Another founder of NinjaVideo pleads guilty to copyright infringement

Yesterday, Justin A. Dedemko, yet another co-founder of the video streaming and download site NinjaVideo.net pleaded guilty of conspiracy and copyright infringement before a U.S. District judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. The judge ruled Dedemko was responsible for locating and uploading unauthorized content to servers used by the NinjaVideo.net website and he was also involved in the marketing of the site to generate income for the illegal website. NinjaVideo generated $505,000 in income from internet advertising and visitor donations and Dedemko admitted he received $58,004 for his efforts.

Previously, we wrote about the fellow co-founder, Matthew Smith who also plead guilty to conspiracy and copyright infringement in September. Similar to Dedemko, Smith also faces a penalty of five years in prison. Smith enabled millions of visitors to illegally download infringing copies of movies and TV programs in high-quality formats.

NinjaVideo was seized during the (controversial) operation called “Operation In Our Sites.” The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wishes to protect consumers with this project, by tackling counterfeiting and illegal file sharing sites over the internet. During such an operation the ICE seizes domain names that contain sites where copyright protected content or counterfeited goods are illegally distributed. In this case, the authorities (ICE, the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and Homeland Security Investigations) also conducted a criminal investigation into the people involved.

Reference: Reuters