DrinkOrDie Leader Gets Four Years
Source: Newsbytes
The ringleader of a software piracy group known as DrinkOrDie today was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for his role in a "warez" operation that caused millions of dollars in damages, federal prosecutors said.
In U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., John Sankus, Jr., 28, of Philadelphia, was handed a 46-month sentence on a single felony count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.
Sankus, who pleaded guilty to the charge on Feb. 22, is the second of eight DrinkOrDie associates to be sentenced. Former Symantec engineer Barry Erickson, 35, of Eugene, Ore., on May 2 was given a 33-month term after pleading guilty to conspiracy to violate copyright law.
Erickson provided the group with Symantec software - before its official release date - to be stripped of its copyright protections and sold illegally on the Internet. The sentences imposed on Sankus and Erickson are the longest ever given to Internet software pirates that belonged to an organized group, said Paul J. McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
