a plea bargain, the defendant turned over the site’s domain name to the control of the U.S.
Department of Justice, which then put a notice on the site stating that it had been surrendered to
U.S. law enforcement.^1179 In Sept. of 2003, a federal jury found a Florida hacker known as
“JungleMike” guilty under the DMCA of selling hardware used to illegally receive DirecTV
satellite broadcasts. This case marked the first-ever jury conviction under the DMCA. Several
other defendants pleaded guilty to DMCA charges in the same operation.^1180
In July of 2005, a Maryland man, one of a group of employees and managers from the
three-store Pandora’s Cube chain in Maryland, pled guilty and was sentenced to four months in
prison for conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement and for violating the DMCA
based on sales by Pandora’s Cube of modified Xboxes that let players use pirated console games.
Pandora’s Cube was also selling modified Xboxes preloaded with pirated games.^1181
In United States v. Whitehead,^1182 the Ninth Circuit affirmed the sentence for a man who
was convicted of selling over $1 million worth of counterfeit access cards that allowed his
customers to access DirecTV’s digital satellite feed without paying for it. The court found no
abuse of discretion in the district court’s conclusion that a substantial amount of community
service (1000 hours), a hefty restitution order ($50,000) and five years of supervised release were
more appropriate than prison, even though the punishment was below that of the federal
sentencing guidelines, which called for a range of 41 to 51 months in prison.^1183
(iii) The Requirement of Willfulness – Deliberate
Ignorance
In United States v. Reichert,^1184 Reichert appealed his criminal conviction and sentence to
jail for twelve months and one day for willful violation of Section 1201(a) for trafficking in
circumvention technology by installing a modification chip in a Nintendo Wii so that it could run
software for which it was not originally designed and then selling the modified Wii to a federal
agent for a $50 profit. Agents subsequently obtained a search warrant and seized additional
modification chips and other items from Reichert’s home. Among other things, Reichert
challenged the jury instructions on willfulness.^1185
(^1179) Declan McCullagh, “Feds Confiscate ‘Illegal’ Domain Names” (Feb. 26, 2003), available as of Feb. 27, 2003 at
http://www.news.com.com/2102-1023-986225.html.
(^1180) “DirecTV Hacker Convicted Under DMCA,” BNA’s Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal (Sept. 26, 2003)
at 595.
(^1181) Daniel Terdiman, “Video Game Pirate Headed to Slammer” (July 27, 2005), available as of July 28, 2005 at
http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-5807547.html.
(^1182 532) F.3d 991 (9th Cir. 2008).
(^1183) Id. at 992.
(^1184) 747 F.3d 445 (6th Cir. 2014).
(^1185) Id. at 447-48, 450.