Illegal file-sharer gets hit with 5-year prison sentence

 

Convicted file-sharer Jeramiah Perkins has been handed the longest prison sentence even given in a U.S. file-sharing lawsuit: five years.

The 40-year-old man from Portsmouth, Va., was given the sentence today by U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen, according to Wired. During his lawsuit, Perkins pled guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement by file-sharing movies, music, games, and more on the Internet.

Perkins — a.k.a. Butch Perkins, Stash, and theestas — is said to have been the head of a group that went to theaters, camcorded the movies, recorded the audio, synched the files, and then distributed the product on the Internet. The group, known as IMAGiNE, became one of the most prolific piracy release groups in the world between 2009 and 2011, according to Wired.

“The conspirators informally identified themselves as the IMAGiNE Group and sought, among other things, to be the premier group to first release to the Internet copies of new motion pictures only showing in movie theaters,” IMAGiNE’s indictment (pdf) reads. “It was further a part of the conspiracy to use computer software to digitally refine and to edit the video and audio portions of a motion picture and to combine or synchronize the two components into audiovisual movie files.”

One of the goals of the group was to make movies available before the public release of DVDs, according to the indictment. IMAGiNE rented servers in France, Canada, and the U.S. and hosted several Web sites, such as “unleashthe.net.” The Web sites included member profiles, a torrent tracker, discussion forums, a message board, news, and rules. The group got money through donations and payments from people downloading the copyrighted works. Among the movies known to have been pirated by IMAGiNE were, “Friends With Benefits,” “Captain America: The First Avenger,” and “Avatar.”

Illegal file-sharer gets hit with 5-year prison sentence