Operation D-Elite
Encyclopedia
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement against leading members of EliteTorrents, a BitTorrent tracker
BitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. It is also, in the absence of extensions to the original protocol, the only major critical point, as clients are required to communicate with the tracker to initiate downloads...
site, resulting in five months of prison, five months of home arrest, and a $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3,000 fine against Grant T. Stanley on October 17, 2006. Another administrator of the site, Scott McCausland, received the same sentence on December 19, 2006.
On May 25, 2005, authorities executed ten search warrant
Search warrant
A search warrant is a court order issued by a Magistrate, judge or Supreme Court Official that authorizes law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a crime and to confiscate evidence if it is found....
s across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and seized the EliteTorrents domain. Like previous actions against BitTorrent sites such as LokiTorrent
LokiTorrent
LokiTorrent was a BitTorrent indexing service operated by Edward Webber from 2004 until 2005. The domain name was originally registered on 24 February 2004....
, the authorities obtained server logs of people who had been downloading and uploading through the site's BitTorrent tracker. As of January 15, 2007, there has been no action taken against the vast majority of normal members on LokiTorrent or EliteTorrents.
Events leading to the takedown
EliteTorrents was singled out among the large number of Bittorrent sites because EliteTorrents released a Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the SithStar Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga and the third in terms of the series' internal chronology....
workprint
Workprint
A workprint is a rough version of a motion picture, used by the film editor during the editing process. Such copies generally contain original recorded sound that will later be re-dubbed, stock footage as placeholders for missing shots or special effects, and animation tests for in-production...
approximately six hours prior to the movie's theatrical release. This attracted the attention of the MPAA, which monitors BitTorrent sites. The MPAA began collecting information and pressuring the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
to take some form of action.
In addition to the Star Wars workprint, the owner of the EliteTorrents domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
lived in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, which made the site an easier target for US authorities. However, the site's server was located in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and the other BitTorrent trackers located on that server continued to operate.
When the site was first taken down, people who tried to access it were confronted by a notice, apparently created in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, which led the owners to announce that the site had been a victim of a DDoS attack or some other type of hoax. However, in the early hours of May 25, the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
and FBI announced that they had taken down the website.
People charged as a result
- Grant T. Stanley - Five months of jail time, five months of home arrest, and a $United States dollarThe United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3,000 fine was leveled on October 17, 2006. - Scott McCausland - Five months of jail time, five months of home arrest, and a $United States dollarThe United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3,000 fine was leveled on October 17, 2006. - An Duc Do known online as R313007 was a Drexel UniversityDrexel UniversityDrexel University is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees...
graduate. In 2005 he was arrested in connection with uploading Star Wars Episode IIIStar Wars Episode III: Revenge of the SithStar Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga and the third in terms of the series' internal chronology....
as part of Operation D-Elite Faced with the steep jail term An Duc Do plead guilty to conspiracy and copyright infringement. While Duc Do shared movies like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Flight of the Phoenix, and King Arthur from a computer server where 133,000 users had access to it he was not a high user. Floyd Miller, the prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia where Duc Do was charged said, “They [other Elite Torrent members] threatened to kick him out of the organization because he wasn’t uploading as much as some of the other pirates were doing,” As part of the guilty plea he was sentenced to 3 years probation, a $15,000 fine and 400 hours of community service.