Our office has been contacted by the Office of Inspector General (O.I.G.) regarding an officer selling pirated DVDs from him vehicle at work. The F.B.I. had contacted O.I.G. to give them information. Does anyone know of a state charge that may apply since the amount is under what the feds would want to deal with.
Maybe Trademark Counterfeiting would work (PC 32.23). To win with that one you'd have to prove the DVD had a mark on it that is the same as a registered trademark, service mark or identification mark that is registered or protected under one of a couple of laws. I believe this DVD will have a title, credits and other trademarked elements as a part of the movie on the disc that would qualify as "counterfeit marks".
This degree of the offense is calculated like a theft by check case would be by the retail value of the product, and you can aggregate multiple DVDs to get the degree as high as possible. Hope this helps.
The MPAA will be of a great help. It's my understanding that they've opened an office in Dallas recently as well, but in any event they do lots of anti-piracy work.
If you have any problems getting ahold of them, let me know. I did some civil litigation work for the RIAA in a past legal life, and can make some phone calls if needed.
In addition to the charges listed above and in the other thread, I'd point out that it would probably be a violation of 32.42(b), though only as a class C. Additionally, if the officer is using his cruiser as part of this scheme, you might look at an Abuse of Official Capacity charge under 39.02.
I'm also not so sure that you couldn't just file plain old "theft" charges- piracy is certainly appropriating the property of another. The question is whether the sale of a pirated copy "deprives" the owner of his interest in intellectual property. After all, the movie studio still has all the DVDs they produced. However, looking at a case like RIAA v. Tennenbaum or Capitol v. Thomas should provide support for the contention that the distribution by the pirate deprives the owner of legitimate sales. This may fit the definition of "to dispose of property in a matter that makes recovery of the property by the owner unlikely."
I would be very cautious about doing a theft charge, because of certain issues. I researched the issue with regards to software not too long ago. If you want to talk let me know.
