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Chinese Man Pleads Guilty To $100M Piracy Operation

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

iComp sends word of a Chinese businessman who pleaded guilty to selling pirated software the retail value of which totaled more than $100 million. The software came from over 200 different companies, and was sold to buyers in 61 different countries over a 3-year period. The man was arrested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on the island of Saipan in 2011, after undercover agents had been working on the case for 18 months (PDF). "Li trolled black market Internet forums in search of hacked software, and people with the know-how to crack the passwords needed to run the program. Then he advertised them for sale on his websites. Li transferred the pirated programs to customers by sending compressed files via Gmail, or sent them hyperlinks to download servers, officials said. ... Agents lured Li from China to the U.S. territory of Saipan under the premise of discussing a joint illicit business venture. At an island hotel, Li delivered counterfeit packaging and, prosecutors said, "Twenty gigabytes of proprietary data obtained unlawfully from an American software company." Officials did not identify the company in court documents."

11 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. A hundred million? by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the dude pocketed a hundred million bucks, then it's a hundred million dollar piracy operation. This sounds to me like the standard law enforcement press release inflation gambit.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  2. Censorship & Piracy by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The other day I was chatting with someone from an Islamic country and the guy told me that he **WAS FORCED TO DOWNLOAD PIRATED MOVIES** because of the censorship that was being practiced in his country.

    He posted a list of movies that he said he had to pirate because they were ***ILLEGAL*** in his country.

    The local cinemas were prohibited from showing those movies, and he couldn't buy any legal version of those movies on legal DVDs either.

    Among the names of the movies that he posted, I only remember two of them, and they were:

    The Prince of Egypt http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120794/

    and

    Babe http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112431/

    The person claimed that he felt bad for downloading the pirated version of the movies but he had no choice.

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Censorship & Piracy by Cryacin · · Score: 3
      How would US customs feel about his arrival in the US? How would US citizens feel about his, and other's like him living in the US?

      He should probably stop living in an Islamic country.

      Of course, he snaps his fingers, and winds up skipping down the road hand in hand with his new friends in the United States of America, who's doors are always open.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    2. Re:Censorship & Piracy by adolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      WAS FORCED TO DOWNLOAD PIRATED MOVIES

      The person claimed that he felt bad for downloading the pirated version of the movies but he had no choice.

      Forced to download! No choice! (As if someone held a gun to his head and MADE HIM pirate movies.)

      These words. They do not mean what you think they mean.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    3. Re:Censorship & Piracy by Warhawke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I read this twice trying to understand how a censorious government was forcing this man to download movies. How did he have no choice? Were agents holding a gun to his head telling him to download? Was he working for the government and how to download the movies to determine whether their content should be censored?

      Then I realized what you (or he) meant was that he really, really wanted to see these movies and couldn't obtain them through legal channels.

      I'm usually the one with the tent and sleeper who camped out the night before when it comes to standing in the anti-censorship line, but laws are laws, and Islamic countries have different laws as values than the U.S. and others. This guy was in no way forced to download movies. He just wanted the movies and decided to go to illegal means to get them. Legally, this is no different than downloading a movie because you're out of cash. While there may be a moral issue in the appropriateness of censorship, this guy plainly and simply violated the law and ethics of his culture and then claimed the government "made him do it." I vehemently hate DRM, and it often screws up my ability to view the content in the manner that I want. At no point does it grab me and force me to perform illegal activities by stripping the DRM or pirating content. I may or may not choose to do so of my own volition, and I may feel completely justified in doing so, but I, like this guy, have the choice simply not to consume the product at all!

    4. Re:Censorship & Piracy by telchine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How would US citizens feel about his, and other's like him living in the US?

      As far as I'm concerned, so long as they learn the local language and customs ... anyone who can use an apostrophe correctly is welcome to become a US citizen.

  3. How much tax did the US company pay? by russsell · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hazard a guess that the cost of this operation was less than the amount of tax that the US company paid that year.

  4. Re:We need to stop this by krotkruton · · Score: 3, Informative

    Saipan isn't a foreign country, it's a US territory in the same category as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

  5. Arms wide open by TheDarkener · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'The man was arrested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on the island of Saipan'

    So lemme get this straight - the Department of Homeland Security spent taxpayer money finding and arresting a software pirate...

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  6. Re:100 million my arse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyway. Who BUYs pirated software? His clients should be fined for stupidity.

    They were. They paid him for the product.

  7. Re:We need to stop this by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is Saipan in a foreign country? I thought it was part of a US territory.

    Personally, I'd outlaw governmental lying. Claiming to be a 14 year old girl to invite men to your sting? Say "I'm not a cop" when asked what you do when meeting a suspect undercover? Invite a foreign national to a US territory to arrest them for what isn't even a crime ( If I'm in Mexico and kill an American, I broke Mexican law, not US law, so deciding they are undesirable people, then inviting them to the US to arrest them for breaking US law when they never set foot there before is insane). If anything, the people that approved his visa should all be fired and arrested. They knowingly issued a visa on false grounds. I haven't seen any exception in US immigration law for covert op visas issued on false pretenses.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska