This is being reprinted from Savage's board, of course with her permission.

Six men has been handed jail sentences for piracy offenses in the United Kingdom. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) claims that an internet piracy ring that specialized in the production and sale of counterfeit DVDs has been broken up. The "Pir8" web forums apparently facilitated the selling of pirate material to over 13,000 users.

FACT prosecuted the case which followed a three year investigation and prosecution by FACT into the group. Assistance in the investigation was given by the BPI (the record industry trade body) Anti-Piracy Unit. Here is the list of the men aged 21 to 37 with their Pir8 nicknames and sentences.

Lee Richard Bennett ('Mack'), from South Normington, Derbyshire, and the owner of the PIR8 site was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Barry Jarvis ('Leafy'), from Johnstown, Wrexham, the website administrator, was sentenced to one year's imprisonment.

Kevin Bowles ('Taz'), from Doncaster, but living in Darlington at the time of the offences received a one year jail sentence.

Robert Chester ('Killalot'), from Eastbourne, Sussex, also a received one year jail sentence.

Jason Morgan ('Monkfish'),from Lanchester, Co. Durham and Christopher Pomroy ('Trinity'), from Stretford, Greater Manchester were sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

Karl Smith ('Toon'), from Peterlee, Co. Durham and Marcus Jones, from Brynteg, Anglesey,were sentenced to 240 hours Community Punishment Orders.

Adrian Hodgson ('Eda'), from Kingston Upon Hull, was sentenced to 200 hours Community Punishment Order.

Also sentenced was Paul Bowes, from Co. Durham, who was not part of the conspiracy but pleaded guilty to manufacturing pirate DVDs. He was sentenced to 150 hours’ Community Punishment Order.


Source:
FACT UK

Specifically read the LAST LINE of this article








Torrenting sites, Downloading and Peer to Peer sharing via downloads or Tape Trading have soared to an all time high

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) stepped up its fight against the illegal downloading of copyrighted material over the internet yesterday, with the announcement that its members had filed suit against six TV-oriented BitTorrent web sites as well as 4 online personal trading sites.

This is the first time that the MPAA has specifically taken action against sites involved in the illegal swapping of TV shows – a form of piracy that it says has become a serious and growing problem.

The six sites targeted by the action – ShunTV, Zonatracker, Btefnet, Scifi-Classics, CDDVDHeaven and Bragginrights – facilitate the illegal swapping of copyrighted material to over 100,000 people daily, according to the MPAA.

"Internet thievery of all creative materials is unacceptable and these thieves need to realise they are not anonymous," said MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman. "There are thousands of people in the entertainment industry who are working to develop, produce, and promote television shows. Those shows and those jobs are worth protecting."

The announcement follows earlier actions against BitTorrent server operators and P2P users, accused of trading digital copies of films over the internet in breach of copyright.

According to MPAA officials, the industry is making progress in shutting down many of the BitTorrent sites that are dedicated to illegally swapping movies. Over 90% of the sites that have been sued have been shut down entirely, while the percentage of servers that are operating has decreased by well over 40%.

"Since we began shutting these sites down, the time that it takes to download a file on BitTorrent has increased exponentially which means the experience of downloading copyrighted films and TV shows is not what it used to be," said Glickman. "We intend to make it even worse. Protecting the television industry is essential."

I don't believe we are in danger as we remain way under the radar but playing with the torrents is truly dangerous.

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It used ot be only selling was a risk-

It used ot be only trying to profit financially was a risk

and many people who follwoed the BetaMax arguement, felt that if you record only for yourself or only for trade you were safe

But, then, it became so popular that inevitably companies took an interest and realized that the distribution of non commericla items, may lead to the lack of NEED for them to be commercially released.

If everyone had the availabiity to trade for the full set of X-Files
why would most people pay 79.99 a season.

So it seems companies now are taking notice of trading, as well as peer to peer sharing.

I have recently posted on my site 4 seperate articles where the MPAA has taken an interest in not only "torrent" sites, but peer to peer trading.

so what used to be just a hobby, has become so profoundly popular it has imapcted sales enough for it to become more risky as well-

Any company with a popular show is going to take notice of trading or downloading, as the more people that have it
the less that will purchase it-


They are going to want to protect their investiment, present AND future.