News

The IPR Center Report

Partners in Action

Volume 1: No. 1 • November 2008

Federal Jury Convicts Web Site Administrator

On June 27, 2008, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich announced that a federal jury in Big Stone Gap, Va., convicted Daniel Dove, 26, formerly of Clintwood, Va., on one count each of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement. Dove faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Dove was an administrator for EliteTorrents.org, an Internet piracy site that, until May 25, 2005, was a source of infringing copyrighted works, specifically pre-release movies. Elite Torrents, a group that attracted more than 125,000 members and facilitated the illegal distribution of approximately 700 movies, which were downloaded more than 1.1 million times, used BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to distribute pirated works to their members around the world.

The evidence showed that Dove recruited members who had very high-speed internet connections, to become “Uploaders,” and that Dove operated a high-speed server, which he used to distribute pirated content to these “Uploaders.” Massive amounts of a wide variety of high-value software, video games and music were made available to members of the Elite Torrents group.

Dove’s conviction is notable because it is the first criminal conviction after a jury trial for P2P copyright infringement, and the eighth conviction resulting from Operation D-Elite. D-Elite was a Federal Bureau of Investigation Undercover Operation that sought to crack down the illegal distribution of copyrighted movies, software, games and music over P2P networks employing the BitTorrent file distribution technology and targeted leading members of the Elite Torrents.