14 DAY TRIAL // A software and video games pirate has just been sentenced to 2 and a half years in federal prison, as well as forced to pay over $360,000 as forfeiture for his actions by a court in Ohio.
It seems that Qiang "Michael" Bi, a 36 year old resident of Powell, Ohio, was the mastermind of a serious games and software pirating ring, and was selling discs with the illegal material for $10 a piece.
His operation, according to investigators, started back in 2005, and continued up until December, 2009, managing to sell games worth around $700,000.
The pirate was arrested after he sent a spreadsheet detailing his counterfeit sales from his personal email account to his employer's account at Nationwide Insurance.
The company then notified the FBI as well as the US Postal Inspectors, and the man was arrested on the charges of copyright infringement, mail fraud and identity theft.
After a lengthy trial, the man will now spend 2 and a half years in federal prison, pay $367,669 in forfeiture for his illicit sales, as well as lose his house, car, computer and the rest of the electronic equipment that was used in his illegal enterprise.
After Bi will serve his jail time, he will be on probation for two years, including one year of home confinement, and serve 416 hours of community service.
"I believe at your core you are a good person," judge Algenon Marbley told Bi. "You made a gross error in judgment ... and it seemed all motivated by greed."
Bi, for what it's worth, promised the court to "be a better person" and "never commit another crime."
This sentence is a pretty big win for the FBI and the copyright enforcement agencies, which have been hunting down serious software pirates for quite a long time.