Four plead guilty in US piracy case

Pirates smell porridge
By John Oates
Published Wednesday 1st March 2006 11:25 GMT

Four US citizens have pleaded guilty to piracy charges following an investigation by the Department of Justice.

Investigators from Operation Fastlink snared Derek Borchardt (21), Matthew Howard (24) and Aaron Jones (31). All three pleaded guilty of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement as part of the Apocalypse Crew which specialised in pre-release music. A fourth man, George Hayes (31) admitted one count of copyright infringement as a member of another pre-release group called Chromance, or CHR.

The four will be sentenced on 19 May 2006 - they face up to five years in prison and fines of $250,000.

Apocalypse Crew got hold of digital copies of tracks before they were commercially released and made them available on peer-to-peer networks.

Source and full story: theregister.com