Los Angeles -- the colder of a Hollywood video game store pleaded guilty today in federal court for violating federal copyright laws in a scheme to install pirated videogames on specially modified Xbox game consoles sold through the store.
Jason Jones [co-owner of Acme game store] admitted that he and his partner Jonathan Bryant modified and installed more than 50 pirated games on each Xbox machine.
" Jones pleaded guilty and Bryant has agreed to plead guilty to a felony count of conspiring to 1) traffic in a technology used to circumvent a copyright protection system, 2) infringe on a valid copyright for financial gain, and 3) willfully infringe a copyrighted work by reproducing and distributing pirated works worth more than $1,000. Jones, Bryant and a third man who worked with them were indicted by a federal grand jury January 9 for installing illegal modification chips on Xbox game systems which allowed users to store and play pirated video games. "
interesting... the US immigrations and customs enforcement agency whose job I thought was, "immigrations and customs" going after copyright violators. I mean kudos for the catch, I guess I always thought that violation of copyright laws was a job for the FBI and Interpol. At least that's what it says at the beginning of the movies. Silly me, what do I know.
speaking of kudos...
here are some recent worksite enforcement cases
May 2, 2006
Robert Porcisanu, the owner of an Indiana business that performed stucco-related services at construction sites in at least seven Midwest states was charged with money laundering, harboring illegal aliens, transporting illegal aliens, and false statements in connection with an illegal employment scheme.
April 19, 2006
agents arrested seven current and former managers of IFCO and charge them with harboring illegal aliens for financial gain and also apprehended 1,187 of the firms in illegal alien employees at more than 40 IFCO locations nationwide.
April 14, 2006
Baltimore's best known sushi restaurants agreed to forfeit more than $1 million and plead guilty to criminal charges for conspiracy to commit alien harboring and money laundering.
April 11, 2006
two temporary employment agencies and nine individuals were charged with hiring a harboring illegal aliens, wire fraud and laundering approximately $5.3 million.
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