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A plea bargain is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or nolo contendere. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of the several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence.
Warez is a common computing and broader cultural term referring to pirated software that is distributed via the Internet. Warez is used most commonly as a noun, a plural form of ware, and is intended to be pronounced like the word wares. The circumvention of copy protection (cracking) is an essential step in generating warez, and based on this common mechanism, the software-focused definition has been extended to include other copyright-protected materials, including movies and games. The global array of warez groups has been referred to as "The Scene", deriving from its earlier description as "the warez scene". Distribution and trade of copyrighted works without payment of fees or royalties generally violates national and international copyright laws and agreements. The term warez covers supported as well as unsupported (abandonware) items, and legal prohibitions governing creation and distribution of warez cover both profit-driven and "enthusiast" generators and distributors of such items.
Operation Buccaneer is an "ongoing international copyright piracy investigation and prosecution" undertaken by the United States federal government. It was part of a crackdown divided into three parts: Operation Bandwidth, Operation Buccaneer and Digital Piratez.
Operation Fastlink is a coordination of four separate, simultaneous undercover investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Cyber Division, the Department of Justice, the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal Division and Interpol. The four different investigations have not been publicly enumerated, but the U.S. Department of Justice has said in at least one press release that "Operation Higher Education" is the largest component, with participation from twelve nations. Mention has also been made of an investigation into pre-release music groups led by FBI agents from the Washington Field Office. As of March 6, 2009, the FBI states that Operation Fastlink has yielded 60 convictions. The raids occurred in similar fashion to those from Operation Buccaneer and Operation Site Down. Other somewhat-related law enforcement actions include Operation Gridlock and Operation D-Elite.
Rabid Neurosis (RNS) was an MP3 warez release organization which was founded in 1996, following in the footsteps of Compress 'Da Audio (CDA), the first MP3 piracy group. In 1999, the group claimed to have released over 6,000 titles a year. RNS occasionally used the tagline "Rabid Neurosis - Spread The Epidemic." RNS were best known for releasing highly anticipated albums by hip hop, pop, rock and dance artists weeks and sometimes months before their official release date. RNS is known to have greatly contributed to the mp3 scene.
Pirates With Attitudes (PWA) was a major international warez release group between 1992 and 2000. The group was established by two former International Network of Crackers members known by the pseudonyms Orion and BarManager. PWA was also very well known during the tail end of the BBS-era for their development of modifications and enhancements ("mods") for the PCBoard BBS software.
Hew Raymond Griffiths has been accused by the United States of being a ring leader of DrinkOrDie or DOD, an underground software infringement network, using the online identity of "Bandido". Griffiths was living in Berkeley Vale in the Central Coast Region of NSW, Australia before he was placed on remand at Silverwater Correctional Centre. After fighting extradition for almost 3 years, Griffiths was finally extradited from Australia to the United States and on 20 February 2007, he appeared before Magistrate Judge Barry R. Portez of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. On 20 April, it was announced by the U.S. Department of Justice that Griffiths had entered a plea of guilty.
Kalisto is a console warez group established in March 1998, a subsidiary of Fairlight, which specializes in the release and distribution of PlayStation (PS1) and PlayStation 2 (PS2) ISO images, briefly moonlighting on the Dreamcast platform in mid to late 2000.
Operation D-Elite was an operation by agents of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency against leading members of EliteTorrents, a BitTorrent tracker site, resulting in five months of prison, five months of home arrest, and a $3,000 fine against Grant T. Stanley on October 17, 2006. Another administrator of the site, Scott McCausland, received the same sentence on December 19, 2006.
In 2002, the United States Department of Justice, under the Sherman Antitrust Act, began a probe into the activities of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) manufacturers in response to claims by US computer makers, including Dell and Gateway, that inflated DRAM pricing was causing lost profits and hindering their effectiveness in the marketplace.
Risciso was an online warez group, founded in approximately 1993, dedicated to distributing newly released copyrighted software, games and movies. The acronym "RISC" stood for Rise in Superior Couriering, and "ISO" referred to a file format commonly used for the storage and transfer of disc images although the group RISC and RiSCiSO were two completely separate groups. The organization operated until the Operation Site Down raids in the summer of 2005. American authorities are still searching for the organization's ring leader Sean Patrick O'Toole, after he failed to appear in an American court in February 2006. He placed a call to his friend and group leader Sandy Fury, wishing her a happy birthday and an apology and then disappeared at Heathrow Airport.
Operation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI. The operation resulted in convictions and imprisonment of a number of people, many of whom were members of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.
Sex, Money, Murder is a Blood street gang operating on the East Coast of the United States. It was formed in the Soundview section of The Bronx in the Soundview Houses, a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) development. It is one of the original sets (subgroups) of the United Blood Nation.
The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is a British organisation established in 1983 to protect and represent the interests of its members' intellectual property (IP). FACT also investigates fraud and cybercrime, and provides global due diligence services to support citizenship investment and trade, business, financial and legal compliance.
Operation Site Down is the umbrella name for a law enforcement initiative conducted by the United States' FBI and law enforcement agents from ten other countries which resulted in a raid on targets on June 29, 2005. Three separate undercover investigations were involved, based in Chicago, Charlotte and San Jose. The raid consisted of approximately 70 searches in the U.S. and approximately 20 others in ten other countries in an effort to disrupt and dismantle many of the leading Warez groups which distribute and trade in copyrighted software, movies, music and games on the Internet.
DrinkOrDie (DoD) was one of the most prestigious underground software piracy group and warez trading network during the 1990s. On 11 December 2001 a major law enforcement raid - known as Operation Buccaneer - forced it to close under criminal charges of infringement. DoD, as a rule, received no financial profit for their activities. The DoD network - which primarily consisted of university undergraduates - was also supported by software company employees, who leaked copies of software and other digital media. DoD was also actively involved in illicit file-trading with other networks.
Walter Kendall Myers is a former U.S. State Department employee who, with his wife, Gwendolyn, was arrested and indicted on June 4, 2009, on charges of spying for Cuba for nearly 30 years. He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to life imprisonment by a U.S. federal court in July 2010.
Operation Bid Rig was a long-term investigation into political corruption in New Jersey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 2002 to 2014.
NinjaVideo was a website created in February 2008 containing links to uploaded videos of TV shows, movies, and documentaries. Since June 30, 2010, the site has been unavailable, as a result of a multinational anti-piracy effort led by the US federal government. At the centre of the takedown, was the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initiative as Operation In Our Sites, citing that they were, "targeting pirate websites run by people who have no respect for creativity and innovation". Federal search warrants were executed at servers in the United States and the Netherlands. At the time of its seizure, the site was visited more than 6 million times a month.
Xiang Li is a Chinese computer hacker. He is serving a twelve-year sentence in federal prison in the United States.
References
- ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-11-04. Retrieved 2005-07-19.
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 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(June 2010) |
- Operation Safehaven, DOJ Operation Safe Haven page
- Federal Investigation Leads to Prosecution of Internet Software Pirates, press release by the US Department of Justice on Myers, Katz, Kapechuk, and Willsey pleas (October 2, 2003)
- Operation Safehaven: Ohio Man Pleads Guilty to Copyright Infringement, press release by the US Department of Justice on Singh plea (February 20, 2004)
- Federal Software Piracy Investigation Leads To Prosecution Of Portland Man, press release by the US Department of Justice on Brink plea (September 8, 2005)
- Operation Safehaven: Pennsylvania Woman Pleads Guilty to Federal Software Piracy Charges, press release by the US Department of Justice on Szoke plea (September 27, 2005)