BitTorrent Administrator Convicted by Federal Jury

Hard times for p2p site administrators: 26-year-old Clintwood, Virginia based Daniel Dove was convicted of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement by a federal jury in Big Stone Gap, Va. on Friday.

Dove owes his conviction to being an administrator of EliteTorrents.org, a Web site that offered unauthorized copyright content. As DOJ (Department of Justice) reported, the site, which was shut down three years ago, used BitTorrent p2p technology to make available pirated copies of movies, MP3s, applications and video games.

According to the same source this is the first time in the U.S. that a file sharing site uploader user has been convicted by a jury of copyright infringement.

Prosecutors said that, apart from maintaining a high-speed server of his own, Dove was also constantly taking on new members (with very high-speed Internet connections) in his crew – Uploaders – to contribute with content and servers.

In the main, prosecutors involved in piracy pursuit usually go for the major players, namely, the release groups that spread the pirated material, or the leakers who are the first link in this chain being those who provide the content to start with. Reportedly, UK is planning comparable criminal measures (here Interpol has taken down music BitTorrent tracker OiNK and made significant arrests among site's most important uploaders, the “trophy” being administrator Alan Ellis).

We may have the first jury trial now with Dove but this is actually the last remaining conviction in this case as some of his colleagues have already served time. Scott McCausland was sentenced to five months in jail and another five months of house arrest back in 2006 after pleading guilty to two copyright-infringement accusations connected to the distribution of Star Wars: Episode III.

Dove could be given for his offenses up to 10 years in jail. The sentence is due on Sept 9, 2008 (We can only wish him the best of luck).

The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Tyler G. Newby of the Criminal Division's Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay V. Prabhu for the Eastern District of Virginia, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Virginia.