea Sharrin, Senior Counsel
for the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and
Christian A. Trabold, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of
Pennsylvania, prosecuted this case on behalf of the government. The Motion Picture Association of
America also provided substantial assistance to this investigation.
Source: Standard Newswire
