Three Sydney men have pleaded guilty to the world’s first criminal charges relating to online music piracy, but the recording industry faces a hard task in winning a jail term that would deter others.
The three have not been accused of making a profit from their crime, so the record companies want their claimed economic losses taken into account at sentencing.
Tommy Le, 19, Peter Tran, 20, and Charles Kok Hau Ng, 20, will be sentenced later this year for infringing the copyright of music giants Universal Music, Sony, Warner, BMG , EMI and Festival Mushroom Records. They face up to five years’ jail and/or $60,500 in fines.
The trio distributed pirated music allegedly worth $60 million from a series of websites known as “MP3 WMA land”. The police allege that Le, operating under the name of “DJ Ace”, provided pirated digital music to the sites administered by Ng and Tran, but the music was distributed online free of charge.
Three Men Become First Online Music Criminals
- September 2, 2003 | No Comments
