The ESA earlier today applauded twp prison sentences handed down for two pirates in the United States. We can assume the ESA, who has spent almost $2,000,000 in six months by lobbying the U.S Government is happy with seeing some results. The press release available here states:

“We commend the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Western District of North Carolina and the Eastern District of Virginia and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their work in bringing these criminals to justice,” said Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the ESA, the trade group representing U.S. computer and video game publishers. “These decisions illustrate, once again, that game piracy will not be tolerated and the extent at which these criminals will be prosecuted. The ESA and its members will continue to support law enforcement’s efforts to protect the intellectual property of our industry.”

The two pirates in question are very different. The first one, Kevin Fuchs (read the complaint), according to the indictment was a member of the “Warez” scene, possibly a game release group, and his duties in this group would be to download and test a cracked piece of software. The complaint also states that Kevin downloaded and uploaded multiple games, programs, and movies. Kevin was sentenced to eight months in prison, 8 months home confinement, and two years probation.

The other pirate Kifah Maswadi (read the complaint), sold pirated games on websites he ran. Kifah used some of his websites such as www.powerplayerusa.com, www.gamextera.com, www.powerplayergames.com to sell wired “Power Player” consoles which would hook up to the customers tv and play the infringing games. The details of the original indictment includes Maswadi accepting over $1,000 from the FBI for some of these console systems and also says many phone calls between him and the FBI were recorded. Some of these console games would include as many as 76 games, many of which were infringing on copyright law.

Kifah was sentenced to fifteen months in prison and 8 months of home confinement with two years probation along with a restitution of $415,900.


For more information please visit www.piracyisacrime.org