Two Americans get Jail for DVD Piracy (China)

Officials launching a week-long anti-piracy campaign across the nation got a shot in the arm from a Shanghai court yesterday: Two Americans were among four people found guilty of selling pirated DVDs on the Internet.

Randolph Hobson Guthrie III, the prime culprit, was sentenced to 30 months' jail and fined 500,000 yuan (US$60,459).

Three accomplices - Wu Dong, Cody Abram Thrush, and Wu Shibiao were all given jail terms ranging up to 15 months and fines of between 10,000 (US$1,209) and 30,000 yuan (US$3,628).

The two Americans will be expelled from the country after serving their prison terms, the judge pronounced.

Police revealed the four had sold pirated DVDs for US$3 each through eBay and another website called "Three Dollar DVD" from November 3, 2003, to July 1, 2004.

According to receipts from courier companies and data seized from the Guthrie's computer, police estimated that more than 180,000 pirate DVDs worth more than 7 million yuan (US$840,000) had been sold by the company.

Based on evidence provided, a judge of the Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court found that they had sold about 133,000 pirate DVDs worth more than 3.3 million yuan (US$393,000) to more than 20 countries including the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada and earned nearly 1 million yuan (US$120,900) from the business.

The case was given top priority and last year was categorized as one of the country's top 10 IPR (intellectual property right) cases by the State Intellectual Property Office.

Investigators swung into action when the Bureau of Investigation of Economic Crimes under the Ministry of Public Security received a report from the US Embassy in China last April about two Shanghai-based Americans selling pirated DVDs abroad and immediately started to co-ordinate with their United States counterparts.

Guthrie, Wu Dong and Thrush were arrested about two months later and Wu Shibiao turned himself in shortly afterwards.

"Nearly 120,000 pirate DVDs were found at Guthrie's home and a temporary warehouse rented by Wu Shibiao," said Qin Jiongtian, a prosecutor at Shanghai No 2 Intermediate procuratorate.

"Guthrie denied in the court that he had ever sold any DVDs on eBay and claimed that he dealt only in shoes and purses; but the evidence against him was overwhelming," said Qin.

The four convicts did not say in the courtroom whether they would appeal the sentences.

China, which has been accused by some quarters of being lax in enforcing IPR protection, launches a national week-long campaign today to further enhance public awareness of IPR protection.

Jiang Zhipei, chief judge of the Intellectual Property Rights Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, told China Daily yesterday in Beijing that the crack down on IPR violations has been getting more intense over recent years because domestic and overseas pirates were colluding to sell illegally-copied DVDs and other products.

Jiang said courts around China had been aware of transnational piracy but were unable to seize any suspects. He was delighted that a major case had been solved thanks to China-US joint enforcement efforts.

"Following this success, governments, police and customs in each country should work together to jointly fight IPR crime," said Jiang.

Jiang said Chinese courts would continue to intensify efforts to enforce IPR laws in the coming few years, adding "the number of criminal cases of IPR infringement is likely to rise in the second half of this year due to the promulgation of the new judicial interpretation late last year which aims to make it easier to prosecute IPR crimes."

Last year, Chinese courts heard more than 12,000 cases of IPR violation, up roughly a third from the previous year. Among them, 151 cases involved foreign individuals, buisnesses or other organizations.

February 17, 2005 -- Randolph Hobson Guthrie III, the black-sheep scion of one of the city's oldest, wealthiest and most socially prominent families, is behind bars in Shanghai, waiting to find out if he'll be spending the next 15 years in a Chinese labor camp.
The 38-year-old heir — who can trace his family roots back to Founding Father Robert Livingston and his family fortune back to Andrew Carnegie's partner, Henry Phipps — has just been tried for video piracy and will soon learn the court's verdict.

Guthrie's parents — his socialite mother, Beatrice Holden Guthrie, 63, and prominent retired plastic-surgeon dad, Randolph Hobson Guthrie Jr. — were unavailable for comment yesterday, their assistant said.

But friends wondered how the son who had everything could have strayed so far.

His mother has the Social Register ties and family wealth, which is managed by the Phipps family-owned bank, Bessemer Trust. His father is the source of Guthrie's intellect, a pal said.

"Randy may be the brightest person I ever met — mentally a genius," said the friend. "But he has very little common sense."

Excerpted from here: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/22027.htm

October 25, 2005
DEFENDANT FACES 18-COUNT INDICTMENT IN FIRST JOINT CRIMINAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INVESTIGATION BY U.S., CHINA

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Randolph Hobson Guthrie III was arraigned in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Mississippi on charges resulting from the first joint United States-China intellectual property criminal investigation, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today.

Guthrie, 38, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Shanghai last July and was brought to the United States earlier this month. A bond hearing was held in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California after which Guthrie was released on a secured $1 million bond. His release was further conditioned upon surrendering his passport and submitting to home confinement with electronic monitoring. Guthrie was ordered to appear in federal court in Mississippi to face the charges in the criminal indictment.

The 18-count indictment is the product of “Operation Spring” — a joint criminal law enforcement effort between ICE agents and Chinese law enforcement authorities first launched in September 2003. The indictment alleges that Guthrie was the ringleader in a conspiracy to import more than 2,000 DVD’s containing unauthorized copies of motion pictures. The indictment charges Guthrie with criminal copyright and trademark infringement, illegally importing infringing goods, and money laundering. The Department is seeking forfeiture of over $1 million in profits Guthrie made during the course of his illegal enterprise, which caused the illegal reproduction and distribution of hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works throughout the world. Nine of the charges carry a maximum sentence of five years each, six of the counts carry a maximum sentence of 10 years, and the money-laundering count carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years.

“This unprecedented joint law enforcement operation sends a clear message to criminals here and abroad that intellectual property crime will not be tolerated anywhere in world,” said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher. “We will not be stopped by international borders in our vigorous pursuit of the technological pirates who steal products and profit from hard-working Americans.”

“What began with counterfeit DVD’s being sold at a Harrison County Flea Market in Pass Christian, Mississippi, resulted in the first-ever joint intellectual property criminal investigation between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China,” said U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton. “The protection of intellectual property rights is of vital concern to our nation and success in this area will not be achieved without further coordinated investigations of this kind.”

“As the first joint counterfeiting investigation by ICE and Chinese authorities, this landmark case will serve as a roadmap for future intellectual property investigations,” said New Orleans ICE Special Agent-in-Charge Michael A. Holt.

The investigation, initiated by the ICE Resident Agent-in-Charge in Gulfport, Miss., grew to include the ICE Attaché in Beijing, China; the ICE Special Agent-in-Charge office in Houston; and the National Intellectual Property Rights Center. Based on information agents obtained during the course of their investigation concerning criminal activities occurring in China by Guthrie and others, ICE agents contacted Chinese law enforcement authorities shortly after Operation Spring was launched, leading to a partnership with the Shanghai Public Security Bureau of the Economic Crime Investigation Department of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.

As a result of this unprecedented joint effort, Guthrie, along with three co-conspirators — including two Chinese nationals and another U.S. national — was convicted in April 2005 in the Supreme People’s Court in China for selling more than 133,000 pirated motion picture DVD’s to customers in over 20 countries around the world. Guthrie was sentenced to 30 months in Chinese prison, a fine of approximately $60,000 and deportation after serving his term.

Chinese law enforcement authorities seized more than 210,000 pirated motion picture DVDs and approximately $67,000 in U.S. currency, as well as 222,000 in Chinese Renminibi (RMB) currency. Chinese authorities also located and destroyed three warehouses that were being used to store counterfeit motion picture DVD’s for distribution around the globe, including to the United States.

Special thanks were given to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Golden, ICE Resident Agent-in-Charge Steve Thomas, Case Agent Alan Prejean, and ICE undercover agents for their dedicated efforts. The U.S. Department of State and ICE Intellectual Property National Program Coordinator Nancy Sherman of the National Intellectual Property Rights Center in Washington, D.C. were also involved in this case.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

# ICE #

http://www.ice.gov/graphics/news/newsreleases/articles/051025washington.htm

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