Two men admit guilt after app piracy charge
Two US citizens have admitted distributing more than a million pirated apps, becoming the first people to face prison for criminal offences related to app piracy.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced yesterday, March 24, that Nicholas Narbone and Thomas Dye had signed a plea admitting their guilt.
Narbone and Dye were administrators for the Appbucket site, which provided digital storage for and distributed more than a million pirated Android apps.
The pair, alongside another Appbucket Group administrator, Thomas Pace, and Kody Peterson, the owner of SnappzMarket Group, a similar programme, were discovered after US authorities seized the domain names for the websites in 2012.
All four were charged in January this year at the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Narbone, 26, from Orlando, and 21-year-old Dye, of Jacksonville, both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.
Acting assistant attorney general at the criminal division of the DoJ, David O’Neil, said fighting IP infringement had become a “top priority.”
“These mark the first convictions secured by the justice department against those who illegally distribute counterfeit mobile apps,” O’Neil said.
“These men trampled on the IP rights of others when they and other members of the Appbucket group distributed more than one million copies of pirated apps. These convictions demonstrate our determination to prosecute those who undermine the innovations of others in new technologies.”
The maximum sentence for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement is five years in prison.
No information was provided on Thomas Pace and Kody Peterson.
WIPR has previously reported that app infringement is on the rise. In September last year, technology firm Gartner published a report predicting that the total number of mobile apps downloaded will reach 102 billion by the end of 2013, leaping to nearly 270 billion in 2017.
Narbone and Dye are due to be sentenced in June.
