What? Who goes to jail over copyright infringement?
> Statutory penalties are found at 18 U.S.C. § 2319. A defendant, convicted for the first time of violating 17 U.S.C. § 506(a) by the unauthorized reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, or 1 or more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than $2,500 can be imprisoned for up to 5 years and fined up to $250,000, or both. 18 U.S.C. §§ 2319(b), 3571(b)(3).
If you broaden it to include DMCA violations you could spend a lot of time in jail. It's even worse in some other countries.
With a typical torrenter, it would be straightforward to make some truly monumental penalties.
The reality is, they rarely care.
Granted, the motivation was the copyright infringement, but to do what they did they needed to dress it up.
And this is why it is correct to say that he was persecuted for copyright infringement. Noting that he wasn't charged with anything related to copyright doesn't change the story, it only makes it less agreeable.