FBI jumps on pop warez sites
Found on The Inquirer on Thursday, 30 June 2005
The FBI has swooped on an alleged pirate ring 'top sites' and arrested a bloke who ran one of its servers.
Apparently the Feds had been posing for a considerable amount of time as server operators, inviting people to upload and download material.
According to Restless.ugtech.net an FBI spokesman said that once a good working relationship had been established with the pirates the trap had been set. Then all that remained to do was for the FBI to do was shut its trap.
If you ever downloaded from servers called called "Chud" and "Lad", which were run by a bloke called "Griffen", you might be wondering if you will get a knock on your door.
The question is if the download itself is illegal; although the media likes to mix this up, the upload is the problem. So if you only download via HTTP/FTP from a server, you might be safe. I'm not a lawyer though. What irks me is the fact that the Feds participated by offering a criminal option and then busting those who fell for it. In other countries, this is illegal.