US Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Massachusetts
April 7, 1994


				PRESS RELEASE


	BOSTON, MA ...A federal grand jury returned a felony indictment today 
charging an MIT student in a computer fraud scheme resulting in the piracy of 
an estimated million dollars in business and entertainment computer software.

	United States Attorney Donald K. Stern and FBI Special Agent In 
Charge Richard Swenson announced today that DAVID LAMACCHIA, age 20,
currently a junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was charged
in a one count felony indictment with conspiring to commit wire fraud.  The 
indictment charges that between November 21, 1993 and January 5, 1994
LAMACCHIA operated a computer bulletin board service that permitted users
to copy copyrighted business and entertainment software without paying to
purchase the software.  The bulletin board was operated without authorization 
on MIT computer work stations and was accessible to users worldwide over the
Internet, a collection of computer networks connecting educational, govern-
ment, and commercial sites around the world.  Losses from the illegal
distribution and pirating of the software are estimated to exceed a million
dollars.

US Attorney Stern stated, "The pirating of business and entertainment
software through clandestine computer bulletin boards is tremendously costly 
to software companies, and by extension to their employees and to the 
economy.  We need to respond to the culture that no one is hurt by these
thefts and that there is nothing wrong with pirating software."

Stern continued, "In this new electronic environment is has become 
increasingly difficult to protect intellectual property rights.  Therefore, 
the government views large scale cases of software piracy, whether for 
profit or not, as serious crimes and will devote such resources as are 
necessary to protect those rights."

The investigation leading to this indictment was conducted by special agents
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the cooperation of MIT.  The case
will be prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Jeanne M. Kempthorne, a member 
of Stern's Major Crimes Unit.