Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

December 6, 2008

The prosecution of a major California video game pirate has resulted in a comparatively light sentence.

The San Jose Mercury-News reports that Khuong Van Truong copped a plea in Santa Clara County Superior Court this week. Truong stood accused of counterfeiting and possessing more the 11,000bootleg video games, 4,000 DVDs and 300 audio CDs. The pirated goods were valued at an estimated $420,000.

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the interests of US video game publishers, told the Mercury-News that the counterfiet games probably netted Truon thousands of dollars per month.

According to radio station KLIV, Truong ran the copying operation from his home. He also pleaded guilty to narcotics and child endangerment offenses.

In addition, KLIV reports that Truong, who will be sentenced on February 3rd, is expected to receive less than a year in jail. That seems a bit light considering the drug and child welfare counts as well as the SJ Merc's description of his operation as "one of the largest pirated video games cases on the West Coast."

There's no word on exactly what type of games Truong was pirating. We have a request into the ESA for additional information.

UPDATE: (via: Kotaku) The San Francisco Chronicle has more on the story:

The case came to light when Truong's 2-year-old son walked into a busy intersection while Truong was not home... A passing driver stopped to care for the boy and call police...

 

Truong returned home and allowed officers inside the house, where a pirating operation was discovered... and [Truong] was also found to be in possession of marijuana, illegal mushrooms, steroids and ecstasy...


Comments

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

pirated games all over the world problem. heavy sentence despite sanctions. this very common crime araç kiralama ankara

 


 

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Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

I'm all for freedom of ttnet vitamin speech and allowing rent a car game makers to put whatever they want in games, but there's one thing about this app that has me scratching my head.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but from araç kiralama the previous article araba kiralama on this I gathered that players can use Google maps in-game to find the other (real-life?) dealers in their area.  If this is the case, has travesti anyone considered what's stopping someone from using this app to actually move drugs between hands for reals?

But majority araba kiralama of their outrage araç kiralama stems from what it could DO TO children, not the content itself.  Talk to one of these people and you'll find they don't think any books kiralık araba should be banned from children.  Mention American Psycho and they talk about kiralık araç the redeeming value of using imagination to construct a story.  Reading, no matter what the content, is largely viewed as a consequenceless activity for people of any age.  The reason why I mention American Psycho is because of the content itself.  Gaming never has and likely never will have any scenes where someone has sex with a severed head.  Not gonna happen.  Yet despite this, they'll fight tooth and nail to protect their children from two boys kissing in Bully but whatever they read is harmless... yeah.

The entire arguement is kiralık oto based upon a social normality inflicted by luddites who can't figure out the controls for Halo so it's frightening and terrifying and obviously the cause of youth violence on the rise even though, in reality, it's in decline (which is actually a HUGE suprise given minibüs kiralama the economies status).  In  a perfect world, we would have parents that actually parent.  The idea of sales restrictions on media on oto kiralama any form to accomidate parental unwillingness to get involved with their child's life is the real problem to me.  Here I am, 32 years old, and being held up at a self-scan rent a car needing to show ID before I can buy a $10 M rated game all because Soccer Momthra can't be bothered to look at the crap Billy Genericallystupidson does in his free time.  It's too hard for her, so I have to suffer?

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

I'll be honest, I find allowing your 2 year old to wonder into the path of traffic to be far more shocking than anything else in this case.

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

This is why there are statuary damages and civil suits.

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"The most difficult pain a man can suffer is to have knowledge of much and power over little" - Herodotus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The most difficult pain a man can suffer is to have knowledge of much and power over little" - Herodotus

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

Ya but they count the aleged damages so the 400K is what they will charge him with and be fined oh say 50-400K, or as bad 1-5K and jail time, he probly made a 100th of the retail price for each sale so they should focs on the going rate for the illict discs and base the damages on that.

Bascily fine im for what he made add in fines and jail time if needed.

at 10K plus they should take property, gound the process more if what I am getting at.
=================================
Pirates,Shearers,Lenders and downloaders are not a market that can be taped by the mainstream.
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Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.

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Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

I hope he gets what he deserves. People who make counterfeit games should be persecuted to the extent of the law. 

Pirates copy things from the internet, depriving no one of the game/music/video, whereas counterfeiters actually profit and make money from making physical counterfeits. I hope they all get shot.

Brain: "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" Pinky: "I think so, Brain, but we're already naked."

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

They're just crooks, no need to get that angry over them.

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Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

Either way, there's still a major difference between ripping off the company you're pirating from and profiting from it.  Pirating via bittorrent or whatever is a verbal taunt to the face, and bootlegging is a one finger salute.  Both are offensive, much less illegal, but the latter is sure to evoke more fury than the former.

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

Meh petty crime is pretty….. for operations like this what was made is more important than what the potential  max of the illicit profit.

 

 

By all means fine the criminals  but do so in equal proration to what they steal look at sony and big boys getting away with stealing millions and getting a slap on the wrist, petty crime is dealt with small fines, larger crime of 5K plus take their property away for corporate crime 100X the worth of what’s stolen or misused to bankrupt corrupt companies.


=================================
Pirates,Shearers,Lenders and downloaders are not a market that can be taped by the mainstream.
---------------------------------
I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/


Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.

---

http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

I never heard of a pirate getting a heavy sentence.  Granted there are worse things you can do as a criminal.

--- Official Protector of Videoland!

--- Official Protector of Videoland!

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

They can be taped by the mainstream, at least the people new to the game, they just have to quit being douche bags. 

New news title for this article: Haxors Can Hack Life And Put In Cheat Codes For Less Jail Time.

Nido Web Flash Tutorials AS2 and AS3 Tutorials for anyone interested.
How to set Xbox 360 Parental Controls

 

Nido Web Flash Tutorials AS2 and AS3 Tutorials for anyone interested.
How to set Xbox 360 Parental Controls

Re: Heavyweight Game Pirate Gets Light Sentence

 

If drugs were involved he might of coped out and got a lighter sentence to snitch on them or a larger copyright infringement ring either way if he was selling software illicitly…throw im under a bus…..


=================================
Pirates,Shearers,Lenders and downloaders are not a market that can be taped by the mainstream.
---------------------------------
I is fuzzy brained mew =^^=
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/


Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.

---

http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/

 
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