In two separate court cases that underscore the federal government's resolve to capture and prosecute those who illegally distribute copyright-protected digital materials online, students Jeffrey Lerman, 20, of the University of Maryland and Parvin Dhaliwal, 18, of the University of Arizona have pleaded guilty to charges of copyright violation.

Lerman was part of a global computer piracy ring that allegedly shuttled millions of dollars in computer games, movies, and software around the world through a coded system of web sites and chat rooms, the Associated Press (AP) reported March 8.

Lerman and two other men pleaded guilty in U.S. District court to federal copyright charges, reportedly becoming the first people convicted in what the U.S. Justice Department said was the largest-ever investigation into software piracy.

Their arrests came after FBI agents in New Haven spent more than a year looking into the underground "Warez" community on the internet.

"It's a competition of different groups racing to release pirated software over the internet," said Seth Kleinberg, a 26-year-old Los Angeles man who, with a high-school education and a home computer, reportedly cracked the computer industry's toughest copyright protections.

Kleinberg, who lives with his father, faces between five and six years in prison when he is sentenced in July. He pleaded guilty along with Lerman, who is from Long Island, and Albert Bryndza, 32, of New York.

The investigation, dubbed "Operation Higher Education," spanned across the United States and about a dozen foreign countries, prosecutors said.

Federal investigators have increasingly targeted computer pirates. In December, Jathan Desir, 26, of Iowa City, Iowa, was the first American convicted as part of "Operation Fastlink," an investigation that spanned across 27 states and 11 foreign countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Spain, and Great Britain. (See "FBI hits schools, colleges.")

"Operation Higher Education" appears to have built on that case. In November, Kenneth Doroshow, senior counsel in the U.S. Justice Department's computer crime division, described the probe to Korean officials and business leaders, saying it involved investigators in 12 nations.

The FBI recently built a state-of-the-art computer crimes facility in the New Haven field office to handle internet investigations. "Operation Higher Education" originated from this New Haven office, AP reported.

In a separate but possibly related case, University of Arizona student Dhaliwal is believed to be the first person in the country to be convicted of a crime under state laws for illegally downloading music and movies from the internet, prosecutors and activists say.

Dhaliwal pleaded guilty to possession of counterfeit marks, or unauthorized copies of intellectual property.