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Man Caught w/ Gears of War 2, Fable 2, and DVD's worth $100k

commercialappeal.com — Officers recovered a total of 97 copies of the games stolen from Technicolor. Another 807 DVDs were confiscated. All together, the games and DVDs were valued at more than $100,000. It's unclear how many of the games and DVDs were sold on the street.

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 22, 2008

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  • thegamingguy, on 10/20/2008, -2/+107I don't know why it always seems like these types of thieves rarely get caught in the act or because of the crimes they are committing for long amounts of time, instead they get pulled over for driving like a jackass and the police stumble upon a big crime operation.

    Lesson: If you are going to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars and you have a bad driving record... splurge on a driver!
  • gn02256676, on 10/21/2008, -6/+70I understand his feeling. I want to play Gears of War 2 too.
  • DriftAway, on 10/22/2008, -0/+62So 1000 DVDs are worth $100k?

    And they wonder why people pirate?
  • cecilpl, on 10/22/2008, -1/+54Wait, so these games and DVDs are worth over $110 each? Sounds like the police inflated the cost so they could have him charged with a larger crime.

    Like they do in drug busts.
  • inactive, on 10/22/2008, -0/+38EXACTLY! Not even 1000.

    "Officers recovered a total of 97 copies of the games, according to the affidavit. Another 807 DVDs were confiscated. All together, the games and DVDs were valued at more than $100,000."

    97 x $60 + 807 x $20 = $21,960 But hey, there number is only 78% off.

    Got to love that **AA math. With that kind of blatant *****, I think turnabout is fair play.
  • jlan, on 10/22/2008, -0/+32If you are going to break the big laws, make sure you obey the little ones...
  • valleyman86, on 10/22/2008, -3/+30Now thats a pirate! He has the physical stuff. I'm not a pirate.
  • blaisedaly, on 10/22/2008, -4/+31"Officers recovered a total of 97 copies of the games, according to the affidavit. Another 807 DVDs were confiscated. All together, the games and DVDs were valued at more than $100,000."

    At an exaggerated cost of $40 a DVD, that's around 32 thousand.

    So games cost $700 now, do they?

    I'm not defending the theft, but faking the numbers so they can charge him with theft over $60,000 is unacceptable.
  • 83JB, on 10/22/2008, -4/+27they've both been up on piratebay for a couple days now.
  • binaryecho, on 10/21/2008, -4/+26If you have several outstanding driving offenses, and are doing something like that....

    Moron.
  • inactive, on 10/22/2008, -0/+19900 discs = $100,000 of content?

    This must be that new math I keep hearing about.
  • KSUdesigner, on 10/22/2008, -1/+19No not exactly. DRM is intended to prevent digital copies of the game/movie. This guy was stealing the physical disc, which no amount of DRM can prevent.
  • dalittle, on 10/22/2008, -1/+17Finally. They actually caught a real pirate. Now if they could just be convinced that they should go after these guys and stop treating their Customers like they are like this idiot.
  • smoger, on 10/22/2008, -3/+19knee jerk reaction: start packaging games in GIANT boxes so they can't easily be stolen from the factory
  • justinp, on 10/22/2008, -1/+16***** street dates.
  • darkism, on 10/22/2008, -3/+17You mean like the good old days before the stupid mini-boxes became common?
  • Brainmuck, on 10/22/2008, -0/+14Just like the "street value" of drugs, its always 5 - 10x the price. I just assumed cops got ripped off a lot when buying drugs, I guess they get screwed buying DVDs too.
  • graemee, on 10/22/2008, -1/+15Boxes made from lead.
  • iritegood, on 10/22/2008, -0/+12How do you think the scene groups get their DVDs pre-release?
  • Atertract, on 10/22/2008, -2/+13What idiot buried me? The recent Fallout 3 leak is suspected to have occurred exactly the way these games were stolen. To a bootlegger, pre-release source material is worth coin, and could easily be black-market valued at $700 or more a pop. I'm not saying it's right, or fair, just one possible explanation.
  • KSUdesigner, on 10/22/2008, -0/+10Well considering this guy works in the place that packages the games, I don't think that would help in this situation.
  • kevL0CK, on 10/22/2008, -3/+13all that and no littlebigplanet (uncensored arab version)? small time, buddy. small time.
  • sea5ons, on 10/22/2008, -2/+12"lorry" looks funny to americans.
  • MadEnvoy, on 10/22/2008, -2/+12None. No profit motivation for him.
  • raada, on 10/22/2008, -0/+10But if he would share one of those DVDs online. THEN it would be prison for 20 years and 100.... million... dollars in fine... and get publicly killed by stonethrowing.

    Now he was ONLY actually physically stealing the DVD, which is not as bad according MPAA, because we know that if he would sell them he would sell them to people who would pay for the DVD in the store... and in fact, lose a real sale. Not a made-up millions virtual sales that happens when you share a file...
  • ByrcheWroot, on 10/22/2008, -3/+12Dammit. I pre-ordered from this guy. :/
  • dougmc, on 10/22/2008, -1/+10One example of anything is not `proof'.
    (Unless you're looking for proof that it's happened at least once, of course.)
  • lfrankow, on 10/22/2008, -1/+9I bet he never even played it.

    That would take brain power that thinks beyond "I gotta steal this"
  • staticneuron, on 10/22/2008, -1/+9The difference is the store can be held accountable for loss of physical media. DRM and eulas make sure they are legally covered for everything else.

    Fun fact to know, its not just enough to say it is your IP, companies actually have to do everything within their power to protect it or there is a chance that they could lose in court.
  • secrity, on 10/22/2008, -5/+12DRM is just as effective in preventing the theft of a physical disk as it is of preventing digital piracy.
  • inactive, on 10/22/2008, -0/+7Damn, I was gonna buy it off of him early on ebay. Guess that store's closed now. You can already buy copies of fallout 3 on ebay (not preorder BS).
  • sea5ons, on 10/22/2008, -0/+7Yeah, easily lower than rape, mass-murder, genocide, etc!
  • atgmac, on 10/22/2008, -0/+7Bigger boxes => less per lorry => more money spent on transportation
  • dondara, on 10/22/2008, -0/+7Thinking is not their strong suit.
  • inactive, on 10/22/2008, -0/+6Couldn't we all have shared it?

    Because sharing, is caring.
  • Otto, on 10/22/2008, -0/+6Yep. Like these idiots you always see pulled over for speeding or something who then turn out to have several kilos of drugs in the trunk and such... How freakin' stupid can you possibly be?
  • impedance101, on 10/22/2008, -0/+6I dont have 97 computers!
  • TheThirdWheel, on 10/22/2008, -1/+6Another WW2 game, yawn. Horde mode FTW.
  • dougmc, on 10/22/2008, -0/+5Any way they can, of course. Some examples include --

    -- hacking into the developer's computer systems (Half Life 2 I think?) (rare)
    -- somebody who works at the developer
    -- somebody who works at the distributor.
    -- somebody who works at a retailer (retailers may get things a few days early.)
    -- preview copies sent to reviewers/critics
    -- bought them at the store (perhaps the retailer goofed and sold early, or perhaps
    it's released in another country before it's released in this country.)
    -- pre-orders sent too early.

    There's probably other ways. Perhaps they've seduced a developer (or paid somebody to seduce them) and gotten them that way? Perhaps they've physically broken into the developer or distributor's office and stolen them? Intercepted FedEx/UPS deliveries?
  • Ramenamen, on 10/22/2008, -0/+5COD5 isn't going to be all that good. The cycle is Infinity Ward makes an awesome one (COD1, COD2, COD4) and Treyarch makes some ***** ones (COD3, COD5)
  • zigardne, on 10/22/2008, -2/+7axxo NO!!!
  • WELLDOITLIVE, on 10/22/2008, -0/+5But my taillight was out... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
  • counterplex, on 10/22/2008, -0/+4How about Duke Nukem Forever?
  • dansmeek, on 10/23/2008, -1/+5a simple "***** THE MPAA" would do, but okay.
  • danwallace, on 10/22/2008, -1/+5Riiiight, because playing Gears of War takes a whole heap of brain power.
  • Shelter22, on 10/22/2008, -0/+4stealing from people is low, stealing from big ass companies is awesome.
  • baller90210, on 10/22/2008, -0/+4LMAO. good one sea...
  • diggnationfan87, on 10/22/2008, -0/+4If you had any sense at all you could easily obtain it free of charge!
  • JudgeMonkey, on 10/22/2008, -0/+4Exactly. I worked in one of those places.

    Sadly the only thing we ever seemed to get were stupid driver disks for those "Symbol" bar code scanners.
  • Jb611, on 10/22/2008, -0/+3Stop being a douche.
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