AfterDawn: News

Software pirate handed 7 year sentence

A man has been handed a seven year prison sentence for selling pirated copies of popular software titles at huge discounts on his website, iBackups.net. Nathan Peterson, 27, of Los Angeles sold products from major software companies like Microsoft and Adobe. The site began selling the illegitimate goods back in 2003 and wasn't shut down by the FBI until February 2005.

U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III handed down the sentence and also ordered Peterson to pay back $5.4 million and to forfeit the proceeds from the scam, which include houses, cars and a boat. Peterson had pleaded guilty to two counts of copyright infringement in December last year.



Justice Department and industry officials called the case one of the largest involving Internet software piracy ever prosecuted. Ellis also handed down a 6 year sentence last month to a Florida man for selling pirates software through his BuysUSA.com website.

Source:
Wired

Written by: James Delahunty @ 12 Sep 2006 8:40

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• 43 comments

• Lethal_B

  I don't disagree with downloading and uploading material on p2p networks for personal use, be it copyrighted or not, as I feel the record companies are far too greedy.
  
  I do, however, disagree with selling copyrighted material and making a profit from something you don't have the rights to. Justice has been done here.

  12.9.2006 08:50 #1

• DVD7227

  He's a dumbass though he should'v burned the computer and media and jumped out the window when they came to inspect the house.
  Maybe Cuba or some other country there should be nice especially with the money he made.

  12.9.2006 09:16 #2

• derhama

  creaky got me, i'm such a tool

  12.9.2006 11:27 #3

• lxfactor

  lol set fire to the house

  12.9.2006 12:32 #4

• johnodd4

  this doesn't suprise me but there is only one thing i find funny about this he was pirating adobe products but all adobe products you have to register online in order for them to work to everyone that purchased bogus copys from this guy to bad on you suckers because if he is charged with piracy he needs to be charged with fraud as well

  12.9.2006 12:33 #5

• garmoon

  Seven years seems an awfully long sentence. I hope he had enough sense to stash at least 5 million in a Swiss bank account. Probably be out in 3 with good behavior. I doubt he will ever pay the fine. 30 with money and interest in the bank. If he didn't protect the money, then he should get life for stupidity. Like he never thought they would catch him? Duh!

  12.9.2006 12:56 #6

• Pop_Smith

  johnodd4 - Its not hard, especially when you download the entire product itself, to include a pre-modified exe that bypasses registration from my understandings.
  He probably did just that with his products so it would make it harder for him to get caught.

  12.9.2006 13:12 #7

• borhan9

  I tend to agree with lethal on this one. use p2p or torrents for personal use but selling the goods is asking for trouble. Its just having a sign on yourself saying "come and get me. I'm a drop kick"
  
  7yrs I feel was given to show how hard they will start to come down on people that do this kinda thing. I say he got what he deserved.

  12.9.2006 13:23 #8

• Robspace1

  There needs to be new laws put in place to determine what makes a person a pirate and what is legal-The way it stands now any one just backing up software is a pirate-The laws need to stipulate a dollar amount or a quantity amount that moves a person from a user to a dealer-HMMM-Kinda sounds like another subject-I burn and give away movies to a few friends-Am I a no good pirate-lawbreaking scumbag?-Don't think so-The major pirates make it hard for the everyday person to feel safe about backing up their own movies-And that;s the fear Hollywood wants people to feel-so guys like Tom Cruise can make another 6 jillion!-pure greed!

  12.9.2006 15:04 #9

• DVD7227

  Tss 7 years
  Better not drop the soap.

  12.9.2006 15:12 #10

• jutsu

  good news

  13.9.2006 01:44 #11

• tycobb

  He was wrong and should be puniched but 7 years....c'mon.In todays world child rapists and murderers get less then a dumb pirate lol.Somethings wrong with that.
  

  pc games with gamepad support by tycobb.
  http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/360823
  

  13.9.2006 03:47 #12

• backupguy

  now where did i put those matches....LOL

  13.9.2006 06:49 #13

• DVDBack23

  i feel that 7 yrs is too harsh, i mean i can have a kilo of cocaine and a stack of money and get 7 yrs or assualt someone with a knife and get the same...

  13.9.2006 12:19 #14

• ZippyDSM

  THere is nothing wrong with shareing copyrighted material Sellng copy righted stuff is wrong,to give 7 years for it is to show that rapists and murders only effect poor individuals and not rich and more important corporations.......................................

  13.9.2006 13:35 #15

• ZippyDSM

  to tired to edit but heres a thought sicne there are more muders and raisists they cant throw thm all in jail and are lenant on them but the random "real" sw pirate they throw the book at.

  13.9.2006 13:39 #16

• MrMexican

  NO I desigree with everything. This is what should be done about this.
  
  If he made a lot of money selling bootlegged stuff for cheap than wouldn't you think if companies sold their stuff cheaper wouldn't you think they buy from them than a fake copy.
  
  I think that you should be able to to what you want with music,movies and more for personal reasons. But if you try to make a profit I see that as wrong because your trying to make money of somepersons hard work and thats wrong.

  13.9.2006 13:41 #17

• ZippyDSM

  MrMexican
  funny you agreed with me :P
  shearing is ok saleing it is not least if you dont have the rights to it *L*

  13.9.2006 14:24 #18

• hughjars

  Whilst I agree that prosecuting someone for trying to sell pirated stuff on a large scale is probably right and fair
  (and I couldn't care less about individuals getting a pirate copy for personal use)
  I think that a 7yr prison sentence is a grotesque and disgusting over-reaction.
  
  Those notional 'losses' incurred by the companies mentioned (who are already some of the richest 'entities' on the planet and vastly well off) seem 'justification' for ruining someones' life and this kind of brutal and extreme 'punishment' - in some state-funded uncivilised hell-hole where abuse and violence are additional 'punishments' the state turns a blind eye to
  (which will cost the tax-payer huge amounts of money itself).
  
  It's absurd and plain vicious.
  
  Talk about our taxes being used looking out for those most able to look out for themselves.
  
  .....and they wonder why respect for authority is at an all-time low.

  13.9.2006 14:59 #19

• ZippyDSM

  hughjars
  the status quo demands the corporations be protected over the rights of the normal citizen as well as sale off important governmental agencies so this process can be streamlined as well as not protect the borders of the US so that the corporations can lower wages and rout the normal citizens better while making a ever growing profit...
  
  and some people wonder why the US is heading for a civil war in 100 years or less..
  
  the politicizations are to busy kissing corporate arse and floating on the winds of potential votes to give a damn while being sheltered from reality since they them selfs are also part of the neo noble society and part of the problem the rich understand one thing if anything that the rich must be protected more than anyone else........ *sigh*

  13.9.2006 16:25 #20

• spiesfan

  too bad so sad

  13.9.2006 16:29 #21

• vadimo

  Nr Nathan Peterson is an idiot! Surely he knew what risk it is. But opening site and selling it all via internet is just even more stupid, you know you get caught even sooner.
  
  Also i dont agree with making money out something you dont own.

  14.9.2006 06:17 #22

• boneslave

  I agee the guys a moron, but the most they should have given him was 1-2 yrs and a LOT of fines. Like someone else here said I have heard of child molesters get shorter sentences.

  14.9.2006 08:33 #23

• ZippyG

  In regards to profiting from copyrighted material when you don't own the rights - think about sites like Pirate Bay or Mininova. They all profit from making pirated software available in one way or another - not directly, but from generous ad revenue. TPB probably pulls in over $1,000 a day, if not more, as does Mininova. Check out Mininova on adbrite.com if you want to get an idea of how much $$$ they are making.
  
  I personally love TPB and Mininova, but I don't think that you can take the "P2P is ok, but buying/selling pirated software is bad" stance. If you're a pirate, accept the fact. If you like to play by the rules, then more power to you...but don't try to sit on the fence. :)

  14.9.2006 15:09 #24

• hughjars

  I don't agree that it is 'fence-sitting'
  
  The Pirate Bay et al do not 'steal' anything, their services are used by all and sometimes for illegal purposed.
  
  That's a bit like saying the government ought to be held directly liable because thieves used a state-funded road to get to and away from a robbery.
  It's a silly idea and totally unworkable.
  
  I do think you can legitimately differentiate between the person who downloads a movie to add to their collection and someone who takes that on further to be a commercial-scale seller.
  
  Here in the UK we have to pay a licence to get our 'free TV' or we pay for a cable or satellite service. We can legally copy from those so I don't see what the harm or difference is in copying old movies from the net.
  
  .....and given the number of movies that never make it to the local screens who - beyond the greedy and their lying lawyer pals - cares if a bunch of (mainly cr@p, let's face it) newer movies we'd never have paid to see get copied either.
  
  It's all just a matter of timing.
  
  No sales have been lost cos we'd never have 'paid' anyway.....
  
  .....and we do pay and support 'the system' via our licences and pay-channels anyway.
  

  15.9.2006 07:19 #25

• hughjars

  Damn (haven't worked out how to edit a post yet.....help anyone?)
  
  That should have read
  
  "Here in the UK we have to pay a licence to get our 'free TV' and if we have a cable or satellite service we pay for that too on top of the licence fee."

  15.9.2006 07:22 #26

• ZippyG

  Quote:I don't agree that it is 'fence-sitting'
  
  The Pirate Bay et al do not 'steal' anything, their services are used by all and sometimes for illegal purposed.
  
  That's a bit like saying the government ought to be held directly liable because thieves used a state-funded road to get to and away from a robbery.
  It's a silly idea and totally unworkable.I didn't say that the Pirate Bay is stealing anything, but they are providing the means for people to download pirated software by indexing and hosting torrent files. Your state road analogy does apply to P2P and bit torrent in general, however it is no secret that 99% of the torrents on TPB or Mininova ARE in fact pirated material.
  Quote:I do think you can legitimately differentiate between the person who downloads a movie to add to their collection and someone who takes that on further to be a commercial-scale seller.The downloader is out of the question, it is the provider. In this case it would be a site such as TPB or the guy in this article who was running ibackups.net. BOTH profit from the distribution of pirated material, that is all I am saying. I am not saying anything about the people who download from either of these places.
  Quote:Here in the UK we have to pay a licence to get our 'free TV' or we pay for a cable or satellite service. We can legally copy from those so I don't see what the harm or difference is in copying old movies from the net.
  
  .....and given the number of movies that never make it to the local screens who - beyond the greedy and their lying lawyer pals - cares if a bunch of (mainly cr@p, let's face it) newer movies we'd never have paid to see get copied either.Hey I don't disagree with that, but bandwidth costs money and running a service takes time. Is it wrong for the person or people operating a site to want to make a profit from that which takes up the bulk of their time? If there was a site that sold "pirated" copies of your favorite old movies for $3 a pop, sort of like allofmp3.com sells albums for cheap, wouldn't you be willing to pay a few bucks for a fast and reliable download? And how would that be any different from a site such as Mininova which lets you download torrents for free but chooses to profit (very handsomely) from ads? It's indirect, but the end result doesn't change.
  
  Either way you choose, you still fall into the technical definition of "pirate". Simply because you choose to get your old movies for "free" from a torrent site doesn't change the fact that you're downloading content that is pirated, nor does it change the fact that the distributor makes money as an end result of people going there to download pirated material.

  15.9.2006 10:03 #27

• DVDBack23

  press the button on the top right of your post to edit ;)
  

  MAX OUT DOWNLOAD SPEEDS USING UTORRENT http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/335210
  How to join .avi's http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/361513
  How to convert .avi to DVD with Menus http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/1/272946
  
  
  

  15.9.2006 10:38 #28

• ZippyDSM

  DVDBack23
  the edit button is not in the news comment section you have to go to he form and then into to the news that way in order to use edit its a rather well knowen bug :P

  15.9.2006 11:49 #29

• hughjars

  Thanks for that guys.
  
  Zippy are you saying go to the forum 1st and then come to the news section, I'm not quite sure of what you're meaning is there.

  15.9.2006 12:14 #30

• ZippyDSM

  hughjars
  this is the bug on the front/news page that has the links to the enws they take you to a handicaped posting system that will not let you edit posts,but if you go to the forums and all the way down into the news comment section and then find your post there you then an magicly edit your posts and once you edit it you dont have to worm your way around it usealy keeps the edit button on your posts for that thread.
  hers the link to the news comments in the forums
  
  http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/33

  15.9.2006 12:19 #31

• DVDBack23

  zippy,
  thanks for that, i was already in the news comments forum so my edit button was clearly visible ;)
  

  MAX OUT DOWNLOAD SPEEDS USING UTORRENT http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/335210
  How to join .avi's http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/361513
  How to convert .avi to DVD with Menus http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/1/272946
  
  
  

  15.9.2006 12:23 #32

• hughjars

  Cheers zippy, all is clear now.
  Thanks.

  15.9.2006 14:38 #33

• Sontiago

  And women child rapist get NO jail time at all and make money from book and magazine deals... What's the world coming to when a person coping something get you more time the raping little boys?....

  15.9.2006 18:52 #34

• dufas

  It depends on who you are. Winona Ryder got caught three different times shoplifting over $5,000.00 worth of jewlery each time and recieved a slap on the wrist.
  
  Any one of the great unwashed could steal a Sony Xbox and get put away...Depends on who you are......

  15.9.2006 19:57 #35

• emugamer

  He should get 2 years community service and ALL of the profits (house, cars, etc...) should be donated to charity.
  
  The software industry is still making money, regardless of the piracy of the "little people." For the most part, big corporations and even small businesses are legit when it comes to software, and when they are not, they are eventually caught usually through yearly audits, and pay a fine. I would be surprised if a business, company or major corporation uses pirated software in these times. Especially with SARBOX. I've seen a MAJOR change in the way my company does business in the past few years since ENRON. There is a very cloes eye (the feds) on how business is conducted. Our IS department is always sh%$#@ bricks, making sure all of their t's are crossed and i's are dotted.
  
  Software should be free for the common joe. As long as he/she is not profitting from it. Too bad it isn't. And until it is....until everyone industry leader agrees with that statement, people who dl it for free are pirating the software. Same with movies. I agree with ZippyG. If you don't play by their rules, then accept the label they give you. Otherwise you are "fence sitting." But imo, piracy is just a label to slap on a person to make the deed sound harsher than it really is. I will always think it is ok to share. Maybe that stems from my childhood. My friends would buy music cassettes and I would make a copy of theirs. I was a kid and nobody thought it was wrong. It was just sharing.
  
  I hate when the industry posts numbers on how much they have lost due to piracy. It's such a bogus number. Mainly because if it weren't for file sharing, probably more than half of the people would't buy the software anyway. Just not affordable. I know a guy who would have to take out a second mortgage to pay for all the stuff he's dl'd. They've probably been losing that money since the beginning. It's just that now there are more advanced *cough*bogus*cough ways to "track" it. Those people who purchased from that idiot (the guy getting 7 years) would probably have tried other means to get the software cheaper....like buying it used on Amazon or ebay, from which the industry would not have received one penny from that transaction anyway. Obviously they were people who thought bittorrent was wrong and file sharing was wrong, but couldn't afford the high retail price of the software. The industries use this big $$$ amount to make the deed sound so horrible and make their case stronger. It's probably money they would not have received anyway. Piracy is just a scapegoat for executives during board meetings to cloak their crappy performance and lack of new and fresh ideas to make money. "Well this quarters earnings suffered...but piracy is rampant and that is the main cause."
  
  
  Just my opinion

  16.9.2006 04:06 #36

• thedude89

  i find it stupid putting someone in jail for copying something. these companies r making millions, wat difference would it make if they loose some money. i do not beleive in buying originals........games r 60$ and dvd's r 30 bucks each......never in my life will i buy original. God bless downloading and copies

  17.9.2006 11:44 #37

• ZippyDSM

  thedude89
  you be suprised that you can find 6month to year old new unopened game son Ebay and get them for under 30 with shiping and used games are 5-20 depdning on who what and where,I prefer to rub thier noses in it by buying used that hurts them alot more than downloading :3

  17.9.2006 11:53 #38

• ralfsolo

  Before the peer to peer system , you didn't have any choice than buy a pirated stuff or try to copy an original .
  
  Nowday I m ok for the sharing , I also time to time get some stuff from russian stores , but selling ONLINE world wile no , I desagree .
  
  7 years is a way too much , here in Europe , you can have less by killing someone . Giving back the money and community services should be egnouh if his police register is virgin .
  
  Also as somebody said , if the products were more cheap , and if the producers would respect the clients (like not saling the starwars trilogy a xillions differents versions with adding some featurets each times) or making new games who is not compatible with not so old video card excpecially to make buy new ones (see Battlefield 2 sponsored by nvidea where my gforce 4 128 mb nvidea does not work for exemple )
  
  People take pirated stuff because they feel to be cheated by the hight prices and stupid taxes (TV taxes was a great exemple ...I watch only dvd and 2 channels from satelite but i have to pay 220 us dollar a year because I have a TV in finland to support 2 governemental channels than i never ever watch and than I don't need or care )

  18.9.2006 03:25 #39

• Bigperm88

  I say throw the book at him. Downloading and trading is one thing.
  
  But making money off the works of others is wrong on so many levels. I hope this scumbag gets all the jail lovin he deserves. Leeches like this deserve a harsh punishment.

  21.9.2006 08:52 #40

• Bigperm88

  Just read some comments about p2p sites making money. These sites are just as bad as what Nathan Peterson was doing. All p2p and torrent sites should be shut down for that fact alone. AS you can tell i hate p2p and torrents; why. Becasue they brought the layman into a world of something they have no business in. They brought the spot light on a world that dates back to the C64 days. Back when the old "Try before you buy" mentality actually meant something.

  21.9.2006 08:58 #41

• ZippyDSM

  Bigperm88
  Some places are making a profit if you call 10-90 a month profit,high traffic servers that allow gray area matreail are costly to run and someplace's don't run any profit.
  just becuse they have ads dont mean they are greedy bastards....

  21.9.2006 09:07 #42

• lukecage (unverified)

  788-1522
  3955 swenson #392
  this guy joseph amico is a big time bootlegger and software pirate
  in las vegas.. he will have his day in court and so will the rest

  13.7.2010 16:08 #43