Andre Yoskowitz
10 Sep 2008 14:02
After being found guilty in June of criminal copyright infringement for his role as an administrator for the now-defunct torrent site EliteTorrents, Daniel Dove now faces 18 months in prison after being sentenced by the Justice Department this morning.
In addition to his prison time, Dove was also sentenced to three years of supervised released and a $20,000 USD fine. The sentencing was considerably light considering he faced up to 10 years and a $150,000 USD fine.
The sentencing concludes the investigation into the EliteTorrents administrators who were held responsible for the leak of a workprint of the blockbuster hit "Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith" two days before it hit theaters.
The government described Dove as "an administrator of a small but crucial group of Elite Torrents members known as 'Uploaders,' who were responsible for supplying pirated content to the group."
Before the site was shut down by authorities in 2005, it was one of, if not the most popular torrent trackers in the US.
Dove was the last of eight EliteTorrents administrators and uploaders to be sentenced and was the only one who pleaded not guilty. The others who pleaded guilty received smaller 5 month sentences.