Ice Cream Pirate Sentenced In Scotland

Officials from British trade association ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) have revealed that a man in South Lanarkshire, Scotland has been given 200 hours of community service, after being convicted of selling fake video games, CDs and DVDs. William Agnew, aged 50, of Hamilton in central Scotland, was sentenced at Hamilton Sheriff Court after admitting to the trademark offences. 4,000 pirated DVDs, CDs and games on PlayStation, Xbox and PC platforms were seized during the raid on Agnew's business premises in Blantyre, on 8th May 2003. It was estimated if the goods were sold as new, they would be worth £100,000 ($175,085). Agnew was known to sell the goods from his ice cream van, a relatively common means of distribution for illegal goods in larger Scottish towns – where the infamous “ice cream wars” between rivals gangs was the source of considerable bloodshed in the early 1980s. ELSPA also recently aided another Scottish raid in which 250,000 pounds ($435,874) worth of media, a safe containing jewels and 2,000 pounds in cash, as well as counterfeited PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube titles, showing that significant video game piracy is still taking place in the West, though ELSPA (in the UK) and the ESA (in the United States) continue to work with authorities to swiftly crack down on notable mass-producing pirates.