Game Pirate in Florida Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison

The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that Kifah Maswadi has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for selling pirated video game systems. The Florida man was also ordered to pay $415,900 for copyright infringement. Additionally, Maswadi was ordered to perform 50 hours of community service educating others about the pitfalls of copyright infringement while serving three years of supervised release.

Maswadi pled guilty on June 3, 2008 to a one-count indictment for criminal copyright infringement. Maswadi confessed to selling the "Power Player" handheld which came pre-loaded with several dozen copyright protected video games, many from Nintendo. Maswadi also admitted that he sold the game consoles and pirated games to customers in the Eastern District of Virginia and elsewhere through several of his websites from 2006 through 2007, with sales of the pirated game units exceeding $390,000.