Large and in Charge

Acting on information provided by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) storm-troopers (agents, actually) executed 10 search warrants in nine states yesterday against administrators and users of Elitetorrents.org, BitTorrent's members-only aggregator hosted in Holland, reports Wired. The feds also redirected site visitors to a government-hosted page announcing that those "involved in the operation and use of the Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement." The raids occurred as BitTorrent launched a search engine for finding and cataloging files available for download through its peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol.

Code-named "Operation D-Elite," the operation targeted site administrators and uploaders selected for high-volume sharing of copyrighted material. The Justice Department did not say how those individuals were targeted, but ICE credited the MPAA, which had information on server logs from the site.

The raids came within a week MPAA's public condemnation of BitTorrent for the massive distribution of pirated copies of Revenge of the Sith. The Star Wars prequel was available through Elitetorrents.org more than six hours before it was first shown in theaters and within a day was downloaded more than 10,000 times, according to the government.

Another 10 suspects outside the United States remain under investigation. ICE, the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, spearheaded the investigation because of its international scope.