Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher for the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic for the Eastern District of Wisconsin announced today that two more defendants pleaded guilty in Milwaukee to charges of criminal copyright infringement as a result of their selling counterfeit software on eBay.
Robert Koster of Jonesboro and Yutaka Yamamoto pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit Rockwell Automation computer software over the Internet. The software sold by the two defendants had a combined retail value of almost $6 million. Each defendant faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release.
These pleas bring the total number of felony convictions involving the eBay auction sales of counterfeit Rockwell Automation software to nine. In addition to six pleas in Wisconsin, there have been two convictions in the Eastern District of Michigan and another in the Southern District of Indiana. The combined retail value of the counterfeit software in all nine prosecutions is approximately $30 million.
Online auction sales of counterfeit and pirated goods have increased exponentially in recent years, causing significant losses to the copyright and trademark industries. The Department of Justice’s initiative to combat online auction piracy is just one of several steps being undertaken to address these losses and hold responsible those defendants engaged in criminal copyright infringement.
Originally posted on June 26, 2007 @ 9:10 am