Entertainment Legal News

Two Defendants Plead Guilty Ininternet Music Piracy Crackdown

Two defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully reproduce and distribute copyrighted music over the Internet, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of the Eastern District of Virginia announced today.

Arthur Gomez, 25, of La Habra, Calif., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema. His sentencing has been scheduled for July 13, 2007 at 9:00 a.m. Sergey Ribiakost, 21, of Bardonia, N.Y., pleaded guilty on April 17, 2007, before U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris. His sentencing is scheduled for July 10, 2007, at 1:00 p.m. Both defendantspleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and face up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release.

Gomez and Ribiakost were leading members in the illegal software, game, movie and music trade online, commonly referred to as the warez scene. The defendants were active members of the pre-release music group Apocalypse Crew (APC), one of a handful of organized online criminal groups that acted as “first-providers” of much of the pirated music available on the Internet. Read more at cybercrime.gov.

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	Did You Know?
	The title of Option is a defined factor When a creative entity, such as producer, artist, or studio, discovers a property and evaluates the rights status, they will, in most cases, attempt to negotiate an 'option' for the rights. An option is the right to acquire ownership of an intellectual property for a pre-determined amount of time. Size of the option payment often determines length of the agreement as well as how many forms of the rights will be included in the deal. While most option payments are subject to negotiation, script deals often work out to an even percentage of the purchase price.