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UGA Employee Arrested for Extorting Money From File-Sharing Students

by Caleb Johnson on February 12, 2010 at 08:25 AM

In case you forgot, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is still dropping lawsuits on folks. Some of the easiest and most common targets of these copyright cases are college students. After all, those troublemakers are always trying to get something for nothing, right?

Well, one enterprising dumb University of Georgia employee recently decided he'd exploit students' fear of the RIAA. According to Torrent Freak, security analyst Dorin Lucian Dehelean told students he would make copyright infringement notices, which he delivered as part of his job, "go away," if they paid him money. It was a classic, if highly illegal, quid pro quo situation. When Dehelean tried to extort money from a broke female student, she contacted police. The cops went undercover and completed the transaction with Dehelean before busting him. Apparently, this unnamed female wasn't Dehelean's first victim, and UGA campus police are busy tracking down more leads in the case.

Here's what we don't understand: if this girl didn't have the money to pay for the music, movies, or whatever she was downloading, exactly how much did Dehelean expect to get paid? At best, he'd probably get a pack of Ramen noodles and enough crumpled cash to buy a six-pack. [From: Torrent Freak, via: Boing Boing]

Tags: copyright, dawgs, filesharing, illegal, music, riaa, top, uga, universityofgeorgia, web

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