'Dancing Jesus' internet pirate jailed after costing music industry £240 Million

An internet pirate who cost the music industry up to £240 million has been jailed.

Kane Robinson illegally shared thousands of songs from some of the biggest artists in the world - making them free to visitors to his website.

Through his DancingJesus.com site, Robinson, 26, from North Shields, uploaded tracks by artists such as Adele, Jay-Z and Arctic Monkeys.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how occasionally music would be made available for free on the site, before the songs had been officially released.

The Newcastle Chronicle told how he built up a catalogue of around 250,000 songs and attracted 70 million visitors, who helped themselves to millions of free downloads.

Robinson and co-accused Richard Graham, 22, of Leicester, one of the main contributors to the website, were both just teenagers when they began illegally uploading music for others to have for free.

Robinson had tried to hide his identity online but was identified as being behind Dancing Jesus following an investigation by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), police and Homeland Security in the US.

Now the pair are both behind bars after they pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing infringing articles under the Copyright Act.

Prosecutor David Groome told the court the pirates posed a serious risk to the whole music industry.

Mr Groome said: “Dancing Jesus specialised in leaking copies of singles and albums prior to their official release date.

“By way of example, out of the best-selling 50 singles in 2010/11, 46 were first leaked to Dancing Jesus.”

Investigators found Dancing Jesus was being run via computer servers in Dallas, Texas, as was another similar website, Choonzm8.

There were suspicions Robinson was behind both outlets and in 2011 the US authorities were contacted in order to confirm who had been renting the servers.

Special Agent Henfling, of Homeland Security Investigations, became involved and court orders were obtaining requiring the owner of the server to identify who was running Dancing Jesus.

That information, as well as court orders obtained against Microsoft, revealed Robinson was behind both websites.

In September 2011 his home was searched, and items seized included 46,000 mp3 files.

Mr Groome said: “Upon analysis the Dancing Jesus forum was found to contain about 22,500 links posted by users.

“Links were to singles, albums and many were to every recording produced by a named artist.

“Accordingly, Dancing Jesus hosted links to more than a quarter of a million tracks, virtually every sound recording that had been released by the music industry during the life of the forum.”

The court heard what little money Robinson made from the illegal enterprise, which he ran from 2006 until 2011, was spent on the upkeep of the illegal site and his main motivation was the “kudos” of releasing music first.

Robinson admitted two offences under the Copyright Act and was jailed for 32 months.

Investigators found one of the most prolific posters of music was Graham. Using the aliases Tamzyn and Trix, he had uploaded 8,000 tracks on Dancing Jesus, two-thirds of which were pre-release.

Graham admitted similar offences to Robinson and was jailed for 21 months.

Judge Deborah Sherwin told them: “It is easy to think of activities such as this as victimless crime but I have seen evidence that it is far from being the case.

“The music industry in the UK loses around a billion pounds per annum. This affects the industry’s ability to find and promote new artists.

“Existing artists are deprived or royalties and while some may be wealthy and successful, many are not so and struggle to earn a living.”

Defence barristers said both men are now hard working at legitimate jobs and were very young during the illegal Internet activities.

After the case, David Wood, Director of BPI’s Copyright Protection Unit, said: “Today’s sentencing sends a clear message to the operators and users of illegal music sites that online piracy is a criminal activity that will not be tolerated by law enforcement in the UK or overseas.

“Piracy – particularly pre-release – can make or break an artist’s career, and can determine whether a record label is able to invest in that crucial second or third album.”

In 2010, more than 1 billion tracks were illegally downloaded in the UK, with a retail value of almost £1 billion.

The BPI said the site welcomed more than 70 million user visits during its life span. If just 50% resulted in a single track download, music valued at over £35m would have been obtained. If 50% of user visits resulted in an album download, that figure rises to £242m.

“The site was claimed by its users to be unrivalled in this regard and as such it was perceived as presenting a real and serious threat to the economic interests of the whole music industry.