NEW YORK – A Delaware County jury began deliberating this morning on the fate of Mr. Stefano who was convicted on Wednesday of copyright infringement and first-degree possession of stolen software. Mr. Stefano pleaded guilty to all charges. The lawyers for the Business Software Alliance (BSA) are pushing for the death penalty, comparing Khyl's, “rampage” with that of pirate Albert W. Hicks in the 19th century.

Hicks was executed by hanging, on Bedloe's Island in 1860. This push by the BSA is part of their massive crackdown on unlicensed software that has already seen dozens of raids this year.

Stefano was arraigned after an informant notified the BSA of his illegal sharing. The informant, a former friend of the munificent Stefano made the allegations after hearing about the BSA's $1 Million Dollar Reward program that rewards qualifying participants with cash prizes for snitching out their friends and employers.

The informant, who spoke on condition of anonymity exclaimed, “I ain't sure I'll see the whole mill but hey, money's money, right!” In an ironic twist, Microsoft had already been watching Stefano for months after Stefano received a forced update (KB892130) from Microsoft back in May, containing Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), a program that critics label as spyware. WGA promptly notified Microsoft of Stefano's unlicensed software usage.

Microsoft's partner, the BSA, compiled a dossier on Stefano's software usage in order to pursue legal measures against him. On Tuesday, backed by a half-dozen armed federal agents, the BSA raided Stefano's small business in what can only be called the most severe raid by the software police in Delaware County's history.

Stefano, who maintains he, “thought the giant thugs were a bunch of criminals and burglers”, jumped out the window of his office and narrowly avoided a barrage of bullets that were fired as he jumped to the ground. Luckily, an off-duty officer took notice to the commotion and used his stun gun to paralyze the already shocked Stefano. Shaken and battered, Stefano was taken into custody in a straitjacket under heavy surveillance.

In a press conference outside the Delaware County Courthouse, Mr. Stefano's lawyer spoke this morning on the dilemma Stefano faced as a proprietary software user, “Although by accepting the software license my client agreed not to share with others, he also felt he had an ethical obligation to help others when he could. He felt this was a no-win situation; break the promise not to share, or betray his friends by refusing to cooperate with them. He felt that by sharing the software, he was choosing the lesser of the two evils.

However, he was far from enthusiastic about his decision. To the contrary, for the past three years Stefano has been taking a solid regiment of anti-anxiety and heart medications including Prozac, Venlafaxine and Digoxin. Stefano's psychiatrist attributes his physical and mental condition to the stress caused from this dilemma.”

Opinion remains sharply divided over software sharing. President Bush today said, “Like I ain't got 'nough to worry about with the darn Chinese!” His comments came shortly after passing an international anti “piracy” bill. On the other hand, ninety-five percent of the general public consider sharing a good thing.

For instance, Mrs. Julia a 39 year-old mother of two said, “I always tell my boys to share, I tell them it's the Golden Rule.” A programmer with 25 years experience explained, “Stefano had the right idea; sharing software is good. Had he known about free software he could have avoided the dilemma that caused his downfall. He could have shared his software without being called names like, 'pirate'

source: http://www.glossynews.com/artman/publish/bsa-raid-11012007.shtml

Warez sceners hate two things. People who trade on p2p networks, and people who sell warez. They think both bring unwanted attention from the general public and fbi that otherwise wouldn’t be there.

In this day and age lots of warez sceners are getting in trouble for criminal copyright infringement and trying to use the excuse “I wasn’t making money from it” with little success anyways, this article is about those who can’t really use that excuse.

First we will visit Canada, once first thought to be a haven to warez pirates, but not anymore. maVen, was a small group with one main supplier who bounced back and forth to the highest bidder Apparently Centropy wasn’t able to pay as much as Geremi Adam was looking for because he continued to shop his sources around the internet. Geremi was a cammer based in Canada and according to the RCMP was a “major player” in the warez piracy scene. He was charged in in late 2007 under the Canadian Copyright Act.

Police allege Adam sold the films under the Internet alias of maVen, with the pirated flicks destined for sale on the web and on Canadian streets. Each copy sold likely fetched anywhere between $300 and $1,000 RCMP Staff Sgt. Noel St-Hilaire said in an interview.

While nobody would pay $300-$1000 for a pirated copy of anything, that money was assumedly gotten from mass distributors. People who would get the original copy from somebody like Adam, before it even hit the internet, and had time to mass produce it before it was “pred” online to the warez community.

Geremi was being watched by some time by the FBI who then refered the case to the RCMP. It appears like the RCMP knew about him and had their own investigation. He was finally arrested at a movie theatre while recording the movies "How to Eat Fried Worms" and "Invincible.”. A month later he was arrested again outside another movie theatre.

In December of 2007 it was reported that an arrest warrant was issued for Adam as he never made it to his court appearance. Piracyisacrime.org is able to confirm that the warrant has since been lifted and he is due back in court later this year.

Geremi Adam was charged with two counts of Copyright Act of knowingly distributing copyrighted material.

None of the allegations against Adam have been proven in court as of this article.

Brian Verhoeven by all accounts was a great business man. He sold movies on websites, local swap meets, and at his retail store. Its very hard to run any kind of a retail store, especially alone. Brian though had some secret help, warez. Brian sold approximately 525 pirated dvd’s each month for 14 months. According to court documents, he also burned approximately 10 % of everything he downloaded from the Wastedtime affil ftp sites (like CHUD, HS, and AKS) and other ftp sites he had access to.

Brian was known as “bastard”, “bmv” and “bmvtoys” on irc. Nobody would have suspected that somebody in the “warez scene”, especially in what is arguably one of the better groups of its time would be involved with selling, but court documents say that this is in fact what happened.

Wastedtime was made famous by their “screener” releases. Their “screeners” weren’t actually Oscar screeners like everybody thought. Brian would get movies from his sources at lodgenet and other hotel type PPV companies according to court documents and then release them online. 

While Wastedtime was active, it released about 55 movie (about 3 releases a month for the time they were around.)

Verhoeven pled guilty to two counts in San Jose: one count in the Northern District of California for committing Copyright Infringement By Electronic Means, and one count in the Northern District of Illinois for Copyright Infringement, He was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison, 2 years probation, $ 145,218.00 restitution.

Brian was released from prison on September 26th, 2008 after serving his jail term.

Last but not least we have Moises Nunez, aka OTR,Cartel and marvel,  a member of the infamous group Centropy, Paranoid (ps2 group), and PEEPSHOW. Court documents show that Mr. Nunez sold pirated copies of movies to others for $3.00 according to a  sealedPSR report.

Moises was guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Copyright Infringement,  and Criminal Copyright Infringement by Electronic Means, Aiding and Abetting. He was sentenced to 3 years probation, 10 months home confinement,  $ 34,615.34 restitution.

While Geremi Adam, Brian Verhoeven, and Moises Nunez might have sold pirated movies and software, it is important to understand that they weren’t in fact “busted” because of it. Brian Verhoeven  and Moises Nunez were part of Operation Site down and would have been charged regardless of the selling of software, and our Canadian friend was under investigation for some time anyways for recording movies in movie theatres.