Feds Score First Criminal Conviction in Peer-to-Peer   1/20/2005 - 1,228 views, 1 Comment

Summary: William R. Trowbridge, of New York, and Michael Chicoine, of Texas, will be going from file sharing to cell sharing following their guilty pleas to Federal charges of using a peer-to-peer network. Oops, Aunty means of violating copyrights on peer-to-peer networks. ...

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William R. Trowbridge, of New York, and Michael Chicoine, of Texas, will be going from file sharing to cell sharing following their guilty pleas to Federal charges of using a peer-to-peer network. Oops, Aunty means of violating copyrights on peer-to-peer networks. Because of course just using a peer-to-peer network is not illegal, so long as you use it for legal purposes.

According to the Justice Department, Trowbridge and Chicoine were each part of the Underground Network, a file-sharing community in which each of the defendants alledgedly operated hubs.

The charges, resulting from an undercover sting operation which was, according to at least one account, “prompted in part by pressure from the major movie studios and record companies”, carry fines of up to $250,000 and penalties of up to 5 years in Federal prison.

Scheduled to be sentenced on April 29th, neither man could be reached for comment. They were too busy downloading music to carry them through those lonely times in prison.

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1 Comment »

  1. You are a mother fucker for leaving the comments that you just left about MC. He wasn’t even sharing any files…ever! He merely had an open chat room (with about 80 people max) that did what they wanted to do. I understand that this is bad, but you talk about the smallest fish that they could have targeted. Achenon’s Alley was a very small time operation and did not have the means to perform large file sharing processes. I know first hand of this as I was one of the people involved. I really don’t appreciate your Kich comments about cell sharing and too busy to be reached for comment becasue they were downloading music. You are very ignorant and you should really stay that way.

    Fucker!

    Comment by Fuck You — 4/13/2007 @ 9:26 am

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