Apocalypse Production Crew Honcho Convicted Of Massive Online Piracy
Barry Gitarts, a 25 year-old Brooklyn, NY man has been convicted of pirating movies, music and videogames and faces up to five years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine, the Justice Department revealed. Gitarts was a significant member of the Internet music piracy group Apocalypse Production Crew, a “release group” that specializes in being one of the first online sources of fresh pirated content.
Records and testimony introduced at trial showed that Gitarts, using the alias Dextro, paid for and administered a computer server located in Texas that Apocalypse Production Crew members used to upload and download hundreds of thousands of copies of pirated music, movies, software and videogames.
According to the Justice Dept., “Release groups are the original sources for a majority of the pirated works distributed and downloaded via the Internet. Once a group prepares a stolen work for distribution, the material is distributed in minutes to secure computer servers throughout the world.”
