November 2019 – Page 13 – news.buyenne.com

Movie Pirate Pleads Guilty, Faces Five Years in Prison, Forfeits Millions of Dollars

A man who ran several US-based ‘pirate’ websites has pleaded guilty to one count each of criminal copyright infringement and tax evasion. Talon White, 29, faces up to five years in prison and must pay more than $4m in restitution to the MPAA and IRS, while forfeiting around $4.8m in cash, crypto, and property.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

In October 2013, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents received information from PayPal concerning two ‘pirate’ websites, Noobroom.com and Noobroom7.com.

For a fee, the sites allowed subscribers to stream movies and TV shows, which was of particular interest to the MPAA. Their investigation concluded that the platforms distributed works in breach of their members’ copyrights.

In July the following year, the MPAA sent a cease-and-desist notice to Noobroom but within days, the site shifted its users to a new site, SuperChillin.com. The MPAA determined that the platforms – plus another pair named as Movietv.co and SitPlay.com – were operated by Oregon resident Talon White.

With White under suspicion of copyright and money laundering offenses, last November a magistrate judge in Oregon approved a search and seizure warrant targeting millions in cash and cryptocurrency.

On Monday, the Department of Justice revealed that after netting more than $8 million from his piracy activities, Talon had pleaded guilty to one count each of criminal copyright infringement and tax evasion.

According to the Department of Justice, White underreported his income by more than $4.4 million from 2013 through 2017, resulting in a willful underpayment of $1.9 million in taxes.

The penalties faced by White are severe. On top of a potential five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years’ supervised release on each of the two charges, the financial implications are already massive.

White has entered into a plea agreement which will see him forfeit $3.9 million seized from his bank accounts, $35,000 in cash, cryptocurrency worth around $424,000, plus his home in Oregon, currently valued at $415,000.

On top, he must pay $669,557 in restitution to the MPAA and $3,392,708 in restitution, which includes penalties and interest, to the IRS.

White will be sentenced on February 21, 2020, before U.S. District Court Judge Ann L. Aiken. In the meantime, however, the case raises additional interest in at least two other directions.

A case revealed at the weekend in New Zealand appears to have some similarities with White’s. Both involve a pirate movie site in the US, both received a PayPal referral for suspicious activity, and both resulted in the seizure of large volumes of cash and cryptocurrency.

Finally, the involvement of the IRS in a criminal copyright infringement case raises questions about what lies ahead for Gears Reloaded founder Omar Carrasquillo, aka YouTube OMI IN A HELLCAT.

Last week, he reported that he’d been raided by several FBI officers and a single IRS agent who seized “pretty much everything”, including millions of dollars, a huge car collection, and a large collection of jewelry. Ever since he’s been posting videos on the topic, one of which included a brief glimpse of a purported search a seizure warrant issued by a court in Pennsylvania.

Carrasquillo insists that what he did in respect of IPTV isn’t a crime in the United States but concedes that he didn’t pay his taxes in a timely manner and he’s learned his lesson. He hopes that the money seized will cover his back taxes but still expects to spend some time in prison.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Daily Deals (11-26-2019)

With a list price of $200, the Nintendo Switch Light is a smaller, cheaper alternative to the original Switch, which sells for $100 more. It’s also designed to be used exclusively for portable gaming, since there’s no support for outputting…

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Massachusetts bill would block logging, let state forests keep their carbon

Massachusetts lawmakers consider protecting public forests to sequester carbon.

We're going to have to do more than just reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issued last year. Given our current emissions trajectory, we'll also have to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, there is not a proven industrial technique that can accomplish carbon removal on the scale required.

But the IPCC authors do point out a rather banal way to draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere: trees.

This year, Massachusetts lawmakers proposed novel legislation that would enlist all state forest lands in the fight against climate change by protecting them from commercial logging. The law would affect roughly 600,000 acres. If it passes, "Massachusetts would become a model for wildland protection and for using its public lands to maximize carbon storage and address the climate crisis," said Edward Faison, senior ecologist at Highstead, a New England-based ecological research organization.

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Virgin Galactic’s real goal may be point-to-point travel around Earth

“That world will be five to 10 years away.”

Nearly a month has passed since Virgin Galactic became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, opening trading at $11.75 a share. Since that time the stock has had a rough ride, falling to under $7.50 a share as of Tuesday morning and losing more than a third of its value under the SPCE symbol.

Although the offering provides investors a unique opportunity to purchase stock in a space-tourism company involved in human spaceflight, there are questions about the viability of Virgin Galactic's business model and ability to profitably send thousands of humans safely on suborbital space rides.

Point-to-point

However, the firm's new chairman, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, recently suggested that the company's long-term profitability may come more through travel than space tourism. At the Phocuswright travel industry conference last week, Palihapitiya spoke about his interest in point-to-point travel on Earth.

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Elektromobilität: Audi streicht 7.500 Stellen in Deutschland

Der Autohersteller Audi will fast 10.000 Stellen streichen. Nur jede fünfte davon wird für Bereiche wie Elektromobilität und Digitalisierung neu besetzt. (Audi, Technologie)

Kopfhörer: Sony ergänzt Lautstärkesteuerung bei drahtlosen ANC-Stöpseln

Einer unserer Kritikpunkte beim Test von Sonys WF-1000XM3 war, dass wir über die Sensorfelder an den Hörstöpseln zwar das Noise Cancelling an- und ausschalten sowie die Musik steuern können, nicht aber die Lautstärke. Dieses Manko beseitigt Sony nun mi…

Theatres of War angespielt: Star Citizen wird zu Battlefield mit Raumschiffen

Raumschiffe in der Luft, Rover und Infanterie am Boden: Was aussieht wie ein Zukunftsszenario in Battlefield ist ein neuer Modus in Star Citizen. Der macht schon jetzt Spaß: Wir traten zusammen mit ein paar Entwicklern gegen 20 andere Spieler an. Von O…

MediaTek Dimensity 1000 chip coming to premium devices in early 2020 (8-cores, 5G, and WiFi 6)

Taiwanese chip maker MediaTek’s processors are found in many cheap smartphones, laptops, and tablets. But the company’s new Dimensity 1000 System-on-a-Chip is very much aimed at high-end mobile devices. The processor is a 7nm octa-core processor with a whole bunch of the latest technologies including integrated support for 5G, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1+. It […]

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Bundesnetzagentur: Politische Vorgabe wollte überall in Deutschland 300 MBit/s

Ein Experte von der Bundenetzagentur hat am Dienstag in Stuttgart bei Nokia Details aus dem Vorfeld der vergangenen 5G-Auktion offengelegt und worüber insgeheim gestritten wurde. (Bundesnetzagentur, Nokia)

Apple und Google: Die wollen nicht nur spielen

Apple und Google haben Gaming für sich entdeckt. Und sie haben Geld, viel Geld. Wie, wo und was wir in Zukunft spielen, werden die Unternehmen entscheidend mitbestimmen. Von Eike Kühl (Spielestreaming, Google)