A game console repairman who pirated copies of Rock Band, Guitar Hero and Super Mario Galaxy among others was running a commercial enterprise of “organized theft,” a federal prosecutor says.
In this case, Gregory Martin’s theft was property rights, Darren Anger said in court Tuesday.
Martin, 36, of Niagara Falls, was fined $3,000 and put on two years of probation after pleading guilty earlier to five counts under the Copyright Act.
Banned from distributing or possessing pirated software games or consoles, he was also told to pay $1,461 in restitution to the Entertainment Software Association in Washington, D.C.
The association paid for a private investigator to probe Martin’s actions after a tip in May 2008.
His lawyer Geoffrey Hadfield said Martin had a vast collection of his own games and was initially pestered into copying them.
“It was seductive. He did so,” Hadfield said. “He would sell the games for a nominal fee because it was an adjunct to the business he had.”
Martin, who runs BoXX Doctor, modifies game consoles with a “modchip”, which Hadfield said is not illegal and expands the capability of the machine. It allows the Nintendo Wii to play DVDs for instance, or individuals to play backup copies of their own games.
His total business income last year from repairing computer gaming equipment was $17,000, Hadfield said, and he is in debt.
The investigation began in May 2008 after RCMP received a tip that Xbox units were being modified and games were reproduced.
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