Owner Of 'Massive' Software Piracy Site Gets 2 Years In PrisonOwner Of 'Massive' Software Piracy Site Gets 2 Years In Prison

The owner of what the government calls a "massive for-profit software piracy" Web site was sentenced in federal court late last week to two years in federal prison.

Ronnie A. Knott, 36, of Salt Lake City, was convicted of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia on April 20. His prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release, according to a release from the Department of Justice.

Beginning no later than early 2005 and continuing until its shutdown by the FBI in May 2006, Knott operated a business called both Smart PC and CDBackups. The government said the businesses provided paid "subscribers" access to pirated copies of software products that were copyrighted by companies like Adobe Systems, Apple, Microsoft, and Symantec.

The government's release noted that subscribers paid as much as $125 per month in order to gain unlimited access to all the software on the site, which could be download freely. A DoJ document showed that Knott admitted that he received approximately $20,000 in "subscription fees" for providing this access.

Knott was apprehended after an undercover FBI agent subscribed to Knott's service and downloaded more than $30,000 worth of pirated software. Using evidence of the FBI's undercover purchases as probable cause, Knott's operation was taken down in May 2006, the release noted. Further investigation established that Knott had illegally reproduced copyrighted software with a retail value of nearly $2.5 million.

The Business Software Alliance and the Software & Information Industry Association assisted the government with its investigation.