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California Copyright Law Violation Case
usdoj.gov, May 09, 2006
Five Additional Defendants Charged with Violating Copyright Laws as Part of Operation Copycat
- 20 Defendants Convicted Thus Far, including Three Site Operators
- 32 Defendants Charged to Date in Ongoing Investigation
SAN JOSE – United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan announced that as part of the ongoing prosecution arising out of Operation Copycat, a federal grand jury in San Jose returned a four-count indictment charging five additional individuals with violations of federal copyright laws. To date, 32 individuals have been criminally charged as part of the ongoing investigation into online “warez” sites, and 20 of those have been convicted since September 26, 2005.
Based on today’s indictment, the following five persons were each charged with Conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement:
Defendants Soares, Leung and Morada were also charged with violating the No Electronic Theft Act (known as the "NET Act") for copyright infringement by electronic means over the Internet. The indictment also contains forfeiture allegations against defendants Leung and Morada to forfeit computer and other equipment used to violate the criminal copyright laws. The equipment was seized during the execution of federal search warrants executed on June 29, 2005.
A substantial amount of equipment used in the copyright violations is being forfeited to the government. As part of each plea agreement, each defendant has agreed to forfeit any right, title and interest they have in computer and other equipment that was seized during the federal search warrants executed on June 29, 2005. The Forfeiture Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office has assisted on the forfeiture of the following materials to date:
- 118 computers; 13 laptops; 4,567 infringed CDs and DVDs; 413 VHS tapes and floppies; 28 key boards and monitors; 5 digital cameras; 28 PlayStation Players/Xbox; 7 computer towers; and a Plasma TV, cell phones, speakers, an MP3 player, and a DSL player.
The defendants will be arraigned on the indictment on May 11, 2006 at 2:00 p.m. before United Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg in San Jose.
Description of Warez Sites:
The charges stem from the undercover investigation targeting online "warez" groups illegally distributing newly-released movies, games, software and music. "Warez groups" are the "first-providers" of copyrighted works to the warez underground - the so-called "release" groups that operate as the original sources for a majority of the pirated works distributed and downloaded via the Internet.
Once a warez release group prepares a stolen work for distribution, the material is distributed in minutes to secure, top-level warez servers throughout the world. From there, within a matter of hours, the pirated works are distributed globally, filtering down to peer-to-peer and other public file sharing networks accessible to anyone with Internet access.
Higher level members of the warez groups, known as site operators or "SiteOps," administered and maintained the site and controlled access to the site by use of security measures such as usernames and passwords. Others serve as "equipment suppliers" (providing hardware (such as hard drives, computer parts, and computer servers) to the warez site), "encoders" or "crackers" (those defeating copy protection devices); "scripters" (creating, programming, and helping build the warez site); "brokers" (who found groups to participate on the warez site). Lower level members included "suppliers" (providing an unauthorized copyrighted movie, game or software), "cammers" (those making unauthorized camcorder recordings in movie theaters), "couriers."