U.K. Pirate king faces 10 years in U.S. jail

Pirating irks companies more and more every year, and as awareness of it grows the penalties for it have become more severe. Now, a man originally from Britain has plead guilty in U.S. court to being the leader of DrinkOrDie, a well known large piracy ring. With this, he now faces up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. In a few months, the pirate king will find out what he will be facing. The reason this case is unique in particular is that Raymond Griffith was extradited from the U.K., making it one of the very rare times that someone has been sent to another country to face court for IP crimes. This has impacts on any Internet-connected country:

"Software pirates think they can evade U.S. copyright infringement laws by moving their operation outside the U.S.," says John Wolfe, director of Internet enforcement for the Business Software Alliance. The Griffiths extradition proves they can't, he says. "Pirates now know you can't run from U.S. copyright laws."
While it is unlikely he will receive the maximum sentence, it still goes to show how much more severely pirating is treated now than it was just a decade ago.