A New York man pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement for selling counterfeit goods over the internet. The man, Robert Cimino, 59, of Syracuse, NY, was charged with selling more than $250,000 worth of counterfeit goods over the internet. According to court documents, buyers would contact Cimino by email and then pay for the goods using Paypal.
Cimino would then mail infringing copies of Adobe, Autodesk, Intuit and Quark programs that he had burned to CD or DVD to the customers, including customers in the Eastern District of Virginia. Cimino admitted that from February 2006 to September 2009, he received at least $270,035 from his sales of infringing software products.
Don't get us wrong, we strongly support lowering copyright terms and a basic reform of the copyright system to strip out software from the mix. He was a criminal selling counterfeit goods. The people that purchased the software were mislead into believing that the software was legitimate.
Cimino is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga on May 28, 2010. Cimino faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine, restitution and forfeiture.