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Man Gets 6 Years for Software Piracy
smooth wombat writes "In what prosecutors are calling 'the ultimate case', a Florida man has been sentenced to six years in prison for selling illegal copies of computer programs. From the article: 'Danny Ferrer, of Lakeland, Fla., pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy and copyright infringement charges after an FBI investigation of his Web site, BuysUSA.com. Ferrer also was ordered to pay more than $4.1 million in restitution to software makers Adobe Systems Inc., Autodesk, and Macromedia Inc.' The judge ordered that items he bought with the money, including airplanes, a Lamborghini and other cars, be sold off to pay for the restitution."
It's one thing downloading software illegally online, but charging others for it brings things down to a whole new level, whether it be Office or the NES famiclone knockoffs.
Does this mean I'm getting less spam from him? I'm still getting a lot which offer s1gnificant disc0unts on s0ftware
Bugs me it took long enough to take this guy out for him to buy all that stuff. Clearly the BSA or whatever industry watchdog isn't terribly vigilant, unless it comes to a knock on your company door, wishing to audit all your software licences and installations, while this potlicker was operating within the USA long enough to amass a fortune.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I dissagree. In the VAST majority of fraud cases the fine is peanuts compaired to what was actually taken, he can serve his 6 years and still come out a rich man.
I can understand the steep financial penalty, but 6 years seems awfully harsh for a crime where no one was physically harmed.
I'm certain the victims of Michael Milken and the Enron brass see things differently.
dear, we've got alpo or ken-l-ration for dinner tonight
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This is the kind of thing that we should be cracking down on, the commercial pirates, not teenagers and old ladies who download a song or two.
This guy is driving exotic cars and ripping off people at both sides, the companies who actually create the stuff, and the unsuspecting comsumer (read: idiot) who paid for this stuff thinking he was getting a good deal, and winds up getting screwed (not that you can really sympathize with anyone dumb enough to fall for this, but I guess greed overcomes common sense).
Six years is a long time. I read about real criminals--wife beaters, sex offenders, recidivist criminals who have committed multiple crimes--getting comparable time. Don't get me wrong, this guy is a criminal but six years for a nonviolent crime? That seems like a zealous prosecutor who knew this would get a lot of press.
I can understand the steep financial penalty, but 6 years seems awfully harsh for a crime where no one was physically harmed.
By that definition, the Enron board, the WorldCom board and all others who cause purely financial damages should be given light sentences.
Noble ideals aside, in a monetized society, money does become essential: Without it, you don't get to eat, don't get health insurance, lose your home, etc.
This guy made enough he could buy sportscars, planes, the works. Even if you just look at the $4.1m restitution, that's a lot of salaries Adobe, Macromedia and Autodesk could have paid. It's easy to dismiss it as "Oh well, they're big companies, no harm, no foul." but it becomes much more of an issue when they cut the job of a guy whose health insurance got his daughter treatment for cancer.
So, yes, there's no easy direct link to physical harm caused. But the trickle down effect, just like the Enron and Worldcom guys wiping out people's retirements, may well be far more dramatic overall than a single assault. Given that you can't track down every indirect result, all you can do is look at the quantity of money, get a feel for the effects the fraudulent reappropriation of that likely had, and then accept that increasing dollar amounts can be translated in to just as increasing "likelihood" of physical harm.
Is say physical assualt bad? Absolutely. And whilst worse for one person, I'm not convinced the overall suffering is actually worse than say ten guys facing the gnawing fear of layoffs, ten wives dealing with losing their homes they poured their souls in to, ten kids having to deal with daddy suddenly being unemployed and having to move away from friends and ten families living with the risk of no medical insurance.
Sadly humorous mods don't raise your Slashdot karma. Jokes can however raise your real-life karma, which is much more important! Though you have to keep in mind that the negative mods slam down your Slashdot karma, so if you aren't funny, well, your real-life karma may suffer too. Is this risk really worth it?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Man thrown into prison for breaking the law. Stay tuned for more developments.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
I wonder how many adobe acrobat software packages you have to sell to pay for a Lamborghini? I mean seriously, this guy was making piles of money:
Ferrer's Web site began selling software in 2002 and was shut down by the FBI in October 2005, authorities said. Prosecutors said the illegal sales cost the software companies as much as $20 million, but industry officials say the amount could be higher.
How exactly were these numbers computed?? This is all going back to the dead horse "but people wouldn't have bought the package if it was too expensive" argument; figuring the losses as each unit sold being a loss is absurd.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I think so. The problem is, they don't, and they aren't trying to. Instead of working on filling in the needed missing features and working on stability, most developers enjoy developing new, nifty features that like four people need.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Judging by the amount he got from this, he was not exactly small fry. Who knows what lengths he went to protecting an illicit business of that size ..
From this list: numerous airplanes, a fighter-jet simulator, a Lamborghini, a Hummer and other luxury vehicles he was clearly not a stealthy individual. That's a pretty ostentatious list of items and I would be inclined to think the US Treasury Department would have noticed this first. Florida officials may have had him confused with a drug lord or professional athelete with such conspicous consumption.
Spending money like you hit the Powerball Jackpot often garners attention at some point.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It sounds like you've never worked in corrections. Ever stepped foot inside of an American correctional facility? 6 years in a Florida prison is decidedly not 'nothing'. My company contracts with the FL DOC and a day in one of those facilities would be too much for me.
Also remember that once a felon, always a felon. A convicted felon has major obstacles in housing, employment, etc for the rest of their life. I'm not saying that I have a better way, but lock 'em up and throw away the keys isn't any kind of solution. After spending 6 years in the pokey, this gentleman will have a very difficult time re-entering society.
Finally, the law is simply not black-and-white. Dealing in absolutes is a frightening thing, and most judges tend to understand this (fortunately). Prosecutors tend to go for the maximum available sentence. Imagine getting into a bar fight and by way of a freak accident, you kill a man with a single punch. Do you think that you deserve to get locked up for life? What about for a consentual sex act and your partner changes their mind about it after the fact and presses charges? Does that justify rotting away in prison for the rest of your life?
While I think that our justice system is flawed, I can't think of a better way. However, the absolute and totalitarian justice system that you envision is pretty frightening to me. I'm sure glad that's not the country that we live in.
-Turkey
Or imagine that you accidentally illegally sold enough software to buy yourself an airplane and a Lamborghini, do you really deserve to be locked up for six years?
This was a deliberate, willful act, showing complete disregard for personal responsibility within our society. Not only did he take advantage of corporations, but no doubt thousands of people who didn't know that the software they purchased was not legitimate. I know it sounds strange to those of us "in the know", but many of my collegues and friends have asked me over the years about these amazing deals they've found on software. I would also imagine that this person was a heavy spammer, in which case he played a role in the ongoing destruction of a communication system that was at one time simple, cheap, and beneficial to all.
While the rest of us scratch it out at real jobs or run our own legitimate businesses, driving around in Honda Civics and trying to stay ahead of the bills, this guy was essentially living it up.
I agree that our justice system is extremely flawed, but it's the only one we've got. Until it is fixed, we still have to maintain a system in which people are punished for their crimes. Six years sounds pretty hard, even considering the actual amount of time he'll problably spend is much less. I'm not sure what a better solution would be though. Six years of hardcore community service? Well, if I was the type of person with low enough ethics to consider making millions of dollars illegally, I might feel a little better about pursuing the action if I knew that I probably wouldn't serve any time behind bars. Sure it would suck to sell off my Hummer, my Lamborghini, my personal airplanes, and my fighter-jet simulator to pay restitution, but somehow I don't see that stopping me.
If he had stopped at paying off his wife's medical bills, I would feel more compassion, and the legal system probably would have too. The one shining bright spot of our system is that it is designed to consider each case individually. I'm very much against three strike systems and ridiculously high minimum sentences.
I'm guessing you've never visited a prison -- or if you have, it was a minimal-security open prison of the sort people are sent to when they've nearly finished paying their debt to society and need preparing to rejoin it.
Newsflash: American prisons already have a reputation for having among the roughest and most unpleasant conditions of prisons in any first-world democracy. They are not happy kindergartens where people pass pleasant days sipping champagne and surfing the internet.
I suggest you educate yourself a little, instead of believing everything you're told by whatever pundits it is you get all your preconceptions from. Frankly, I'm slightly surprised you're supporting prison at all. Wouldn't it be better to just have a mandatory death penalty for all crimes? Hey, and then we could save even more money by doing away with the whole appeals system that means people end up spending years on death row: we could have them sit in the chair in court, and if they're convicted, the judge just throws the switch. Just think how much we could cut taxes if we had a system like that!
If you're a man who can tell which woman is going to turn crazy on you after you sleep with her, you're the only one.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
"This is roughly comparable to the discount that allofmp3.com offers on music, and many people defend their allofmp3.com use because they cannot afford to pay $1 / track."
Clear this up for me. How can people who can afford a computer (usually a nice on), supplies (CDs, DVDs, Scanners), and a broadband connection not be able to afford music, movies, software, games, or books?