AfterDawn: News

Another guilty plea in connection with Operation D-elite

Today, the US Department of Justice announced another guilty plea in connection with "Operation D-Elite", the first operation to ever target individuals who commited copyright infringment on a BitTorrent tracker site.

Sam Kuonen, 24, pleaded guilty to two counts of felony conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and "criminal copyright infringement in violation of the Family Entertainment Copyright Act." Mr. Kuonen could possibly spend five years in prison and/or a fine of $250,000.



Mr. Kuonen’s guilty plea was the fifth conviction connected with Operation D-Elite and the operation is not yet finished.

Mr. Kuonen was one of the main uploaders on Elite Torrents and his conviction, along with the four before his (admins and other uploaders) are a warning from the government that torrents arent as safe as you imagined.

Source:
Zeropaid

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 17 Apr 2007 14:09

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• 14 comments

• ZippyDSM

  the march of the black boots have started sooner than I thought.

  17.4.2007 15:03 #1

• georgeluv

  Quote:a warning from the government that torrents arent as safe as you imagined. i never imagined it was safe, in fact its probably the most unsafe. its a centralized swarm.
  
  whats a more descript way of making a transaction; if a huge crowd gathers at advertised place and throws bits of the widget at each other or if one person meets one other person at a low key area and hands over the entire widget at once?

  17.4.2007 15:18 #2

• duckNrun

  heheh since they were only throwing around bits of the widget will they only have bits of the book thrown at them?
  Probably not!
  
  They'll probably do more time than the rapist, armed robbers, granny beaters and child molesters all combined.
  
  Maybe the only people that will do more time are those violent and threatening pot heads... our sense of justice is really pitiful and hell is definately going to be over crowded.

  18.4.2007 00:35 #3

• joe777

  [quote]i never imagined it was safe, in fact its probably the most unsafe. its a centralized swarm.[quote]I always thought that BT was 1 of the safest ways to P2P. Centralised swarms on public or private trackers? Using forced encryption? using old school names on split archives and a .sfv filechecking system. Anyway as always, the people who are targeted are uploaders and hi-speed uploaders at that.
  But here is a thought for ya, Nigel ( a fictional name ) gets 5 years for P2P. When he gets to his cell, a big bruiser asks him "what are ye in for wee man" he replies " well.... eh....er.... police assualt, if you must know mate" then says to himself F**K I hope no C**T finds out what I'm really in for, cause I can feel my hemeroids playing up already. Better for prisons to build bigger VP wings for these poor f**kers.

  18.4.2007 03:52 #4

• borhan9

  So are the big boys going out to get uploaders or downloaders or both. I just say make sure you stay safe and get ip blockers and all.

  18.4.2007 15:18 #5

• capnJayd

  I'll take a large order of dictatorship, a fizzling cup of where_are_our_priorities, and yes, I would like some tyranny with that...
  
  Hurray for the Republic that failed...
  
  Honestly, I love our government. Created by the people, for the lobbyists. At least the average citizen doesn't vote. But turn-about is fair play. The government doesn't let us vote on these types of issues.

  18.4.2007 18:18 #6

• ivymike

  Originally posted by capnJayd:I'll take a large order of dictatorship, a fizzling cup of where_are_our_priorities, and yes, I would like some tyranny with that...
  
  Hurray for the Republic that failed...
  
  Honestly, I love our government. Created by the people, for the lobbyists. At least the average citizen doesn't vote. But turn-about is fair play. The government doesn't let us vote on these types of issues.The best democracy money can buy.

  19.4.2007 10:21 #7

• dufas

  This is as goofy as it gets....
  
  Five years and $250,000.00 for pirating ????
  
  We had a cop, driving drunk at high speed, passed a school bus that was letting off kids after school, he hit and killed a kid and left the scene of the accident, he was chased down by ordinary citizens and held for police[his brothers in arms].. It usually takes a couple of hours for a lab to confirm the blood alcohol level in anyone but in this case, it took over a month for confirmation. The cop was not held in jail brfore or during trial and was on full paid administrative leave from his work.
  
  Initially, there was six charges leveled, each one a felony, with hit and run and manslaughter being the worst of the charges. Most regular people are charged with anything from vehicular manslaughter to third degree murder in cases such as this.
  
  In the cop's case, all charges were dropped and involuntary manslaughter, a misdemeanor was charged. He was sentenced to four years and no fine for his crime and will in all probabilities be let out in a year. The average citizen's sentence is closer to sixteen years and a $100,000.00 plus fine for the same offense..
  
  The point of all this is it more terrible to pirate something from the MPAA and the RIAA than it is to kill some kid.. This country is getting to be upside down or a lot of money is changing hands....

  19.4.2007 12:30 #8

• procode

  It has been said many times now, that something is a little bit wrong my friends, when making a copy of a disc is a CRIMINAL OFFENCE .. !!
  
  Procode ..

  19.4.2007 15:34 #9

• neurokasm

  hell of a world...

  19.4.2007 15:40 #10

• ZippyDSM

  dufas
  money makes the world go round, common sense dose not get the rich richer...

  19.4.2007 15:41 #11

• Chaos343

  $250,000 and 5 years for downloading a $20 movie. MAN, that makes perfect sense!

  19.4.2007 19:01 #12

• ZzeusS

  You'd think a guy like that would know how to protect himself. I've been using Azureus with the SafePeer plug in.
  
  And I did get a letter from my ISP (Comcast) because they got one from NBC Interractive about me :( before I started using SafePeer.
  
  Seems my Smallville downloads got someone interested. Hope the SafePeer takes care of that.

  20.4.2007 06:25 #13

• RNR1995

  Dufas,
  Don't you know cops are above the law?
  Like most politicians?
  The Governor of PA was caught 3 times driving in his LIMO at speeds of over 100 MPH.
  BTW driven by a State Trooper , ya think he even got a fine?
  If I did that I would be immediately arrested and my "driving privileges" would be suspended
  Now we have New Jerseys Governor Diving at over 90 MPH causes a big crash and almost dies in it
  BTW NOT wearing a seatbelt, and driven by a State Policemen
  Ya think he will be fined??
  OH he had a click it or ticket campaign last month and screwed everyone in Jersey they could out of a few hundred bucks for not wearing their seatbelts!
  "How much justice can you afford?"

  21.4.2007 09:15 #14