Two individuals accused of Android piracy have recently signed plea agreements with the American government, while at least one other defendant is not going to give up. The former owner of Applanet hired a civil rights lawyer and is planning on the offensive against the US Department of Justice.
Almost two years ago, the FBI has cooperated with French and Dutch police to take down applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com, three websites which were offering Android applications outside Google Play.

The move was referred to as ground-breaking, as the police seized the domains of the alternative stores and put up the well-known FBI banners to inform people of their fate. In addition, the authorities blamed the websites for millions of dollars in losses to software producers.

The sites were seized in August 2012, but the US government only managed to provide a significant update a week ago. The Department of Justice explained that 2 of the 3 operators of the Appbucket portal had signed a plea deal with the authorities and will face sentencing in June 2014. However, the former admin of Applanet refused to choose his way and give in.

His attorney Rain Minns admitted that it is very unfortunate that young people targeted by the government’s dragnet are being forced to plead guilty, especially those who care about free and open global access to publicly available data without even earning any significant income. The attorney added that the operator’s legal team had received a significant boost. For example, it has been joined by Attorney Antonio Ponvert III, an accomplished and much-feared civil rights lawyer who has been enjoying “kicking the government’s ass” for over two decades now. His task is to take the offense in this case by focusing on the authorities’ violation of state and federal civil rights legislation. Antonio will also take into account the First Amendment free speech implications of the tactics used by the police, and the substantial harm that the Department of Justice has inflicted (and will continue to inflict) on the site operator. The lawyers believe that a damages case is coming down the pike if an indictment is forthcoming.

The former Applanet operator named Aaron confirmed that while it is a pity that the Appbucket operators were “forced to buckle under the heavy-handed threats of the government”, he still wishes them luck while looking forward to his own court hearing.

According to the attorneys Rain Minns and Antonio Ponvert, there seems to be plenty of appetite for a fight if the US authorities decide to go the whole way against the site operator. And if the government does, the civil rights lawyers are confident they will prevail, claiming that it is not even close to a fair fight anymore, and that they are looking forward to the battle.