DrinkorDie’s Griffith
p2pnet.net News:- Hew Raymond Griffiths of DrinkorDie fame is back in the nick.
He lives in Bateau Bay, New South Wales but the US is after Australia to hand him over because they say he had a major involvement in the famous DoD software group.
This, “alleged ringleader of a gang of Internet copyright pirates was back in jail last night after US authorities won the latest round in their battle to extradite him from Australia on multi-million dollar software piracy charges,” says The Register here.
Judge Peter Jacobson ruled magistrate Daniel Reiss was wrong to release him on bail in March: Reiss’s reasoning was incorrect in concluding that no extraditable offence had been committed.
The judgment is a setback for defence efforts to have Griffiths tried in Australia, but it doesn’t mark a definitive ruling, says the report.
“During the three years prior to its dismantlement by federal law enforcement in December 2001, the group is estimated to have caused the illegal reproduction and distribution of more than $50 million worth of pirated software, movies, games and music,” says the US Department of Justice here.
“Griffiths thought he was beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement,” said US attorney Paul McNulty last year.
To hear the federal government and piracy experts describe it, DrinkOrDie, “is the al-Qaida of Internet software theft,” says Farhad Manjoo in a Wired story here.
