Posted on 06/30/2005 2:52:15 PM PDT by Panerai
he U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), with help from investigators from 10 other countries, has arrested four people and dismantled at least four Web sites used to illegally distribute movies, music and software, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday.
The crackdown on so-called warez distribution sites, with 70 searches conducted in the U.S. and another 20 searches in other countries on Wednesday, also resulted in law enforcement authorities identifying more than 120 members of what the DOJ called the organized online piracy underground, DOJ officials said during a press conference. In the warez community, highly organized groups work together to distribute copyrighted materials, often competing with each other to be the fastest to post a free version of a movie or video game.
The DOJ didnt have immediate information on the four people arrested. The DOJ could take action against other suspects, officials said.
Searches happened in 10 countries in addition to the U.S.: Canada, Israel, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, U.K., Germany, Portugal and Australia.
The crackdown, called Operation Site Down, resulted in the confiscation of several computers and servers, causing at least eight warez sites to be shut down, said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. During Wednesdays action, more than $50 million worth of pirated works were seized by law enforcement, he said. . . . The operation targeted 22 warez groups, including Myth, TDA, HellBound, Corrupt, Gamerz, NOX and Goodfellaz, the DOJ said. The DOJ accused these groups of pirating software such as Autodesk Inc.s Autocad 2006 and Adobe Systems Inc.s Photoshop and movies such as Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
(Excerpt) Read more at macworld.com ...
GWB cares about illegals. He wants to help as many of them as possible get here and stay here.
God knows, we sure need more of those "guest workers" to drain our resources
Wow...
What about Russia and China?
When they announce they shut down "ThePirateBay"'s group systems THEN I'll be impressed.
/Sits back to watch as some more astute freeper goes and finds the link saying that the FBI already did that. I've been out of the loop for a while.
They only shut down servers in places where they can get the local government's cooperation. Russia and China are very lax on piracy patrol. For all I know, there ARE no anti-piracy laws in either place. The places they shut people down in have laws that they can pin charges on.
what about Singapore? Believe some of it comes form there as well.
Sad to say it, Hollywood's products are one of our few profitable exports anymore.
Actually, most of your asian activity comes from thailand, but singapore, despite its public image as being very straightlaced and strict, is fairly lax on IP theft regulations. Some of it comes from there, most comes out of bangkok, though. The second most active file trading company, according to wired magazine article I read about 6 months ago, was Poland, believe it or not, Behind the USA, of course.
most of your heroin and cocaine traffickers from asian countries have found the profit margin equal or higher and the consequences less severe for trafficking in bootleg dvds than heroin and cocaine.
I was in Bangkok in 1999, and went to a six story mall that was mostly computer vendors.
For one or two bucks I could buy most any software that was on the market at that time.
Chicken feed.
That's probably about a week's worth of healthcare alone that illegals are costing the taxpayers of the Western states!
On a lighter note, a really good friend of mine who was a network hardware guru, always pronounced "warez" like Juarez. I tried explaining to him that it was a diminutive, leetspeak form of "softwares", but to no avail!
90% of the systems used in china come preloaded with windows XP, Office XP and the Adobe Creative Suite (photoshop, acrobat, illustrator) cracked and fully updated, which in the long run is really safer than just buying an off the shelf dell that hasn't had service pack two installed on it yet.
I never did understand leetspeak in general, especially the pronunciation of the word warez.
The opponents of illegal immigration just have to learn how to play by DC rules.
Forget letters, email & phone calls. The only way to receive attention for one's concerns is straight up bribery.
I know. I tried to snort coke once, but the ice cubes kept getting in the way.
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