Seller of Counterfeit Video Games Gets 30 Months 165
wiredmikey writes "The FBI reported this week that Qiang 'Michael' Bi, of Powell, Ohio was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling more than 35,000 illegally copied computer games over the Internet between 2005 and 2009. According to a statement of facts read during Bi's plea hearing, agents executed a search warrant at Bi's house and found multiple CD duplicators and more than 1,000 printed counterfeit CDs. Some of the CDs were still in the duplicator. During their investigation, agents learned that Bi would buy a single copy of a game, illegally duplicate it and sell the copies on eBay.com and Amazon.com. He also set up a website for customers to download the games they bought. Bi accepted payment through eBay and PayPal accounts in his name and in others' names."
What games? (Score:2)
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Oh please, as if it was hard to remove DRM and generate serial numbers.
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Console games.
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What was he possibly selling in 2005 that had no reg code or drm???
Emulators with bundled ROMs, possibly.
Amazing... (Score:5, Insightful)
It still blows my mind that people can be capable enough to run a little outfit like this, and yet be so amazingly dumb. You know you're going to get caught when you sell this stuff from the US, under your own name, on big name websites.
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But how much money did he make and move offshore? Maybe 30 months is trivial for him. Maybe 30 months is unusually large and it's normally fair to bet on a much lighter sentence.
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Bi also forfeited $367,669 in cash, representing the proceeds of the crimes, as well as his house, a 2006 Lexus SUV and computer and electronic equipment.
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He will also be required to make restitution to the companies who created the games. The amount of restitution is yet to be determined.
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Somehow less than the penalty for "making available" 24 songs. The moral of the story: If you're going to commit a crime, commit the biggest crime you possibly can!
Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to, but I lack the money to open a bank.
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That's the real trick, if you can get away with it long enough to grow your crimes, eventually you can commit crimes big enough that the government starts paying you.
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On another note, cancel the bank, I'll make a religion. Much easier to start and all you need is some gullible idiots. Even given the competition in the market for gullible fools, there's certainly still a vast unharvested field.
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So the sum total may exceed the penalty for "making available" 24 songs. We will just have to wait to find out.
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Somehow less than the penalty for "making available" 24 songs. The moral of the story: If you're going to commit a crime, commit the biggest crime you possibly can!
The problem is that the law ask for the number of copyrighted items that were copied, not for the value of those items, and not for the number of copies made. Psystar who was convicted for making about 750 illegal copies of MacOS X was convicted for copying _one_ copyrighted work, 1/24th of Jammi whatshername. The number of copies is only relevant if the copyright owner goes for actual damages. Let's say if a record company sold a million copies of a CD without having the copyright. So to compare the cases,
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I thought the moral was thusly: Steal as much as you can. That way you can afford a better lawyer (and accountants to hide money offshore for when you get out of Club Fed in six months).
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$367,669 in cash and too cheap to rent a server in Tonga or Tuvalu to run his business from?
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Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Interesting)
So he gets 6 months for *selling* *35,000* games, but Jammie Thomas-Rasset gets 1.X Million for copying 24 songs?
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So he gets 6 months for *selling* *35,000* games, but Jammie Thomas-Rasset gets 1.X Million for copying 24 songs?
Don't assume we know every part of the plea agreement.
Who knows how many others he might have ratted out?
Who knows how much money and off shore bank accounts were seized prior to trial, which just sort of become property of ICE?
Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Informative)
Thomas-Rasset got what she asked for. She was sharing a couple thousands songs in reality, although they only sued over 24 of them. They offered to settle for a few thousand dollars, which is a pretty fair price considering the number she was actually sharing. However, she decided to reject that and go to trial, even though she had not even a remote chance of winning (hell, she couldn't even hope for jury nullification, since it is a civil case and a nullification would just be overturned on appeal). The minimum statutory damage award is $750 per infringed work, or $18000 in this case. If, somehow, the court decided that she was an innocent infringer (basically someone who had no reason to believe they were infringing copyright), that can be cut down to $200 per work, or $4800 in this case. There's pretty much no chance of that, so realistically she was looking at a minimum of $18000.
So, the best case she was looking at by going to trial was 3-4 times worse than settling, and that depending on the jury feeling sufficiently sympathetic to go as low as they could on the damages. And then she was pretty blatant about lying in court, she tried to blame her kids, and it came out that she tried to destroy evidence. So much for any chance of the jury being sympathetic...
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There's pretty much no chance of that, so realistically she was looking at a minimum of $18000.
I'm not sure I agree with your logic, but I don't care to argue with you, so I'll concede everything you said and instead point this out: Even $18000 is arguably ridiculous, but do you think there'd be as much of an outcry if it was $18000 and not >$1M?
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Thomas-Rasset got what she asked for.
Like you say, the deck is wildly stacked against her when it goes to court and she's pretty much been on her worst behavior inside and outside of court. But even if you came into court accused of theft and said "If I want something I just take it so fuck you all" and gave the jury the finger there'd be limits. Thomas-Rasset has shown that for copyright infringement there's practically no limit, they can just pick a penalty far beyond the life earnings of most people for being a minor non-commercial file sha
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It's at the level of the minimum damages when found guilty, and since guilt* was pretty damn clear that's a good deal.
* Sure the law is stupid, but it is what it is.
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Come on. Any of the settlements offered to Thomas-Rasset are outrageous, at different levels of outrageous.
They are all so far from fair that I just can't imagine that you genuinely believe that "a few thousand dollars" be "a pretty fair price". I must assume that you are a RIAA shill.
She was sharing nearly 2000 tracks. If she had bought instead of pirating, that would have been nearly $2k at the usual $1/track price, just to have the songs for her personal use. In addition she had them shared. I think that makes another couple of bucks per track reasonable. That brings us to about what the settlement offer was before the trial.
What would you consider to be a fair settlement for nearly 2000 songs? Remember to take into account that they weren't just downloaded for personal use--they were
Re:Amazing... (Score:4, Insightful)
I tell you what, if the entitlement crowd, a group of people distinguished by the fact that they refuse to do any work but want rewards anyway, manages to get up off their asses and actually start a revolution, I'll join in sheer amazement. I suspect, however, that it might be a little too difficult and you'll all just call for the rest of us to do it for you while you try to benefit for free.
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Agreed. The sense of entitlement to ownership of ideas and their expressions, especially when most of the work going into every example of either is the result of millennia of cultural and technological development, is laughable.
"It's mine I thought of it first!" is intellectually dishonest and pathetic beyond kindergarten.
Misplaced focus (Score:5, Insightful)
So this guy gets 30 months for physically duplicating AND SELLING stuff, while Jammie Thomas et al get smacked with million-dollar fines for downloading a few handfuls of unpaid tunes for their own personal enjoyment? Maybe THIS guy should be the one getting smacked with million-dollar fines, considering he might have made millions from what he was doing.
Re:Misplaced focus (Score:5, Informative)
Bi also forfeited $367,669 in cash, representing the proceeds of the crimes, as well as his house, a 2006 Lexus SUV and computer and electronic equipment.
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He will also be required to make restitution to the companies who created the games. The amount of restitution is yet to be determined.
Assuming it's the retail price, 35,000 games @ $20 amounts to $700,000
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Good point, but it's still grossly out of proportion, considering 35'000 games cost a lot more than 24 songs.
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grossly out of proportion == misplaced focus, then?
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Yes.
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Good point, but it's still grossly out of proportion, considering 35'000 games cost a lot more than 24 songs.
Yea, but remember, when someone pirates something that doesn't mean they would have bought it had it not been available to download....oh wait, I just proved your point even more....
People who are SELLING counterfeit copies of games should be fined as it IS theft. The buyers actually traded dollars for the games (albeit at lower prices). Why the justice system wants to punish little old ladies for
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I suspect they're reasoning that the chance of getting caught is so low, they need to make the punishment draconic instead to get people to follow the law.
I.e, the punishment is not in proportion to the individual's guilt, but in proportion to society's need to quell file sharing (as perceived by the lobbyists and politicians).
Even if didn't think file sharing was harmless, I would find that reasoning dubious from a justice point of view.
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Assuming the average few millions per copied song, I hope he has a country like, say, Australia willing to donate their GDP for a few years so he can pay the fine.
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So this guy gets 30 months for physically duplicating AND SELLING stuff, while Jammie Thomas et al get smacked with million-dollar fines for downloading a few handfuls of unpaid tunes for their own personal enjoyment? Maybe THIS guy should be the one getting smacked with million-dollar fines, considering he might have made millions from what he was doing.
Thomas has had multiple opportunities to settle for much less, some as low as around a couple thousand dollars (which would have been a pretty fair amount, considering that had in fact downloaded and was sharing a couple thousand songs, not a mere "few handfuls"). She had such opportunities before the first trial, and after each trial.
Thomas also lied under oath, tried to frame her children, and was caught trying to destroy evidence. Those things make the jury unsympathetic, and such damages are determined
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Lemme guess... a million or so dollars?
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She might, knowing her wages wouldn't be garnished for the rest of her life, her posthumous estate held hostage, and her heirs stuck on the hook... all because she downloaded two dozen songs.
Ratted out by company email software (Score:5, Informative)
Agents and officers with the FBI Cybercrime Task Force, and U.S. Postal Inspectors are credited with the success of the case.
Er, no--credit monitoring software at the company he worked for! [dispatch.com]:
New monitoring software at Nationwide Insurance spelled the beginning of the end for an employee who had been counterfeiting and selling computer games for five years. The software alerted Nationwide officials to a spreadsheet that Qiang "Michael" Bi had sent from his personal e-mail account to his Nationwide e-mail account. The spreadsheet listed eBay accounts, credit-card numbers and false identity information that Bi used in a lucrative counterfeiting scheme.
The spreadsheet listed more than 50 eBay and PayPal accounts, all with different names. Bi told investigators he used other people's information on the accounts because eBay and PayPal had suspended his accounts and do not allow a new account with the same name and address as a suspended account.
Counterfeit? (Score:2)
No trademark infringement? I doubt he was passing these off as the real thing, i.e., counterfeiting.
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Wouldn't trademark infringement be a civil matter?
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But seeking damages is the responsibility of the copyright holder. The Government does not go out and seek damages for you.
Having this conviction on the books, the copyright holders should be able to sue the guy and get. .. ... Nothing!
Because ICE already confiscated everything.
Seeing as how he was ripping off dozens of titles, it probably made more sense than 50 or 60 court cases each seeking the same pile of money.
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It's just a false flag issue to get people on side with ACTA. Now everytime you see a big bust they wont use the word piracy, they'll use counterfeiting. Yeah we caught this guy counterfeiting 1000's of songs on the internets clogging up the tubes.
I wouldn't be surprised if this guy was a plant by the MAFIAA or something.
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How in hell would the copier be 'held accountable' if no crime is committed? Goody two-shoes feelings? No, that's why he ripped off the authors in the first place, no goody feelings. He must be forced.
It should go on his record? Yep, he did the crime. Jail time? Note to you: all crimes do not result in jail time.
Good! (Score:2)
I can live another day knowing that less potential profit is being stolen (which is totally possible even though it doesn't even exist in the hands of the copyright holder anyway). It's really nice to see that petty things that should be up to the copyright holder to attempt to stop are being handled by the police (who don't have anything better to do).
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The FBI, then. Or at least, they were involved.
wasted resources (Score:3)
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I don't see how it's a waste of time to prevent the theft of potential profit (it's theft even though the copyright holder never had the money in their possession anyway). I just hope they ban competition, the act of a consumer to choose not to buy something, and negative user reviews soon. That way, potential future gain could no longer be stolen!
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(it's theft even though the copyright holder never had the money in their possession anyway)
you assert this boldly, but it's really an ongoing debate. I didn't want to start this argument though, so let me apologize for using the word "waste" and say that I would rather have written "extend". My meaning was to say that when I take a few steps back and look at it all, it seems kind of weird. With most other crimes there are quite straightforward justifications for what we have the justice system occupied with doing, but with copyright it becomes a bit of an ant hive. Just a feeling, I'm not saying
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but it's really an ongoing debate
Well, I suppose it is a little bit difficult to steal something that doesn't even exist...
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(it's theft even though the copyright holder never had the money in their possession anyway).
When a thief takes goods from a store, the store also never has the thief's money in its possession.
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When a thief takes a good from the store, the good is no longer there. I could understand people who don't understand what the act of copyright infringement actually involves not knowing the difference, but someone browsing this website (multiple people, no less)? Come on. It's simply not the same thing. The thief is accused of taking the good, not money that never existed in the first place.
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Nihilism at its best?
I think, therefore I am. Beyond that it all quickly becomes a blur of assumptions and prejudices.
Dont feel too bad for this guy (Score:4)
He made over $700,000 on these counterfeited games.
He actually turned in over $360,000 IN CASH after being caught.
He was not a petty guy just making some copies for his friends etc.
So yeah, seriously, don't try and compare this guy to any fair use idea whatsoever, it's just going to hurt the whole fair use argument if you use him as an example.
It's guys like this that make it hard for the rest of us who just want to backup a game or install on another PC.
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Yet someone caught trading songs has their life utterly destroyed to the tune of $30k per song shared.
Seems a bit lopsided to me.
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surely selling something for profit that is copy righted is worse than giving it away for free right
Well it depends. The argument often used on /. to justify piracy is that it's just natural for information to be copied etc, and it's a basic human right to do so, and authors should seek other revenue models and so on. In which case it really shouldn't be any different regardless of whether he made money on it or not. So long as he didn't claim to be the author of the works he copied, and didn't defraud his customers by claiming that the copies are legal, the "information wants to be free" argument should
Counterfeit? (Score:2)
I'm a bit puzzled at the Editor's choice of a word - I'm sure that if I bought and played the game, it would work in the same way as the 'real' one - and the game was ~copied~, not 'created to resemble' as the word counterfeit implies. Yet I do understand that many are tiring of the word 'pirate'...
Counterfeit seems like the wrong word! (Score:2)
If the program isn't modified in any way, it's not counterfeit. The problem that someone wasn't compensated for the copy isn't counterfeting.
A counterfeit coin or paper bill actually has no value (unless the copy is so perfect, that nobody can tell!)
A pirated program has value, because it runs.
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I think that "they" would catch anybody advertising on eBay and Amazon just as easily without regards for their field of criminal activities.
I heard several stories like this one before. One took place in the area where live. The guy they caught was advertising just about everywhere and he had a very similar thing going on in its home.
I think that he is the only guy ever charged with counterfeiting CDs around here. I have even heard cops saying on the news that they did not have the resources to start inves
Re:They dont catch any terrorists, or drug smuggle (Score:5, Informative)
That and the fact he was ratted out by his employer for using company email addresses to move his secret lists of accounts.
Lets face it, the cops were handed this case on a silver platter.
Go here.
Arrest him.
Confiscate 300K in ill-gotten funds.
Have a beer.
He should be glad that he wasn't in China. (Score:2)
He'd be an involuntary "organ donor". You don't even have to sign a donor consent form...
Two soldiers take an arm each, stand there, and a third soldier blasts one shot from a Kalashnikov to the back of the head.
Then, they move onto the next, uh, donor, while the army medics harvest your organs.
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Are you aware that, for every copyright imprisonment, hundreds of dealers and smugglers are arrested? Are you aware that you're full of shit when it comes to the "equipment" of the cartels?
Ok, those were rhetorical questions: I'm sure that you are aware - you're just intentionally ignoring any facts which are inconvenient to the "OMG DA FEDS SUCK" "argument".
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tl;dr, but from the first couple sentences you seem like a complete lunatic, and from the lack of capitalization and the poor punctuation it seems unlikely that you're capable of making an intelligent point. Sorry to have bothered you.
yeah tinfoil (Score:2)
i take it you didnt dare read the linked article.
In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops. Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S.—which, in exchange, allowed him to continue his drug-trafficking activities—which they had known about since the 1960s.[12][13] When the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so.[12] The CIA, which was then directed by future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as payment for his work in Latin America.[12] However, when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's activities in Latin America, and the CIA's connections with Noriega became a public relations "liability" for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after decades of allowing his drug operations to proceed unchecked.[12] Operation Just Cause, whose ostensible purpose was to capture Noriega, killed numerous Panamanian civilians, but was successful in removing Noriega. The operation pushed Noriega back into the town asylum along with Papal Nuncio where he surrendered to U.S. authorities. His trial took place in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Re:ICE This Week (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you really implying that copyright law shouldn't be enforced because there are worse things going on in the world?
There are serial killers out there, but I sincerely hope the police make some sort of effort at catching the guys who stole $4,000 worth of tools from my father-in-law last week.
Whatever your opinion on copyright law, you've got to admit that copying another person's work and SELLING IT without them getting a cut is a dick move and shouldn't be tolerated.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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What do you do for a living?
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But they did consider not being ripped off by your government or your fellow citizens to be a right (they were most eloquent about the rights to one's property and works - just read the mountains of papers, letters, and other supporting documents produced by those wise fellows). What they didn't like was having to operate a press under the authority of the
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(This, incidentally, was the view of the American Founding Fathers. They had an acute sense of natural rights -- endowed by the Creator and only recognized by the government -- but did not consider copyright among them.)
This is an outright falsification, sir. They very well did believe in copyright because they put it in Article I of the Constitution:
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I think GP means that the Founding Fathers did not consider copyright to be a natural right. Hence why that particular phrase that you've cited is worded the way it is - note that it is not the statement of fact, but is given a rationale as to why it is there ("to promote the progress"). So it's not a fundamental right of the author, but rather a (supposedly) mutually beneficial arrangement to promote the interests of society as a whole.
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While I have sympathy towards your view points (well, some of them, anyway), you should try conveying them in a language that is more polite, or at least less aggressive and insulting. Regardless of the substance of the message, it will be seen as trolling if the tone is like that.
ehhh (Score:2)
no surprise though. it is no different in real life. regardless of how
no (Score:2)
bottom line is, you morons cant face the truth. its too much. here, again :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking [wikipedia.org]
CIA DOES DRUG TRAFFICKING AND SUPPORT
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How is linking to Wikipedia sociopathical ? The CIA does drug trafficking or at least it did, were is the trolling in that statement, flamebait maybe but trol, no way !
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Governments multi-task - a concept that also seems strangely foreign to the geek.
Well said.
Why is it anything accomplished by government is always a waste of time and money just because something else (speakers pet project) is not accomplished first?
Its a hell of a lot easier and less expensive to take down a disk duplicator when the aggrieved copyright holder calls you up and tells you exactly where the disks are coming from and files an official complaint, than it is to invade yet another country to get Osama.
Who would want a government capable of solving all problems simultaneously a
Re:ICE This Week (Score:4, Funny)
Who would want a government capable of solving all problems simultaneously and in the right sequence to satisfy every citizens priorities.
Apparently "god" does it in "heaven". Which is one of the reasons I don't accept such stories; I find it difficult to believe that even an omnipotent being would simultaneously be able to please a group of democrats and a group of republicans. Needless to say, I expect even less from a human government.
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When you banish anyone who thinks about not liking the way you do things it should be reasonably easy to please everyone who is left.
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I find it difficult to believe that even an omnipotent being would simultaneously be able to please a group of democrats and a group of republicans.
There's also libertarians.
But, well, that's why it's a Trinity!
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Ah, good old westlake. Taking millions of slashdotters, rolling them into one ponderous abstraction and then putting words in their mouth ... that just never grows old for you, does it?
At least you've stopped capitalising the words, as if The Geek was some improbably enhanced superhero, and you his kid sidekick. I suppose we should be thankful for small m
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Well, if we discount the prominent and vocal pro-rightsholder contingent, maybe. But yeah, it's understandable, if just a little lazy, and I'm sure we all do it from time to time.
In westlake's case though, it's not enough to project his straw
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Arguably, Slashdot provides stories that generate most page views (and therefore ad views). And the best way to do so is to bring up subjects on which there is no universal agreement in the audience, but rather two or more opposing sides that are nigh impossible to reconcile. That way you get a massive flamewar in the comments (especially when TFS has flamebaiting clues already, though in practice you can always rely on Slashdotters for some decent flamebaits even in the absence of any invitation), and that
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The patriot act pushed meth manufacturing mostly into Mexico.
Hahaha, you'd like to think that, wouldn't you? There's so much meth being produced in California you'd think it was our primary export. I live in a town where a lot of it is produced. They expend absolutely zero effort on tracking them down and busting them because it's easier and cheaper to catch pot growers and there is less risk of being shot at; even the Mexican gang members tend to just fade away into the woods.
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A buddy of mine who currently lives in Sacramento told me about a nature walk he took while in in elementary school in California:
These trees have been here for hundreds of years... and that's a meth shack, over there... if you look to your left, you can see a stream that runs off from a nearby natural spring... and there's another meth shack...
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That's pretty much the story of Cobb mountain, except the PG&E guy estimates that 3 out of 5 houses are growing weed, and only 1 out of 5 is producing meth. The remaining house is vacant.
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hahahaha... oh man, that's a good one right there... I'll have to pass it along to my buddy! ;D
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counterfeit (tr. v.) 1. To make a copy of, usually with the intent to defraud
He defrauded the copyright holder for certain.
He may also have defrauded the buyer who may have thought they were buying legitimate goods.
Duplicating copyrighted material is both counterfeiting and infringing. So I'm at a loss to see your distinction here.
BTW:
Have you ever seen anyone advertise something as unauthorized copies?
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He committed fraud upon the customers, who thought they were getting the real thing.
Have you actually read TFA? (Of course not, what was I thinking!?!).
He was convicted of fraud. In a court of law. By a Judge and Lawyers that actually HAVE law degrees. Stop arguing about fraud. He pleaded guilty. He is guilty. That ship has sailed.
Quote TFA:
According to a statement of facts read during Bi’s plea hearing, agents executed a search warrant at Bi’s house and found multiple CD duplicators and more than 1,000 PRINTED counterfeit CDs.
He represented these as real, there is no evidence he showed sharpie disks. You made that up.