Florida Man Sentenced for Video Game Piracy

A Florida man has been sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay US$415,900 in restitution for selling video game systems that were preloaded with more than 75 pirated copies of games, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

Kifah Maswadi, age 24, of Oakland, Florida, was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He pleaded guilty on June 3 to one count of criminal copyright infringement after he was indicted Jan. 24, the DOJ said. Maswadi sold Power Player handheld game consoles that contained pirated copies of at least 76 video games, most of them games by Nintendo and its licensees, the agency said.

Through a Web site, Maswadi sold the game consoles from 2006 to 2007 in Virginia and elsewhere, the DOJ said. His profits exceeded $390,000.

In addition to the prison term and restitution, a judge ordered Maswadi to serve three years of supervised release and to perform 50 hours of community service, which includes educating the public on the perils of criminal copyright infringement.