Daniel Dove, 26, has been found guilty of conspiracy and felony copyright charges stemming from his administrator rights to the popular EliteTorrents BitTorrent tracker web site. Dove will serve 18 months in federal prison and will have to pay a $20,000 fine. He will also have to serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence.
Dove originally faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $150,000.
EliteTorrents was officially shut down in 2005, and had as many as 125,000 members before the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) began the crackdown three years ago. The tracker site offered 700 movies, with pre-release titles available, which was downloaded more than 1.1 million times.
Eight other administrators were charged with conspiracy and copyright charges, though they all pleaded guilty and were given shorter five-month prison sentences. The crackdown was part of "Operation D-Elite," which was spearheaded by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The authorities became interested in EliteTorrents after Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith became available hours before the movie's release here in the United States.
Several governments have started to crack down against BitTorrent tracker sites that offer file sharers an online database of copyrighted material to download and share with other users.
This news comes shortly after it was announced Alan Ellis, former administrator of OinK, will indeed face "conspiracy to defraud" charges due to his involvement with the OiNK BitTorrent tracker site.
