Man Gets 5 Years for Blowing Up Toilet

A man once called one of the Internet's most notorious pirates of music and movies was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for plowing up a portable toilet, prosecutors said.

Bruce Forest, 50, was charged last year with a series of toilet explosions in 2005 and 2006. But under a plea agreement, Forest admitted only to blowing up one toilet in Weston in February 2006. No one was injured in any of the blasts.

His defense attorney and his wife said the incident was completely out of character for Forest. They said he had been addicted to painkillers initially taken for migraine headaches caused by a severe fall about 10 years ago. A prescribed drug intended to wean him off the painkillers caused psychotic episodes, they said.

Forest was an Internet pirate in the late 1990s, said J.D. Lasica, a San Francisco writer who dubbed Forest "Prince of the Darknet" in his 2005 book "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation."

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Music piracy crackdown nets college kids

At first, Sarah Barg thought the e-mail was a scam. Some group called theRecording Industry Association of America was accusing the University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore of illegally downloading 381 songs using the school's computer network and a program called Ares.

The letter said she might be sued but offered her the chance to settle out of court.

Barg couldn't imagine anyone expected her to pay $3,000 — $7.87 per song — for some 1980s ballads and Spice Girls tunes she downloaded for laughs in her dorm room. Besides, the 20-year-old had friends who had downloaded thousands of songs without repercussion.

"Obviously I knew it was illegal, but no one got in trouble for it," Barg said.

But Barg's perspective changed quickly that Thursday in March, when she called student legal services and found out the e-mail was no joke and that she had a pricey decision to make.

Barg is one of 61 students at UNL and hundreds at more than 60 college campuses across the country who have received letters from the recording industry group, threatening a lawsuit if they don't settle out of court.

"Any student on any campus in the country who is illegally downloading music may receive one of these letters in the coming months," said Jenni Engebretsen, an RIAA spokeswoman.

Barg's parents paid the $3,000 settlement. Without their help, "I don't know what I would have done. I'm only 20 years old," she said.

At least 500 university students nationwide have paid settlements to avoid being sued, Engebretsen said. Students who don't take the offer face lawsuits — and minimum damages of $750 for each copyrighted recording shared if they lose.

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