Andre Yoskowitz
25 May 2008 22:10
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Barry Gitarts, a "key member" of the online music piracy group release group Apocalypse Production Crew (APC) has been convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 USD fine and three years probation at sentencing.
The DOJ added Gitarts was a member in 2003 and 2004 and paid for and administered the computer server used to upload "hundreds of thousands of copies of pirated music, movies, software and video games."
"Music piracy is stealing and, unless you want to end up in a federal prison, don't do it," Chuck Rosenberg, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement.
The RIAA praised the government for brining the case to trial and praised the conviction as well.
"The crimes committed here -- as well as the harm to the music community -- are severe, and so are the consequences," Brad Buckles, the RIAA's executive vice president for antipiracy, said in a statement. "Groups like APC that specialize in leaking pre-release music are at the top of the piracy pyramid, and the efforts of federal law enforcement have dealt a real blow to these kinds of operations."
The case was part of the federal investigation known as Operation Fastlink, which is looking into organized piracy groups, those known to be at the top of all warez before it trickles down to the home BitTorrent and P2P user. The operation has already seen 56 total convictions for release group members.