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Videogame Pirate Gets Long Jail Sentence
Thanks to the San Jose Business Journal for its article discussing the sentencing of a notable videogame pirate to 50 months in prison after being found guilty on charges of "copyright infringement and... mail fraud." According to the piece: "[Sean Michael] Breen... admitted that he was a leader in the Internet-based piracy group known as Razor1911. Since the early 1990s, Razor1911 had sought to achieve a reputation in the underground Internet piracy community... as the leading distributor of cracked computer and console game software." A report at GameSpot has further details, noting Razor1911 "...acquired advance copies of [videogame] titles by posing as reviewers for fictitious game magazines and having them shipped to a derelict storefront address in Oakland."
"Mr. Breen also admitted that he had illegally used an online customer account of Cisco Systems to order hundreds of thousands of dollars of hardware by falsely posing as one of Cisco's existing customers."
"After receiving the hardware, Mr. Breen sold it on the grey market at a heavy discount off the normal price of the hardware, prosecutors say."
He was stealing real physical property in addition to his software piracy. The fact that it was worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars" made the copyright violations almost superfluous. In light of those violations, the sentence doesn't seem harsh at all.
His major screw up was the mail fraud. Don't scew with the mail system, the goverment doesn't fuck around when it comes to that.
The "jailtime" is for mail fraud. Read the article and you'll learn that he defrauded Cisco of $600K worth of hardware in order to sell it on the grey market.
Please people how many times must you be told that the jail was for stealing 600k worth of cisco hardware. Steal that much and you deserve jail time.
Karma's over rated. Speak your mind.
There is nothing "stopping" anyone. There are a lot of "free" modifacations for commercial games too, those have lots of artists and art. However the majority (there are exceptions) of those modifacations have art assets that are usually inferrior in comparison to the game their modding for. A lot of the stuff is very fun, but generally not of a quality you'd deem on the same level as the 40/50$ game you are getting it for.
Not to rag on anyone or anyone's work, but frankly I think OSS has a ways to go before the concept of "free" is enticing enough to get free games that can compare with their commercially successful bretheren such as UT2K3 or Quake III. It can go there and may eventually do so, but it's got a big hurdle to overcome in the art area, especially with ever increasing quality standards (meaning more time required per art asset).
The day "free" can compete in terms of quality on all levels with commercial games is a day I'd welcome, however it's going to take a long while to get there.
Why did you post this AC?
/. drones who talk a good talk but really know nothing.
Oh yeah. The number of
Like it or not, the above poster is right. Piracy IS competition. It's basic economics. One of the forces that keeps prices down and service up is the presence of some black/grey market activity that pepole can go to if they feel it's worth it.
This is especially true for "cultural' goods. (Mostly entertainment. It helps that it's easily copied).
And yes, if there were no theft, prices would be higher and there would be more DRM because they would think they could get away with it. (Why the DRM? They'd try and stomp out the secondary market. Nobody said they had to give you the ability to sell your used media..even if you do have the right).