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Forums - Gaming - ESA happy about prison sentences for game pirates

twesterm on 28 August 2008

[Source Joystiq]

ESA happy about prison sentences for game pirates

13 Comments by Alexander Sliwinski Aug 28th 2008 1:30PM
Filed under: Culture, Business


The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the industry's lobbying group, sent out a press release a little while ago applauding the prison sentences for two convicted game pirates. Kevin Fuchs of New York and Kifah Maswadi of Florida were sentenced to eight months and fifteen months in prison, respectively. The men also face multiple years of supervised release after that and Maswadi has been ordered to pay $415,900.

Before freaking out and thinking the FBI and Justice Department are "in your internetz, ready to send you to prisons," it's worth noting the two men sentenced were pretty hardcore software pirates. Maswadi sold consoles with illegal copies of titles on the internet and made $390,000 on his business. So, if you made hundreds of thousands of dollars last year off illegal game sales ... might we suggest a new vocation?


 

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colonelstubbs on 28 August 2008

The punishment fits the crime.

Colonelstubbs says NO to videogame piracy



I hope my 360 doesn't RRoD
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elgefe02 on 28 August 2008

Say no to Piracy!!



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Dgc1808 on 28 August 2008

Ouch. Piracy = Not nice...



4 ≈ One

pichu_pichu on 28 August 2008

great!



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Damstr8 on 28 August 2008

i thought they got slammed pretty hard,but its good in the long run for pirates.because they do need to stop.



 

 

Kasz216 on 28 August 2008

People who pirate are immoral.

People who pirate and then try and make money off of it are just downright harmful to the system.



dallas on 28 August 2008

If any feds come looking, just run a magnet over your "backup" floppy disks



Lord N on 28 August 2008

First of all, morals and ethics are completely subjective.

While I don't think there's anything wrong with someone doing it for their own personal use, I am against people doing it for money because they are profiting from someone else's work.

That being said, this is way too harsh. Copyright infringement when done for profit should be punished with fines and not being able to use the internet or a computer for a while, not jail time.

 

Consoles owned: Saturn, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, PSP, DS, PS3

Pristine20 on 28 August 2008

piracy is understandable in some cases such as for those who live in the third world. But to sell pirated games i.e sell another person's work for profit is an offense even if you possess the original game!



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