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Press Release
For Immediate Release July 10, 2002 |
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney Northern District of California 11th Floor, Federal Building 450 Golden Gate Avenue, Box 36055 San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 436-7200 Fax: (415) 436-7234 |
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Florida Man Pleads Guilty to Selling Counterfeit Software Labels
on Auction Web Sites |
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The United States Attorneys Office for the Northern District of California announced that Joseph Edwin Mitchell has pled guilty to 10 felony counts of trafficking in counterfeit labels for copies of computer programs. Mr. Mitchell, 45 of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Jose, California on January 9, 2002. He was charged with 10 counts of trafficking in counterfeit labels for copies of computer programs in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2318, and one count of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit labels for copies of computer programs and to commit criminal copyright infringement in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Mr. Mitchell pled guilty to all 10 of the trafficking counts, and the government will decide at the time of sentencing whether to further pursue the conspiracy count. In this case, the allegations included the following: Mr. Mitchell sold
infringing copies of Autodesk and other software on Internet auction websites,
including eBay, Yahoo, Up4sale, Ubid, and Lycos. In so doing, he used
counterfeit labels for copies of many of the computer programs which he
sold. He sold copies of software from a number of companies, including
Autodesk, Maya, Soft Image, and Houdini. He had been warned via e-mail
on numerous occasions by auction websites that he was not allowed to sell
the software he was selling, and several of his auction accounts were
shut down by the website operators at eBay and Yahoo. He also received
warnings from Autodesk. Nonetheless, he continued to sell infringing software
with counterfeit labels. This prosecution is the result of a joint investigation by the High Tech Squad of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Autodesk, Inc., headquartered in San Rafael, California, also assisted law enforcement in the investigation. Sandra Boulton, director of piracy prevention at Autodesk, stated that Autodesk is committed to reducing software piracy, and that it supports the efforts of the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of California in this matter. Ross W. Nadel, Chief of the U.S. Attorneys Offices Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who oversaw the investigation and prosecuted the case with the assistance of Lauri Gomez. A copy of this press release may also be found on the U.S. Attorneys Office website at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/can. All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorneys Office should be directed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross W. Nadel at (408) 535-5035 or Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs at (415) 436-7181.
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