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A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade

Posted Dec 30, 2010 at 2:29PM EST by Glenn M.

Listed in: PSP, Wii, PS3, MMORPG, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PC Gaming Tags: crime, piracy

sinking Acquiring pirated games is one thing, but it's quite another to make a business of it. That's what Qiang "Michael" Bi has been doing for more than four years, that was untill he was arrested. Now, he's been found guilty - his sentence would lose him his home, his car, and a hefty sum of cash. Oh, and yeah, let's not forget the jail time.

Bi's operation was discovered when he sent a spreadsheet of his counterfeit game sales to his office email account. His employer, Nationwide Insurance, got hold of the spreadsheet and called in the FBI and US Portal Inspectors. It was found he had been selling pirated games from 2005 to December 2009. Investigators also valued the retail price of his software at US$ 700,000.

Bi was found guilty of copyright infringement, mail fraud, identity theft, and selling pirated games for over four years. The US$ 10 he charged for his counterfeit products in that time amassed him a forfeiture of $367,669, plus his home, his vehicle, his computer, and all other equipment related to the crimes. He will be spending the next two years and a half in federal prison.

Speaking of the price of piracy, back in February, an Australian was slammed with a federal court settlement of US$ 1.3 million for being the first to upload New Super Mario Bros. Wii into the internet.

The Columbus Dispatch [via Kotaku]

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Indeed.

Mail Fraud, Identity Theft and counterfeiting to an estimated value more than half a Mil are only the things that he got caught for.

But he did promise to "be a better person".

Plus he was a Nationwide Insurance employee.

Thats probably like being a wallstreet banker.

If I got caught for any single one of those things I'd probably never see sunlight again.

I've been threatened with a year and a day for kicking out a window before.

# RE: RE: RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — papajag 2010-12-30 19:36

Quoting UltimaXVIII:

What I really don't understand is why anybody would knowingly put incriminating information into an account easily accessible by the network admins.

I hate to sound soulless about the whole thing, but he really did get caught out of his own stupidity.

Yup. He's a retard. Seriously he made bank with his piracy business. Money that should have gone to the devs.

# RE: RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — Walo 2010-12-31 01:04

I bet someone is trying to take over his bussiness. Like Glenn said, these days nobody will do anything for justice alone.

# Looooooser — jo29 2010-12-30 16:51

I'm agree with UltimaXVIII, totally a sucker doing that, I mean, I read a lot of forums and enjoy testing hacks and mods but I never make money with that

# ... — lolzz 2010-12-30 16:57

lol

# RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — Dee 2010-12-30 18:07

If u gonns hustle let it be word of mouth or anynomonus emwil acct -cmon learn how to hustle

# mmm — emcp555 2010-12-31 16:01

you cants et up a anynomonus emwil acct

youll get screwed one way or the other via cctv and ip address

# RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — PS360 Owner1 2010-12-30 20:33

What a douchebag.

Downloading and selling are two different things.

# good reason but i like his idea — backstabber 2010-12-30 22:32

i like how people can be so greedy yet stubborn stealing money from the industry.

# RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — But Fukir 2010-12-30 23:43

Lol @ 2 and a half years room and board for 350 thousand.

That was totally worth it!
I'd take that!

And he'll probably get out early for being a nice well behaved asian boy.

But I'm trying to figure where he found so many marks to pay for bootleg games when they're so easy to get for free.

I mean he cant cook up autoboots or serial numbers in most cases, so he must have been selling them as pirate copies.

BTW: Besides room and board he's gonna have a shitload of new connections and scams when he gets out.

Its a training ground.

# Uhh.. — Karakuroraka-san 2010-12-31 01:31

And he'll probably get out early for being a nice well behaved asian boy.

And he'll probably need a nice anal retread from all the harder criminals who passed him around. Just sayin'.

# RE: RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — But Fukir 2010-12-31 01:36

Ah, Ebay.

"Investigators found that Bi had sold the games from 2005 through December 2009 for $10 rather than the $20 retail price for an original new game."

What kind of game sells for 20 bucks?

Maybe he was selling Popcaps or cellphone games or something like that.

Those could probably be cracked well enough to still be fully functional, and chicks and housewives who play a lot of those would probably buy something like that before just getting it from fileshare.

# RTard — tloyd11 2010-12-31 00:44

lol he deserves it. playing pirated games is one thing. selling is a whole different ball park.

# RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — AdamD 2010-12-31 01:02

It seems as though, Nation Wide WASN'T on his side.

# RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — Frostman 2010-12-31 02:07

Wow, the gaming industry is merciful compared to the music industry.

-1 # RE: RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — UltimaXIX 2010-12-31 03:06

Really? Am I the only one who remember that Australian dude who got completely butt-raped over pirating Super Mario Galaxy or something?

+1 # RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — Mebus 2010-12-31 05:41

I recall The australian guy showing off his receipt(his picture with that receipt) thats how he got caught.

-2 # RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — leaders 2010-12-31 06:32

What kind of propaganda is this? People will do what they want, period. It is nobody's business to tell them otherwise. Keep on piratin', pirates.

# Lame — Sam48 2010-12-31 09:13

He got what he deserved, but it's a shame that Spanish goverment delegates earn much more money through that amount of time by doing much worse things. Nobody moves a finger to change that.

# . — DSpider 2010-12-31 10:35

Scum of the earth. He piggybacked on other people's work like the POS that he is ! People who make the games (including voice actors, musicians, graphic designers, etc) and those who distribute the games, retailers who get it to your local game store, and obviously the people who crack it.

Let's not forget the ones who upload them to the god damn torrent tracker so he can get to them.

All that time spent and he's just burning that shіt to a disc and charging a price for it. He deserves to get stuffed like the motherfυcking turkey that he is. Gobble gobble, biatch !

# RE: . — Musev 2011-01-02 14:29

So? that happens everywhere, all the time but I suppose its okay if you dont break a law?

# RE: RE: . — Musev 2011-01-02 14:31

meaning "piggybacked on other people's work"

# he's an idiot — joshbarty1 2010-12-31 10:47

You wuld think he encrypt his email or the sheet

# RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — bender2 2010-12-31 13:32

I love how you say, He got what he deserved, Scum of the earth. When the fact is that you pirate things too. The hole Internet is basically all pirated info, Music, Images, Videos, Games, Programs, and basically any thing you do. Plus 1 Guy down, 1000000 or more to go, you will never stop the distribution of digital information.

# ... — papajag 2010-12-31 17:14

True but most people don't sell them.

-1 # RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — DJ PON-3 2011-01-01 08:26

The moral to this story is to only sell it to close, trust-worthy friends.

# tools or the trade — YOU ARE A PIRATE! 2011-01-01 18:42

Rule number 1 to things like this is....DON'T GET CAUGHT!

# RE: A few good reasons not to enter the piracy trade — aaaaa11111 2011-01-03 00:24

Wow. They should start searching the flea markets, they sell CDs with like a shit load of emulators and games

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