BitTorrent Site Administrator Sentenced to Prison

With the taking down of Elitetorrents, 23 year old Grant Stanley was sentenced to five months in prison, another five of home detention and a financial penalty of $3,000 for his involvement with the private BitTorrent tracker. This was the result of Operation D-Elite lead by the FBI. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation was accompanied by the Motion Picture Association of America in taking down Elitetorrents. The conviction is a result of Stanley's guilty plea to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement.

"This is the first criminal enforcement action against copyright infringement on a P2P network using BitTorrent technology," said United States Attorney John Brownlee. "We hope this case sends the message that cyberspace will not provide a shield of anonymity for those who choose to break our copyright laws."

The Federal crackdown against the Elitetorrents P2P network has produced three convictions to this date. Just two months ago, Scott McCausland has pleaded guilty to similar charges.

"At its prime, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000 members and facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 2 million copies of movies, software, music, and games. On May 25, 2005, federal agents shut down the Elite Torrents network by seizing its main server and replacing its log-in web page with the following notice: "This Site Has Been Permanently Shut Down by the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)." Within the first week alone, this message was viewed over half a million times," reads a news release published by the United States Attorney's Office Western District of Virginia.