US Torrent Pirate Get Jail Time. So What?

Filed in archive Government , Legal on October 27, 2006

Grant T. Stanley, 23, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five months in prison for copyright infringement. Stanley worked for Elite Torrents, a torrent web site used for Bit Torrent P2P network downloading. Stanley also received five months home detention, three years supervised probation, and a $3,000 fine.

Stanley was convicted based on the 2005 Family Entertainment Copyright Act, which makes it a crime to distribute unpublished works such as movies or to record a film in a movie theater. "Star Wars: Episode III - revenge of the Sith'' was posted on Elite Torrents six hours before it debuted in theaters.

While Hollywood can pat itself on the back, it's not clear this victory has any meaning beyond this single case.

> This case was the U.S. government and entertainment industry with virtually unlimited resources against a young man with no corporate legal representation. It's no surprise he pleaded guilty. There was no trial to test the actual merits of the case.

> The case's strongest claim is a movie showing up on Elite Torrents before it was shown in theaters. It doesn't apply to music and other already released movies and videos.

> Obviously it pays to to steer clear of the Feds. Stanley had the bad luck to be nabbed in Operation D-Elite. However that was a limited program. In an era of terrorism the government does not have an ongoing commitment to such operations.

> The guilty plea does not resolve the legality of torrent web sites. Social networking web sites host actual files and so are directly involved in the distribution of copyrighted content. In comparison, torrent web sites are indirectly involved. Torrent web sites do not store the media files like YouTube. Torrent web sites do not even store links to direct files like Google. Instead torrent web sites only provide a link to a location where people can meet like-minded users to download or share the file.

> The guilty plea does not resolve the responsibility of torrent web sites. Given the indirect relationship to infringement, do torrent web sites have an obligation to filter all torrent submissions, take down torrents association with infringing files, or neither? Did copyright owners provide proper notice about infringed files? If so, were the torrents promptly removed?