Yesterday in Phoenix federal court, Matthew Purse was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison, 3 years probation and $12,000 in fines and restitution. Purse had pled guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and criminal copyright infringement when he and his accomplice, Chris Walters (who remains a fugitive), were caught engaing inseveral massive software piracy schemes through various eBay accounts and various websites, such as SoftwareDiner.com and Fivedollarsoftwarehouse.com.

SIIA initially discovered several massive software piracy schemes and began an investigation that eventually led to the indictment and conviction of Purse. SIIA forwarded the results of its investigation to the U.S. Department of Justice and other government agencies, and then worked closely with them to pursue Purse and others involved in the piracy schemes. On February 26, 2009, Purse pled guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and criminal copyright infringement.  Purse and Walters duped nearly 8,000 unsuspecting consumers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and cheated software companies such as Adobe, Symantec, Apple, Corel, Intuit and many others out of millions of dollars in revenue.  For more on this check out SIIA's press release.