u.s. attorney

Two members of piracy group IMAGiNE get prison terms

Two members of a group that wanted to be known for being first to release the latest Hollywood films to the Web were sentenced to prison today, the U.S. government says.

Willie Lambert, 57, of Pittston, Pa., was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $449,514 in restitution, according to a press release from Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. MacBride is also the man who's pressing a separate criminal copyright case against MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom.

Sean Lovelady, a co-defendant from … Read more

U.S. Attorney: Biden hands-off in MegaUpload bust

Vice President Joe Biden did not orchestrate the criminal case against MegaUpload, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Kim DotCom, the founder of MegaUpload, a cloud storage service accused of trafficking in pirated materials, said this week that he has proof Biden ordered the prosecution against him and six other MegaUpload managers.

"There was no White House involvement in the decision to charge this case," the office of Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote in an brief e-mail to CNET. MacBride is the federal prosecutor who filed a criminal … Read more

U.S. says MegaUpload's hosting service is no innocent bystander

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--Managers at Carpathia Hosting should have known their MegaUpload gravy train would roar off the tracks one day, according to a lawyer representing the U.S. government.

Since January, when the U.S. Department of Justice filed criminal copyright charges against MegaUpload, one of the world's most popular cyberlocker services, the private firm that hosted MegaUpload's servers has preserved user data on its own dime. During a hearing yesterday in U.S. District Court to decide what to do with MegaUpload's user data, Carpathia's lawyer told the judge that the federal government should pick … Read more

U.S. calls blitz on alleged pirated-sports sites

With the Super Bowl less than a week away, U.S. law enforcement officials have seized the domain names of 10 sites accused of illegally streaming live sports events.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York said today that it worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to shut down such sites as Firstrow.net, HQ-Streams.com, Rojadirecta.com, HQ-Streams.net, Ilemi.com, and Iilemii.com. The seizures were made Tuesday.

The Department of Justice and ICE said that streaming live events without authorization is harmful to sports leagues and broadcasters.

"The illegal streaming of professional sporting events … Read more

Dozens charged in use of Zeus Trojan to steal $3 million

The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office in southern New York announced charges today against 37 people accused of being part of an international crime ring that stole $3 million from bank accounts by infecting computers with the Zeus Trojan and other malware.

Between federal and state charges, more than 60 people total are being charged in the operation, officials said.

Ten people were arrested today by federal and New York law enforcement officers and another 10 were previously arrested in the U.S. as part of a coordinated takedown, authorities said. Seventeen people are still being sought … Read more