Another Sentence Given in iMAGiNE BitTorrent Piracy Case

[Guest Ethan]

Another Sentence Given in iMAGiNE BitTorrent Piracy Case

23 months – that’s the federal jail time a fifth member of the BitTorrent piracy ring, iMAGiNE, was given recently after being charged with copyright infringement

Last December we reported the longest prison sentence given for file sharing offences to that date: 40 months in jail and a $15,000 fine to be paid to the MPAA for Gregory Cherwonik, one of the members of the BitTorrent release group “iMAGiNE”. Then in January, the leader of the group, Jeramiah Perkins, was given five years in jail for copyright infringement.

Now a fifth member of the group, Javier Ferrer, 41, received a 23-month sentence plus three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution.

IMAGiNE’s notoriety was pumped even more when Department of Justice called the group in a press release, “the premier to first release Internet copies of movies only showing in theaters.”

The BitTorrent ring was operated allegedly from September 2009 to September 2011, and the main infringing activity was making pirated “cam” copies of new movies showing in theaters which were then digitally improved and had audio edited separately.

There’s a number of specific films the group is charged with pirating including Avatar, The Men Who Stare At Goats and Clash of the Titans.