BitTorrent Uploader Faces 5 Years

The United States Department of Justice said this week that a fifth defendant has plead guilty to copyright infringement stemming from the crackdown on the Elite Torrents BitTorrent network, which was illegally spreading music, movies and software.

24 year-old Sam Kuonen of Columbus, Ga., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement. He faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for July 16.

The first conviction related to the BitTorrent effort, dubbed "D-Elite" by authorities, came last October, when 23 year-old Grant Stanley from Virginia was sentenced to five months in jail and three years of supervised release. Stanely was an administrator for Elite Torrents.

Although Kuonen was not involved in the operation of the BitTorrent network, he was an "uploader" of copyrighted material. Kuonen supplied the first copy of movies and other illicit content to be shared with others. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) helped provide evidence in the case.

Elite Torrents was shut down by federal regulators in May 2005. At its peak, the network distributed more than 17,800 titles -- including movies, software, music and games -- which were downloaded over two million times. However, that hasn't stopped piracy on other BitTorrent networks.

Although its namesake company has made a push for legitimacy and launched a legal download service, the BitTorrent technology is currently used almost exclusively for the illegal distribution of copyrighted material by end users. Recent statistics have estimated that 33 percent of P2P traffic is attributable to BitTorrent.

BitTorrent itself is not the culprit, however. It is simply a communication protocol that facilitates efficient distribution of very large files. On the flipside, it is not uncommon for those particular files to be copyrighted music, movies or television shows. Still, it has found some legitimate uses - most notably helping to distribute Linux distributions from Red Hat and Mandriva, which are comprised of multiple 650MB CD images.