18-year old college student Parvin Dhaliwal is believed to be the first person in America convicted of a crime under state law for illicit music and movie downloads. He pled guilty to charges of possession of counterfeit marks (unauthorized copies of intellectual property).
Under an agreement with prosecutors, Dhaliwal was sentenced last month to a three-month deferred jail sentence, three years of probation, 200 hours of community service and a $5,400 fine. The judge in the case also ordered him to take a copyright class at the University of Arizona, which he attends, and to avoid file-sharing computer programs.
"Generally copyright is exclusively a federal matter," said Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology civil liberties group. "Up until this point, you just haven't seen states involved at all."
