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Kim Dotcom: Are such Internet sensations pirates or hactivists?

Copyright law and its enforcement have dominated the news lately, first with the Internet blackout protests against SOPA, and more recently with the arrest of Kim Dotcom in New Zealand. Here are five international file-share players who have been targets of copyright enforcement.

NinjaVideo and Hana 'Phara' Beshara

  • By Arthur Bright Correspondent

Not all of the large-scale file-sharing sites are based outside of the US: Four of the five people charged in relation to movie-sharing website NinjaVideo were domestic. 

NinjaVideo, which was launched in early 2008, offered downloads of copyrighted movies, television shows, and software, earning some $500,000 in advertising and subscription fees over three years and serving a quarter million visitors a day at its peak.  It also developed what the American Prospect's Rob Fischer portrays as a thoughtful, intellectual community on the site, with chat forums, an artist's showcase, and enforced civility.  The community was shaped largely by site administrator and co-founder Hana "Phara" Beshara of New Jersey, who called it "my life's work."

But all that changed in June 2010, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers raided the homes of Ms. Beshara and several other US-based members of the NinjaVideo community, arresting them for criminal copyright infringement.  (One person charged, Zoi Mertzanis of Greece, is still at large.)  NinjaVideo was shut down, and the arrested members were indicted in federal court last September.  Soon afterward, co-founder Matthew David Howard Smith pleaded guilty, receiving 14 months in prison. 

Beshara pleaded guilty earlier this month, and was sentenced to 22 months in prison, 2 years of probation, 500 hours of community service, and to repay $210,000 to the MPAA.  The remaining accused are scheduled for trial in February.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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