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."

Comments

Re:Wow...

[Jeng]

As many people know, Raman is far cheaper dog food. Considering how much my cat likes Raman I'm toying with the idea of not buying her any more cat food.

Re: He will get AIDS in three days.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

When I go to donate blood they ask a long series of questions before accepting my blood. Among the many "did you ever have sex with another male" , "or with some one who had ..." yadda yadda yadda there is a telling question: "Have you ever been incarcerated and held in a jail for more than 72 hours."

Looks like the blood bank thinks, prisoners will get AIDS after three days in jail.

Here's one It's only 500 CDs per stack though

[dieth]

The Imation DiscStakka, I've been hoping they come out with a 1000 disc holder w/ Reader built in

But currently each unit only holds 100 discs, which can be stacked in 5's, It comes with a nice indexing software, although the units have to eject the CD & have you put it into your computers CD or DVD rom drive as there is no built in reader.
Here's the link http://www.imation.com/products/disc_stakka/index. html

Re:Are Financial Crimes Victimless?

[AK Marc]

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. Just like allofmp3.com, this fellow was able to sell $649 software for $99 because he did not need to worry about paying the rightsholders. Unfortunately, lots of people would disagree with you about actual harm to Adobe, et al.

Well, allofmp3.com is not breaking any law. They are compliant with all US laws and all Russian laws. So, how is someone illegally copying something, misrepresenting it, defrauding the buyer, and profiting at the expense of someone else "roughly comparable"? Just because you think allofmp3 should be illegal does not mean it is. Your lies about the $1 a track not being affordable is not a correct statement. The issue is what you are downloading and what you can do with it. allofmp3.com is the only place I know where you can legally download (legal if you are in Russia, questionable legality if you are in the US, though that has never been decided in court) non-DRM files in a variety of formats, including lossless. It simply offers services that aren't available anywhere else at any price.

Since you can't see the difference between that and someone that knowingly breaks copyright, fraud and other laws (wait until the IRS gets a hold of him) with the intent to profit at the expense of the company he is imitating and the people he lies to while selling his fraudulent product, then you are a nutjob no more logical than people that illegally copy music and clam it is legal or a moral imperative or such.

Re:Good!

[djdavetrouble]

Does it always have to come down to pimps and hos with you, megaditto? Every time I turn around
its like pimp this, those hoes that. Every freaking analogy is its like when you x to a prostitute and then the pimp
y's. The world is NOT a whorehouse, megaditto.