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Seller of Counterfeit Video Games Gets 30 Months
wiredmikey writes "The FBI reported this week that Qiang 'Michael' Bi, of Powell, Ohio was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling more than 35,000 illegally copied computer games over the Internet between 2005 and 2009. According to a statement of facts read during Bi's plea hearing, agents executed a search warrant at Bi's house and found multiple CD duplicators and more than 1,000 printed counterfeit CDs. Some of the CDs were still in the duplicator. During their investigation, agents learned that Bi would buy a single copy of a game, illegally duplicate it and sell the copies on eBay.com and Amazon.com. He also set up a website for customers to download the games they bought. Bi accepted payment through eBay and PayPal accounts in his name and in others' names."
What was he possibly selling in 2005 that had no reg code or drm???
It still blows my mind that people can be capable enough to run a little outfit like this, and yet be so amazingly dumb. You know you're going to get caught when you sell this stuff from the US, under your own name, on big name websites.
Did you put any thought into how easy it would be to catch someone running a business out of their house. Compared to catching anonymous drug runners ?
Seriously, think about what you just said.
In prison, being Bi will definitely be an asset.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Since terrorists were given the Club Gitmo treatment & allowed to lawyer-up, we decided not to catch 'em anymore--now we simply blow them up. Hooyah!
So this guy gets 30 months for physically duplicating AND SELLING stuff, while Jammie Thomas et al get smacked with million-dollar fines for downloading a few handfuls of unpaid tunes for their own personal enjoyment? Maybe THIS guy should be the one getting smacked with million-dollar fines, considering he might have made millions from what he was doing.
counterfeit (tr. v.) 1. To make a copy of, usually with the intent to defraud; forge.
Agents and officers with the FBI Cybercrime Task Force, and U.S. Postal Inspectors are credited with the success of the case.
Er, no--credit monitoring software at the company he worked for!:
New monitoring software at Nationwide Insurance spelled the beginning of the end for an employee who had been counterfeiting and selling computer games for five years. The software alerted Nationwide officials to a spreadsheet that Qiang "Michael" Bi had sent from his personal e-mail account to his Nationwide e-mail account. The spreadsheet listed eBay accounts, credit-card numbers and false identity information that Bi used in a lucrative counterfeiting scheme.
The spreadsheet listed more than 50 eBay and PayPal accounts, all with different names. Bi told investigators he used other people's information on the accounts because eBay and PayPal had suspended his accounts and do not allow a new account with the same name and address as a suspended account.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
From TFA: He was sentenced to six months each for the mail fraud and copyright infringement crimes and an additional 24 months for the aggravated identity theft.
No trademark infringement? I doubt he was passing these off as the real thing, i.e., counterfeiting.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
but, they are able to catch 'copyright thieves'.
all the difference in between these, is that the latter hasnt gone mafia and started placing/bribing people in government.
way to go, united states of hypocritica.
News Releases December 30, 2010 Washington, DC ICE's top 5 news stories for the week ending Dec. 30, 2010
Dec. 29, 2010 - ICE deputy director {in the] United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the inaugural Border Control, Airport and Seaport Security (BCASS) exposition.
Dec. 29, 2010 - ICE teams with CBP, USPIS to intercept counterfeit NHL Winter Classic sportswear...ICE Homeland Security...conducted a Pittsburgh-based operation that netted $100,000 in fake trademarked NHL and NFL items.
Dec. 29, 2010 - ICE arrests 3, seizes 28,000 rounds of ammunition in Tucson. Alejandro Ruiz-Escalante and Christian Gallegos-Arizmendi, both citizens of Mexico, were arrested on federal weapons smuggling charges after a traffic stop. Another individual was arrested at a Tucson residence in connection with the same weapons smuggling operation. All three individuals possessed thousands of rounds of ammunition, as well as several firearms.
Dec. 28, 2010 - Drug swallower arrested with 49 pellets of heroin in his stomach. ICE HSI agents took a 27-year-old U.S. citizen into custody after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers discovered he was carrying 49 pellets of heroin, with an approximate weight of 1.54 pounds, in his digestive tract.
Dec. 27, 2010 - Feds find cache of cocaine concealed inside phony candy Easter eggs. Esteban Galtes tried to smuggle more than 14 pounds of cocaine, much of it camouflaged as pastel-colored, egg-shaped candies, through Los Angeles International Airport. ICE HSI agents arrested him after CBP officers found the drugs in his suitcase. ICE's top 5 news stories for the week ending Dec. 30, 2010
In the American federal system, copyright is a federally defined and constitutionally protected property right.
Economic and property crimes with an interstate or international dimension are - broadly speaking - a federal responsibility.
It never ceases to amaze the geek that the government actually gives a damn about the $200 to $300 million dollar investment in a major theatrical film - and the billion dollar return it may generate in domestic and export sales.
There has to be a conspiracy.
Governments multi-task - a concept that also seems strangely foreign to the geek.
ICE Homeland Security Investigations [HSI] investigates immigration crime, human rights violations and human smuggling, smuggling of narcotics, weapons and other types of contraband, financial crimes, cybercrime and export enforcement issues. ICE special agents conduct investigations aimed at protecting critical infrastructure industries that are vulnerable to sabotage, attack or exploitation.
In addition to ICE criminal investigations, HSI oversees the agency's international affairs operations and intelligence functions. HSI consists of more than 10,000 employees, consisting of 6,700 special agents, who are assigned to more than 200 cities throughout the U.S. and 46 countries around the world. ICE Homeland Security Investigations
Drug runners? What is this, the 1970's? Pot/Meth is grown/cooked in houses/trailers. In other words, someones house. I read about meth and grow houses getting busted all the time. The only reason this is news is because it's a copy-write bust. These are rare, at least in the States.
That's a better choice anyway. KABOOM!
I think that "they" would catch anybody advertising on eBay and Amazon just as easily without regards for their field of criminal activities.
I heard several stories like this one before. One took place in the area where live. The guy they caught was advertising just about everywhere and he had a very similar thing going on in its home.
I think that he is the only guy ever charged with counterfeiting CDs around here. I have even heard cops saying on the news that they did not have the resources to start investigating every garage sale and such to verify the integrity of every CD sold and its provenance.
So I think that the guy just had as many chances of getting caught as any of the other criminals you mentioned given the level of precautions he was taking to run his business.
In cases like this ones, the police just have to take action whatever the infraction is. The infraction is too obvious and closing the case involves a pretty low budget compared to what a long term and more sophisticated investigation would require.
Usually, it is only a matter of one person reporting him to the police.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
The patriot act pushed meth manufacturing mostly into Mexico.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
He'd be an involuntary "organ donor". You don't even have to sign a donor consent form...
Two soldiers take an arm each, stand there, and a third soldier blasts one shot from a Kalashnikov to the back of the head.
Then, they move onto the next, uh, donor, while the army medics harvest your organs.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I can live another day knowing that less potential profit is being stolen (which is totally possible even though it doesn't even exist in the hands of the copyright holder anyway). It's really nice to see that petty things that should be up to the copyright holder to attempt to stop are being handled by the police (who don't have anything better to do).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
That and the fact he was ratted out by his employer for using company email addresses to move his secret lists of accounts.
Lets face it, the cops were handed this case on a silver platter.
Go here.
Arrest him.
Confiscate 300K in ill-gotten funds.
Have a beer.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Come on. Any of the settlements offered to Thomas-Rasset are outrageous, at different levels of outrageous.
They are all so far from fair that I just can't imagine that you genuinely believe that "a few thousand dollars" be "a pretty fair price". I must assume that you are a RIAA shill.
Setting aside the possible sleaziness of this particular guy; seen from another perspective it's pretty fantastic how much resources and time we waste on seeking out and punishing people for reorganizing a tiny bunch of molecules on worthless pieces of plastic.
huh ? it was too much learning that cia had been drug trafficking ?
Read radical news here
i take it you didnt dare read the linked article.
In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops. Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S.—which, in exchange, allowed him to continue his drug-trafficking activities—which they had known about since the 1960s.[12][13] When the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so.[12] The CIA, which was then directed by future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as payment for his work in Latin America.[12] However, when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's activities in Latin America, and the CIA's connections with Noriega became a public relations "liability" for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after decades of allowing his drug operations to proceed unchecked.[12] Operation Just Cause, whose ostensible purpose was to capture Noriega, killed numerous Panamanian civilians, but was successful in removing Noriega. The operation pushed Noriega back into the town asylum along with Papal Nuncio where he surrendered to U.S. authorities. His trial took place in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Read radical news here
The patriot act pushed meth manufacturing mostly into Mexico.
Hahaha, you'd like to think that, wouldn't you? There's so much meth being produced in California you'd think it was our primary export. I live in a town where a lot of it is produced. They expend absolutely zero effort on tracking them down and busting them because it's easier and cheaper to catch pot growers and there is less risk of being shot at; even the Mexican gang members tend to just fade away into the woods.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
He made over $700,000 on these counterfeited games.
He actually turned in over $360,000 IN CASH after being caught.
He was not a petty guy just making some copies for his friends etc.
So yeah, seriously, don't try and compare this guy to any fair use idea whatsoever, it's just going to hurt the whole fair use argument if you use him as an example.
It's guys like this that make it hard for the rest of us who just want to backup a game or install on another PC.
I'm a bit puzzled at the Editor's choice of a word - I'm sure that if I bought and played the game, it would work in the same way as the 'real' one - and the game was ~copied~, not 'created to resemble' as the word counterfeit implies. Yet I do understand that many are tiring of the word 'pirate'...
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
its because you american right wingers are bigoted psychopaths who cant face truth. when you check my comments, moron, you will notice that all of them had been chain downmodded even if they were giving out FACTUAL information with links and references of information to the wrongdoings of united states, from united states government ITSELF.
bottom line is, you morons cant face the truth. its too much. here, again :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking
CIA DOES DRUG TRAFFICKING AND SUPPORTS PETTY DICTATORS WITH DRUG MONEY.
Read radical news here
A buddy of mine who currently lives in Sacramento told me about a nature walk he took while in in elementary school in California:
These trees have been here for hundreds of years... and that's a meth shack, over there... if you look to your left, you can see a stream that runs off from a nearby natural spring... and there's another meth shack...
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
That's pretty much the story of Cobb mountain, except the PG&E guy estimates that 3 out of 5 houses are growing weed, and only 1 out of 5 is producing meth. The remaining house is vacant.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
hahahaha... oh man, that's a good one right there... I'll have to pass it along to my buddy! ;D
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Never been to Spokane, WA, have you?
and you've never apparently been out of it.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
If the program isn't modified in any way, it's not counterfeit. The problem that someone wasn't compensated for the copy isn't counterfeting.
A counterfeit coin or paper bill actually has no value (unless the copy is so perfect, that nobody can tell!)
A pirated program has value, because it runs.
unfortunately it doesnt matter how you convey it. regardless of your language, you will see that if anything you put forth is not compatible with any certain radical party's views (regardless of what the party is), you get trollmodded or reacted in harsh words. out of the blue. this has been such in my experience in the last 1 to 1.5 months. i tried varying approaches to tone and manner, substance and language, yet result is the same.
no surprise though. it is no different in real life. regardless of how politely, nicely, smoothly you put any fact that contradicts a certain biased group's views, there is a certain break point at which they will go medieval. what the tone changes is just the time that that breakpoint comes. in addition, there are some trigger subjects that instantly tick their breakpoint, regardless of what you say.
Read radical news here
I am out of it, and I'm damned happy about it. It's just one sad example of many, but a pretty damned big one.