Bandido (DrinkOrDie) Sentenced to 51 months in Jail

Bandido (Hew Raymond Griffiths) was sentenced to more than four years in a US jail today.

Griffiths was extradited from Australia to the US in February and the Judge took into account almost three years Griffiths had spent in Australian jail while fightingh US extradition order

The prosecution claims that he was the leader of DrinkOrDie, the world's largest international internet piracy group.

Griffiths, 44, ran the internet ring from his home in Bateau Bay, on the NSW central coast.

Griffiths was known by the screen name "Bandido", and as the leader of the warez group, DrinkOrDie. Apparently he was the mastermind behind the illegal reproduction and distribution of more than $US50 million ($A59.11 million) worth of pirated software, movies, games and music.

Arguably, the revenue actually lost by the software, music, and movie industries was probably considerably lower than $50 million. Many of those downloads were likely made by individuals who weren't looking to buy in the first place, and groups like the Business Software Alliance have been heavily criticized recently for their methodologies in calculating revenue losses due to piracy.

DrinkOrDie was founded in Russia in 1993 and offered people cracked versions of programs from Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, Symantec, Novell and many others.

"From his home in Australia, Griffiths became one of the most notorious leaders of the underground internet piracy community by orchestrating the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in copyrighted material," US Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said.

"The Justice Department is committed to protecting intellectual property rights, and will pursue those who commit such crimes beyond the borders of the United States where necessary."

DrinkOrDie specialised in cracking software codes and distributing the cracked versions over the Internet.