RIAA Celebrates 15 Year Jail Sentence For Movie and Music Pirate

[nsane.forums]

The RIAA has welcomed a mind-boggling jail sentence handed to a man who sold pirated movies and music. The 37-year-old man pleaded guilty to six felony counts of selling counterfeit media after he sold five movies and one music CD to an undercover investigator without the permission of copyright holders. As a result he will go to jail in Mississippi for 15 years to be followed by three years of supervised release.

As a general rule we tend to cover digital piracy issues here on TorrentFreak, but every now and again a copyright-related story appears in the physical realm that makes us sit up and listen.

The news comes from the United States and involves Patrick Lashun King, a man who was involved in the selling of counterfeit movies and music.

According to police, King was arrested at his business in Hazlehurst after an undercover reporter from the Attorney General’s Intellectual Property Theft Task Force managed to buy a total of five copied movies and one music CD from the 37-year-old.

Subsequent searches at King’s work and home addresses turned up computer equipment for copying and a total of 10,500 pirated discs. Police also confiscated weapons although they do not reveal whether they were legally held or not.

The case, which was investigated by the Attorney General’s office and Hazlehurst Police Department, eventually saw King plead guilty to the sale of the five DVDs and one CD. But despite his apparent cooperation, King received the harshest sentence for a copyright infringement offense that we’ve ever seen.

Judge Lamar Pickard in Copiah County Circuit Court ordered King to serve a total of 15 years in jail to be followed by three years supervised release.

“This sentencing demonstrates that theft of intellectual property is treated as a serious crime in Mississippi and highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others,” said Brad Buckles, Executive Vice President, Anti-Piracy, at the Recording Industry Association of America.

“We extend our thanks and appreciation to Attorney General Hood for his leadership in IP enforcement and to the dedicated law enforcement officers and prosecutors who worked on the case.”

At this point we should mention that 17 years ago King was sentenced to five years for assaulting a police officer and in 2003 he did serve a year under house arrest for CD piracy. Nevertheless, 15 years seems like a sentence one might associate with particularly serious violent crime, not the copying of digital media.

And when it comes to tough sentences, King is apparently not on his own. Two weeks ago another man, Antwun Sharell Jones, was sentenced to two years in a Mississippi jail for selling a single pirate movie.

Piracy may not technically be theft, but the signs are that judges in the United States believe it’s a worthy equivalent – and then some.

View: Original Article

[Ambrocious]

I could probably rape someone and get less jail time.....so fucked up. I hope they are satisfied with the fact that they just ruined a mans life for something that isn't even a crime at all. Wal-Mart and other stores can sell movies/music/software but when ordinary people try to, on a MUCH smaller scale might I add, they get busted and sent to jail. Perhaps trillionair John D. Rockefeller was right when he made the infamous quote, "Competition is a sin".

[Sonar]

I could probably rape someone and get less jail time.....so fucked up. I hope they are satisfied with the fact that they just ruined a mans life for something that isn't even a crime at all. Wal-Mart and other stores can sell movies/music/software but when ordinary people try to, on a MUCH smaller scale might I add, they get busted and sent to jail. Perhaps trillionair John D. Rockefeller was right when he made the infamous quote, "Competition is a sin".

yup shocking

These days they dont even get sent to jail on far more worse things then this..

[mray88]

Selling and/or profiting from warez is stupid and foul, but a 15 year sentence for something like this is just plain psychotic.

I think of the countless recording artists that were cheated out of all or most of their royalties by the thieving music industry -- I never once heard of the RIAA demanding 15 year sentences be handed out against those people that were their business associates that perpetrated those crimes. Famous African-American recording artists from the 60's (and plenty even more recently) that died penniless due to those kind of rip-offs in that business.... where was the demand for outlandish sentences in those instances? It was nowhere to be found! The mutilation of this guy's life over a handful of movies and one single cd is absolute madness. Sick.

[Ambrocious]

So who's with me on sending the CEO of the RIAA a box full of camel feces? We can wrap it in a pretty birthday box with a great big bow and everything.

On a humorous side note, WATCH THIS!