| |||
Press Release
For Immediate Release September 30, 2003 |
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney District of New Hampshire Thomas P. Colantuono Federal Building 55 Pleasant Street, Room 352 Concord, New Hampshire 03301 Contact: Arnold H. Huftalen Assistant U.S. Attorney (603) 225-1552 | ||
| |||
Iowa Man Receives Two-Year Prison Sentence in Internet
Software Piracy Conspiracy
| |||
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE: United States Attorney Tom Colantuono
and Kenneth W. Kaiser, Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Division
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that Christopher Motter,
date of birth10-31-76, of 1300 Coconino Rd. Apt. #11, Ames, Iowa, was
sentenced to serve 2 years in federal prison for his role in an Internet
based software piracy ring. Motter had previously pled guilty to charges
that he conspired with others to violate federal copyright laws through
Internet based software piracy. Motter ran and maintained one of those warez servers which had been seized. It was located in Ames, Iowa, and was know to his co-conspirators as the warez server "Wonderland." At the sentencing hearing today, the government advised United States District Judge Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr., that "Wonderland" had over 5,000 illegally pirated software applications stored within its 400 gigabytes of memory. It had over 40 active users/co-conspirators from across the country, including New Hampshire. As a representative sample of the value of the software on the server, the government advised the Court that a mere 53 applications, less than 1% of the total software on the server, had a retail value of more than $500,000. After the sentence was announced, U.S. Attorney Tom Colantuono said: "Many individuals and companies, small and large alike in New Hampshire, are involved in the development and distribution of new software applications. Our federal copyright laws give those individuals and companies certain rights in that intellectual property, designed in part to encourage development which contributes to the betterment of society. Those who steal protected intellectual property, like the defendant and his co-conspirators here, hurt not only those entrepreneurs who develop the software, and rely upon sales of that software for their livelihood, but they hurt all of society. Who among us will spend the time and money, sometimes millions of dollars, necessary to develop new software applications if those applications are simply to be stolen by software pirates? This office and the FBI will continue to vigorously enforce the copyright laws as they apply to Internet based intellectual property here in New Hampshire." This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Arnold Huftalen.
### |
|||
Go to . . . CCIPS Home Page || Justice Department Home Page Last updated October 21, 2003 usdoj-crm/mis/ese |