This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Digital Legal
US man gets three years jail time for running piracy site
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 18 November 2015
A man has been jailed for three years for running a US-based piracy website called RockDizMusic.com, which distributed millions of tracks without permission from copyright owners, including pre-release music.
Rocky P Ouprasith will also have to serve two years on supervised release, forfeit just over $50,000 and make a restitution payment of over $45,000, after pleading guilty to criminal copyright infringement in relation to his former venture.
RockDizMusic.com, which paid affiliates to upload content, was shut down by the authorities just over a year ago. The Recording Industry Association Of America reckoned that, during its three years online, RockDizMusic.com became the second largest online music piracy operation in the US. Although Ouprasith was based in North Carolina, his site was hosted in France and Canada, while content files were stored on servers in Russia, France and the Netherlands.
Music rights owners will likely welcome the custodial sentence. Some record industry leaders have been calling for the operators of prolific online piracy operations to receive sentences more in line with those that people who run bootleg CD factories often face.
Meanwhile Dana J Boente, US Attorney for the Eastern District Of Virginia, whose office announced the sentence, told reporters: “Ouprasith operated the second largest online file-sharing site in the United States, averaging nearly 4.5 million visits per month and resulting in an estimated collective loss of more than $10 million per month to the rightful owners”.
Commenting on the sentence itself, he continued: “I believe this sentence reflects the seriousness of the crime and will promote greater respect for the law and property rights of others. I want to thank my prosecutors and our investigative partners for their outstanding work in this case”.
