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First it was TorrentSpy and now this.

A US court has convicted Barry Gitarts, from Brooklyn, New York of music piracy who now faces a fine of $250,000 and five years in jail. He is 25 years old.

The court in Eastern District of Virginia found Gitarts guilty of criminal copyright infringement. According to the details he was a significant member of internet music piracy group aPOCALYPSE pRODUCTION cREW (aPC) from June 2003 to April 2004.

Using the alias ‘Dextro’, Gitarts paid for and administered a server in Texas used by aPC members to upload and download hundreds of thousands of copies of pirated music, movies, software and video games.

aPC was a major MP3 warez organization founded by two individuals known under the pseudonyms acid^rain and Viper in May of 1997. aPC operated well into the mid 2000s and was subject to raid during Operation Fastlink — a coordination of four separate simultaneous undercover investigations by the FBI, the FBI Cyber Division, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal Division and Interpol.

The evidence showed that Gitarts received payment from the leader of APC. US attorney Chuck Rosenberg said:

Music piracy is stealing and, unless you want to end up in a federal prison, do not do it.

To date, there have been 15 criminal convictions of APC members and 56 convictions in Operation FastLink.