The United States Department of Justice has recently raided the homes of five people who it suspected to be involved in pirate Peer to Peer (P2P) operations. One Internet Service Provider (ISP) was also raided.
The raids were aimed at those people who were suspected to be involved in the running of the peer to peer hubs which form the backbone of P2P networks based around the Direct Connect software. Direct Connect hubs are not widely used in the public domain, and are more frequently used by underground groups where membership is required to join. Often a user is required to share a large part of their file collection, upwards of 100 gigabytes, before being allowed to use the network.
The network being targeted in this instance was one belonging to a pirate group known as The Underground Network, which is suspected to have members numbering in the thousands. However, only a few of these people will have known about the locations of the hubs and who ran them.
Attorney General John Ashcroft made the following statement after the raids:
Today's actions send an important message to those who steal over the Internet. When online thieves illegally distribute copyrighted programs and products, they put the livelihoods of millions of hard-working Americans at risk and damage our economy. The execution of today's warrants disrupted an extensive peer-to-peer network suspected of enabling users to traffic illegally in music, films, software and published works. The Department of Justice is committed to enforcing intellectual property laws, and we will pursue those who steal copyrighted materials even when they try to hide behind the false anonymity of peer-to-peer networks.
This is certainly a heads up to those pirates who thought that by not participating in more commonly known public networks such as Kazaa that they may be able to stay safe of the law. This is clearly no longer the case, and the relevant law authorities are starting to clamp down. At the end of the day, sharing of copyrighted material is illegal and in the US at least, the penalties for offenders are severe.
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