El Cerrito Man Sentenced to 48 Months for Criminal Copyright Infringement

SAN JOSE, CA—Julius Chow Lieh Liu was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison for criminal copyright infringement, United States Attorney Melinda Haag announced.

After a week-long trial, Liu was convicted by a jury on June 18, 2010, for criminal copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit labels. During the trial, evidence showed that Liu had engaged through his company, SuperDVD, in the large scale infringement of thousands of copies of Symantec software, music CDs, and movie DVDs over the course of several years.

Liu, 55 of El Cerrito, Calif., was indicted by a federal grand jury on Nov. 29, 2006. He was charged with replicating and/or selling thousands of counterfeit copies of Norton Anti-Virus, music CDs (including Beatles 1) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon DVD's.

The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge James Ware following a jury trial on three counts in violation of criminal copyright infringement, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1)(A) and 18 U.S.C. § 2319(b)(1) and one count of trafficking in counterfeit labels, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2318(a). Judge Ware also sentenced the defendant to a three-year period of supervised release. The defendant remains free on $500,000 surety bond and is scheduled to begin serving the sentence on Feb. 14, 2011.

Hanley Chew is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case with the assistance of Lauri Gomez. The prosecution is the result of a three-year investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Further Information:

Case #: CR 06-00772(B)