College Student Busted for Internet Piracy
A twenty-two-year-old college student is the latest casualty in the
escalating war over MP3s. On Friday, Aug. 20, Jeffrey Gerard Levy
pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore., to
violating the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act. He is the first
person to be convicted under the Act, which President Clinton
signed into law in 1997. The NET Act protects against the free
distribution of copyrighted material without the copyright owner’s
permission.
As a college senior, Levy ran a Web site out of his Eugene
apartment that made available thousands of copyrighted songs, film
clips and video games. He offered pirated works of everyone from
the Beatles to Nirvana on his high-volume site, which has since
been dismantled. He faces up to three years in jail and a fine of
$250,000.
The Justice Department hopes that this conviction will prevent
future piracy. “We hope it will fire a shot across the bow and send
a very strong message to many audiences, including young people,
that Internet-facilitated piracy is theft, pure and simple,” said
Roslyn Mazer, Special Counsel for Intellectual Property in the
Criminal Division.
Levy is set for sentencing on Nov. 2.