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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."
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
Ah, good old westlake. Taking millions of slashdotters, rolling them into one ponderous abstraction and then putting words in their mouth ... that just never grows old for you, does it?
At least you've stopped capitalising the words, as if The Geek was some improbably enhanced superhero, and you his kid sidekick. I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Who would want a government capable of solving all problems simultaneously and in the right sequence to satisfy every citizens priorities.
Apparently "god" does it in "heaven". Which is one of the reasons I don't accept such stories; I find it difficult to believe that even an omnipotent being would simultaneously be able to please a group of democrats and a group of republicans. Needless to say, I expect even less from a human government.
tl;dr, but from the first couple sentences you seem like a complete lunatic, and from the lack of capitalization and the poor punctuation it seems unlikely that you're capable of making an intelligent point. Sorry to have bothered you.
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.
Are you really implying that copyright law shouldn't be enforced because there are worse things going on in the world?
There are serial killers out there, but I sincerely hope the police make some sort of effort at catching the guys who stole $4,000 worth of tools from my father-in-law last week.
Whatever your opinion on copyright law, you've got to admit that copying another person's work and SELLING IT without them getting a cut is a dick move and shouldn't be tolerated.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
It is a dick move only because Western European society in the early modern era starting seeing it as a dick move. In Ancient Rome, an audience member would transcribe a poet's recital, have dozens of copies made by amanuenses, and then sold in the marketplace with no money going back to the poet. There's not a single instance of anyone complaining. Martial lampooned a guy who would put his own name on these copies, but plagiarism is distinct from mere copying. There continue to be cultures all over the world to this day where people don't understand copyright at all. Try explaining it to them, and they'll think you're a lunatic. If successive generations see increasingly less value in copyright, we're only returning to a state before what would see a freakish aberration of several hundred years.
Yes, various cultures have also believed it was noble to own slaves or perform human sacrifice. But I think that the nature of this issue, whether respecting copyright is objectively moral or a mere government fiat with the hope of encouraging production*, ought to be carefully examined instead of simply assuming without question that copyright must exist.
(This, incidentally, was the view of the American Founding Fathers. They had an acute sense of natural rights -- endowed by the Creator and only recognized by the government -- but did not consider copyright among them.)
Funnily enough, the Chinese military has been accused of running facilities for massive duplication of the bootleg CDs and DVDs you find all over China. If they'd kill this guy, it could only be because they don't like competition.
I think you underestimate the amount and value of the equipment carried by your average US soldier.
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.
When you banish anyone who thinks about not liking the way you do things it should be reasonably easy to please everyone who is left.
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)
Copyright is a societal construction. It doesn't matter what other societies do. We, as a group of people, in this society have all decided to agree that copying other people's work without their permission is a dick move. That people in China don't feel that way is immaterial to me. I don't want to live in China. Now, you may say that those other countries have saner laws. But I know that the vast majority of those countries have nowhere near the entertainment industry that we do.