Pirate Computers Seized By Penthouse.com

Penthouse's Website would like nothing more than to see online pirates walk the plank. And to prove it, they hit one pirate where it hurt - they got a federal search and seizure order and joined law enforcement in raiding and seizing computers owned by a New England Webmaster it accused of lifting content from Penthouse.com's members-only area for posting on Usenet Newsgroups.

Muad'Dib was raided April 20, with every last piece of computer equipment and storage capability seized and sealed, according to a Penthouse.com spokesman. The raid followed a three-month probe by Penthouse.com into copyright theft. Muad'Dib and Penthouse.com now have settled the case - or, at least, his portion of it. Penthouse.com said they found identities of other members of the newsgroup, though they haven't decided what action to take yet.

"For some months now we have seen tens of thousands of our images copied wholesale from our site and posted to the Usenet newsgroups by users operating under false e-mail addresses and identities," said Penthouse.com director Gerard Van der Leun. "The sheer scale of their activities and the clandestine manner in which they operated would leave no one in any doubt that their motives were malicious. Although we regret having to take such drastic actions as raids and seizures, we felt we had no choice."

Van der Leun said it became critical to protect Penthouse.com property in light of its being a pay site. "Unlike many adult sites, our images and material are exclusive to Penthouse.com," he said. "They can be seen nowhere else on the Web and are part of Penthouse's total inventory of over 150,000 images. They are our inventory as much as a bookstore's inventory is composed of the books on the shelves in the store. No business can tolerate or sustain this level of theft."

Van der Leun also said that, since the material is adult-oriented and thus for adults only, Penthouse.com could not tolerate the prospect of it getting into non-adult hands. "Once material is stolen from our site and posted to a global newsgroup we have no control whatsoever over who sees it," he said.

Penthouse.com said Muad'Dib bragged of having over 20,000 Penthouse images on his computer and had "the habit of filling requests for material from other members of the group; I felt we had no choice but to pursue this course of action."

Details of the settlement between Penthouse.com and Muad'Dib have not been disclosed yet.