A 31-year-old Pennsylvania man who allegedly ran a home-based online business selling pirated copies of software, music, and movies was arrested today following an undercover operation by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) trade groups.
Robert Uss, of Reinholds, Lancaster County, turned himself over to police one week after East Cocalico Township police obtained a search warrant for his parents' home and recovered thousands of CDs and DVDs of illegally copied software, games, movies, and music, said Detective Kerry Sweigart.
The raid on the house came after MPAA and BSA investigators allegedly purchased pirated materials from the suspect over the past few months, between last November and this month. The investigators then contacted local police about the purchases, Sweigart said.
"With that information, we got a search warrant," and recovered about 10,000 pirated discs, he added.
Charges
Uss was charged, under Pennsylvania laws, with trademark counterfeiting and copying recorded devices, Sweigart said. Uss was arraigned before District Justice Nancy Hamill and taken to Lancaster County Prison where he is being held in lieu of $10,000 bail.
Uss faces up to seven years in prison and up to $15,000 in fines if convicted on the charges.
Elizabeth Kaltman, communications director at the Encino, California-based MPAA, said Uss first became known to MPAA investigators in late 2005, when he failed to appear in court regarding allegations of pirated movies. A default judgment of $14,000 was entered against Uss in that case, which was filed by movie company 20th Century Fox Film, she said.
"My understanding is that he's been running this operation for some time," Kaltman said. "Our goal is to stop piracy at its source" to protect MPAA members in the entertainment industry; she added that such operations are "a fairly significant source of piracy."
Who Was Affected
Jenny Blank, director of enforcement at the Washington-based BSA, said the software that Uss allegedly copied and sold was originally produced by a wide range of vendors, including Adobe Systems, Apple, Autodesk, McAfee, Microsoft, and Symantec. No estimated value of the pirated software has been released, she said.
Uss operated from his basement using a single computer and two disk duplicators, according to the two trade groups.
"You don't have to have a warehouse to hurt the industry," Blank said. While police recovered some 10,000 discs from the Uss home during the raid, "God knows how many he sold to people," she said.
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