Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by larntz 2977 days ago
That definitely paints a different picture of the situation.

> Evidence submitted to the court shows that one transaction alone generated $28,000 in revenue for Mr. Lundgren and his co-defendant from the sale of 8,000 counterfeit software discs.

That's quite a bit more than 25 cents per disc.

Should Microsoft charge $25 for a disc and license to run windows on a refurbished, maybe not. But, I have a hard time believing that anyone could attempt to build a legitimate business based like the one described in this case and not expect some kind of legal repercussions.

> Sentencing guidelines for Mr. Lundgren were calculated at 37 to 46 months, according to federal sentencing rules, and the judge in this case issued a below-guidelines sentence of 15 months

I'm not sure how I feel about the prison sentence. I understand that to many people this feels like punishing someone that was trying to make the world a better place, but I can also see how this falls under the piracy / copyright infringement umbrella.

> Mr. Lundgren was even warned by a customs seizure notice that his conduct was illegal and given the opportunity to stop before he was prosecuted.

If this is true I have a hard time feeling bad for the guy. He should have consulted a lawyer at that point. At the least he was aware of the possible consequences.

1 comments

According to 'the defendant' that value is all of the money he got from Bob Wolff over a couple of Years not only from the discs. The discs returned a lot less. Though of course that might be a lie, I wouldn't know.
The purchase order says $28k for 8k disks. It would be funny if he's telling the truth, and the fake PO that he made for an unrelated reason came back to bite him here...