"I got raided at 2:30 am this morning. Six Australian Federal Police agents came in...It was regarding my collection of 300 to 400 DivX dvdrip movies," wrote one an individual claiming to have been a subject of the raids, in an account posted on Slashdot.org. "They had FTP logs, asked me where most of it was."
"I think they thought I was a lot bigger player than I am - I just download it, I don't sell it, distribute it, crack or release it - [I] just burn it for my own archives. Hopefully that fact should keep me out of jail."
The raids are yet to result in any local arrests and both local and US-based agencies seem keen to disown the jurisdictional responsibility for prosecuting individuals targeted in the raids.
In an interview with ZDNet Australia last week, the AFP said: "With a view to prosecution it's up to US Customs". The Feds today said that charges may be made under US legislation or made under Australian legislation (Australian Copyright Act), depending on what the "ongoing investigation" uncovers.
"At the moment they have to go through the evidence," said the spokesperson.
However, when contacted today, spokesperson for US Customs, Kevin Bell, said it's up to the individual countries to bring charges and that it wouldn't be bringing anyone from overseas to the US to face charges.
"They may or may not be tried, it's up to the countries involved," he said.
Bell confirmed that none of the nine arrests that have been made internationally so far were in Australia.
NSW Council for Civil Liberties president, Cameron Murphy, said it doesn't seem appropriate for the AFP to seize computer equipment if US Customs - which led the investigation and requested the help of Australia - is not seeking prosecution.
However, if there has been a breach of an Australian law, the culprits should be prosecuted here, he added.
"If US Customs are not going to prosecute them and neither are the AFP, then I don't know why equipment has been seized, unless the problem is they don't have enough evidence to prosecute," Murphy said. However, the police shouldn't be acting against individuals unless there has been a clear breach of the law, he added.
The Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA), meanwhile, has praised the AFP raids and fended off criticism that the copyright disputes should be handled by civil rather than criminal legal codes.
"I can only say that it's well known that it's a multi-billion dollar industry...and serious criminality involved here," said BSAA, spokesperson, Jim Macnamara in an earlier interview.
Macnamara says that the groups targeted in the raids profit from piracy using password systems advertised surreptitiously on chat services and news groups. However US customs characterises the activity of the groups involved in their investigations differently.
"DrinkOrDie and other Warez groups steal software for the mere challenge and fun of it. Reputation is everything to them. Earning an online reputation as the fastest to steal, crack, and release high-quality, pirated software over the Internet is most important to them."
Electronic Frontiers Australia chairman, Kimberly Heitman says the methods employed by groups like the BSAA to calculate the cost of piracy produce figures that are "far-feteched".
"I would have grave doubts about the piracy statistics provided by the BSAA," he said. "They're predicated on the argument that every non-authorised software copy represents a lost sale".
The AFP said that "an amount of hardware and software" had been seized as a result of the raids, and confirmed that hard drive images had been sent to the US for investigation, but refused to reveal whether software duplication equipment has been uncovered.
Heitman says that police rarely seek criminal prosecution against 'warez' distributors.
"Often the participants are under the age of 18 and that complicates the prosecution process," he said adding that most activity involves unfair usage of the software rather than breaches of the copyright legislation.
"I think the ambition is to chill it. The object is to conduct a fairly spectacular raid and hold the individuals involved up for example."
"The policy is to seize computers but delay prosecution until such time as the computer equipment is out of date and the individuals involved have been inconvenienced"
"These sorts of things are quite common -- the police usually get involved when there's a commercial motive," he said.
