Federal authorities raided three Washington, D.C.-area video game stores and arrested two people for modifying video game consoles to play pirated video games, a video game industry group said on Wednesday.
The Entertainment Software Association said the Dec. 1 raids at three Pandora’s Cube stores in Maryland and Virginia were a joint effort of the U.S. Department of Justice’s computer crimes unit, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Authorities arrested two store employees on charges of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and conspiracy to traffic in a device that circumvents technological protection measures, the ESA said.
“One of them is someone who has a more substantial role with the company,” said Chunnie Wright, anti-piracy counsel to the ESA. She could not provide more details due to the ongoing nature of the criminal case.
Like other entertainment industries, the video game business has aggressively pursued the pirates that it says account for billions of dollars in lost revenue annually.
Source: Reuters
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