Computer-Game Counterfeiter Sentenced

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A man convicted of selling counterfeit video games on eBay was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, he lost his house, car, computers and almost $370,000 in cash. Heh, how's that counterfeiting thing working for you now mister?

The sentence includes two years of probation including one year of home confinement after prison, 416 hours of community service and a yet-to-be determined restitution amount. Bi also forfeited $367,669 in cash, representing the proceeds of the crimes, as well as his house, a car and computer and electronic equipment.
 
pwnt much? I wonder if it's the same guy that sold me a counterfeit copy of Bridge Commander. The game worked wonderfully, but it was obviously an unauthorized copy; the box art was low resolution and scaled poorly; the artwork printed on the CD was the same low resolution, poor quality, incorrectly scaled artwork; the content on the CD included the base game AND a community mod pack.

In reported the dude to ebay, Activision, and the modders, but the only group that responded with something other than a canned response was the modders. Game works fine though. :)
 
this is a part of the laws-we-don't-like that any avid ip copier should be able to get behind: redistribution for profit - giddyup!
 
people like him bringing higher prices to us , cause of loss company sales . . . hope he enjoys his stay at the gray bar hotel :D
 
While I'm not going to say I've never pirated a game (haven't done it in a long time though) I'm glad to see stories like this. Pirating the odd game for personal use but making doing it for profit when you have done nothing to earn that money is quite another.
 
While I'm not going to say I've never pirated a game (haven't done it in a long time though) I'm glad to see stories like this. Pirating the odd game for personal use but making doing it for profit when you have done nothing to earn that money is quite another.

The best cure for piracy is to get everyone addicted to WoW.
 
These are the people the publishers should really be targeting. Domestic and overseas. Leave the little casual download for personal use only people alone.
 
"A good person at his core"? My ass. The guy is a thief...plain and simple. I wonder how many people were stuck with a copy of game that they though was legit? And, now it doesn't work.

I bet this wasn't the only game/software the dude was pirating. This was probably the only one the feds could make the charges stick.

+1 to going after idiots like this. And, leave the little guy alone. Casual downloads aren't that big of deal (IMO). While scamming thousands of others is.
 
"A good person at his core"? My ass. The guy is a thief...plain and simple. I wonder how many people were stuck with a copy of game that they though was legit? And, now it doesn't work.

I bet this wasn't the only game/software the dude was pirating. This was probably the only one the feds could make the charges stick.

+1 to going after idiots like this. And, leave the little guy alone. Casual downloads aren't that big of deal (IMO). While scamming thousands of others is.

pretty much my stance. selling copied products isn't cool..if you are gonna download do it for personal use....or at least share for free.
 
okay. he was buying one copy then copying it a bunch of times, and selling the counterfeit copies for half the price, and offering copies of the games for download from his website.

The restitution goes to the software companies, as it doesn't seem he was screwing people over, reality is he was giving people a "too good to be true" kind of deal.

I don't see it as being nearly as different as Warez as everyone else is making it out to be, I think he got kinda screwed over, he surrendered the money he made. This guy doesn't belong in prison.
 
I agree that people who profit from someone else's work should be made to pay fines and restitution, but no one should be sent to prison from something like this. There's no reason for this guy to be locked up with hardcore murderers, rapists, armed robbers, etc. He's probably going to come out of prison and go right back to doing the same thing, if not something even worse.
 
pwnt much? I wonder if it's the same guy that sold me a counterfeit copy of Bridge Commander. The game worked wonderfully, but it was obviously an unauthorized copy; the box art was low resolution and scaled poorly; the artwork printed on the CD was the same low resolution, poor quality, incorrectly scaled artwork; the content on the CD included the base game AND a community mod pack.

In reported the dude to ebay, Activision, and the modders, but the only group that responded with something other than a canned response was the modders. Game works fine though. :)

Why would you report him if your stuff worked?

Clearly you used it anyways, kind of a douche move to report him and use it anyways.
 
He should be locked up. 2.5 years is reasonable and he is probably on the list for early release if the prison is full. If he only had to pay restitution it would just be a reset of the financial gains he made and no punishment at all. How would this be a deterrent for committing crimes? Madoff just stole money too, should he just repay and serve no jail time.

2.5 years in minimum security prison fits the crime.
 
He should be locked up. 2.5 years is reasonable and he is probably on the list for early release if the prison is full. If he only had to pay restitution it would just be a reset of the financial gains he made and no punishment at all. How would this be a deterrent for committing crimes? Madoff just stole money too, should he just repay and serve no jail time.

2.5 years in minimum security prison fits the crime.

Harsher sentences are not a deterrent, and even without prison time, he would still have a criminal record.
 
He should be locked up. 2.5 years is reasonable and he is probably on the list for early release if the prison is full. If he only had to pay restitution it would just be a reset of the financial gains he made and no punishment at all. How would this be a deterrent for committing crimes? Madoff just stole money too, should he just repay and serve no jail time.

2.5 years in minimum security prison fits the crime.

he lost everything he owned, bullshit he didn't lose enough to have it be a deterrent.

the guy shouldn't go to prison too, and Madoff stole from individuals, his crimes aren't comparable to this guy.
 
try to get a job with a felony record, this dudes life is over, screw him going to jail and costing more money.
 
I agree with all of you people that do this shit for profit deserve to be booked.

What I don't understand is you know what you are doing is illegal you will get caught eventually take some of that money and move it out of the country, Stay in an apartment don't buy a house and use public transit. Then when you get booked there is no car or house to take just the what you have on you. Then when you come out of jail get the fuck out of the country and go enjoy the money you stashed away.

Makes more sense than staying in the country to they take everything and can trace it all back to you!
 
Wonder how he will carry out the home confinement, you know, seeing as he no longer has a house to be confined to?
 
Am I the only one wondering if these "sales" get added in to the total amount of units sold for these games? Hell, even though people got a to good to be true deal, their money still ended up back in the pockets of the corporations.
 
I don't see how considering the corporation has no way of tracking these sales. And how is it the money gets back to the corporation looks like it when straight into that guys pocket. Then taken from him and given to the government to cover all the legal cost of booking this guy i'm sure there was an investigation,lawyers, court time etc.
 
I heard of some kids a few years back that was selling fake photoshop on ebay for buku bucks.... supposedly got caught obviously.

What a fucking retard anyways.... if I had $100,000 I would not be worrying at all about money, and with $300,000+ like this idiot had, I would easily not be working at all. That shit would be in the bank making money FOR ME! What an idiot, a very huge idiot.

I wonder if this was the guy on ebay that sold Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for $18 shipped (when it was $30+ when it came out). I know at least a few people bought that..... I wonder if this was him.

And about time the Crime Task Force actually appeared to have caught a criminal.... I reported an obvious scammed on ebay/paypal and they did ZERO, ZILCH, NOTHING even after my huge report with obvious details to the scam.
 
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the corps do have a way, the same way the police did to track this guy down and convict him. As for the money, i'm not sure how that works.
 
damn. they made an example of him.

usually, people can declare bankruptcy or some other shit, and keep some of their property.

but he lost everything and his pants.

at least OJ Simpson was still able to keep his mansion.

House arrest after prison ? What house?
 
I heard of some kids a few years back that was selling fake photoshop on ebay for buku bucks.... supposedly got caught obviously.

What a fucking retard anyways.... if I had $100,000 I would not be worrying at all about money, and with $300,000+ like this idiot had, I would easily not be working at all. That shit would be in the bank making money FOR ME! What an idiot, a very huge idiot.

I wonder if this was the guy on ebay that sold Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for $18 shipped (when it was $30+ when it came out). I know at least a few people bought that..... I wonder if this was him.

And about time the Crime Task Force actually appeared to have caught a criminal.... I reported an obvious scammed on ebay/paypal and they did ZERO, ZILCH, NOTHING even after my huge report with obvious details to the scam.

lol how old are you?

Wouldn't worry about money if you had $100k.

you can't even buy a house with 100k yes you can put a down payment and mortgage but I mean full out own the house not the bank for 25 years.

And you are gonna put this 300k in the bank and what happends when it comes to tax time? Going from an avg income to 300k in one year will surely draw up some attention don't you think. Where are you going to tell the IRS you made all this money because surely you didn't pay any tax on it.

I think the best idea is too still take the money and leave the country because you sure as well won't have a normal life making that much money illegally.
 
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Why would you report him if your stuff worked?

Clearly you used it anyways, kind of a douche move to report him and use it anyways.

Why are you trying to make this about me? The fucker shouldn't be selling counterfeit software in the first place. Ebay should suspend him. Activision should send him a C&D. I didn't care enough to follow up, but the guy shouldn't be selling that shit. It was probably a seller in Hong Kong or Singapore for all I know, maybe they couldn't get him.

The game itself was clean, no detectable malware, so I played it. I don't think I asked for my money back. What were my alternatives? Find a legit copy and dump another $10 or more? Download the game illegally? The seller fucked up, not me.
 
I heard of some kids a few years back that was selling fake photoshop on ebay for buku bucks.... supposedly got caught obviously.

What a fucking retard anyways.... if I had $100,000 I would not be worrying at all about money, and with $300,000+ like this idiot had, I would easily not be working at all. That shit would be in the bank making money FOR ME! What an idiot, a very huge idiot.


hahah. $300k, and you think you can retire ?

what's the bank interest rate in your area now?
even a bank CD at 4% would only give you $12000 a year.
you would not be working on an income of only $12000 ? :D:D:D:D:p

if you're single, and live like a college student, you can stretch that $300k for 30 years; $10000 per year, renting that $500 apartment and eating crappy food.
 
In Philadelphia, where I live, you can easily buy a decent row house for 100K, and you can get a pretty snazzy one for 150-200K. Sometimes even less. A friend of my roommate just bought one for about 66K, and the landlord for the house I rented when I first moved to the city offered to sell it to me for 85K. Add in the fact that you don't need a car in Philly, and you could stretch $300,000 a pretty long way. It wouldn't make you filthy rich, but as long as you worked a decent paying job, you'd pretty much be set.
 
he lost everything he owned, bullshit he didn't lose enough to have it be a deterrent.

the guy shouldn't go to prison too, and Madoff stole from individuals, his crimes aren't comparable to this guy.

How do you think he got everything he owned in the first place? Sure if he worked a legit job and made legit money it would hurt to lose $375K, your house, car, etc, but why do you think he has a house, car, and $375k in the bank? He didn't earn it, he stole it.

If you stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from your employer, which you used to buy a house, cars, and computers, and then you got caught. Do you think giving it all back is good enough?
 
In Philadelphia, where I live, you can easily buy a decent row house for 100K, and you can get a pretty snazzy one for 150-200K. Sometimes even less. A friend of my roommate just bought one for about 66K, and the landlord for the house I rented when I first moved to the city offered to sell it to me for 85K. Add in the fact that you don't need a car in Philly, and you could stretch $300,000 a pretty long way. It wouldn't make you filthy rich, but as long as you worked a decent paying job, you'd pretty much be set.


or you can buy a house in detroit....... for $5,000.

with $300k, you'd be king.
 
lol how old are you?

Wouldn't worry about money if you had $100k.

you can't even buy a house with 100k yes you can put a down payment and mortgage but I mean full out own the house not the bank for 25 years.

Only in areas with bloated housing prices and big cities. 100k is enough for a modest 2-3 bedroom house in a majority of the country.
 
If it wasn't for illegal games we wouldn't have

Somari
titlescreen.png

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwBKW0kDHIQ

Bible Adventures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNvQYiM6bw

Take the good with the bad!
 
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