Many people assume that copyright infringement is only a civil wrong, but that is not true. In August 2012, Jeramiah Perkins, 40, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. As the leader of a number of other defendants for the same crime, he was sentenced in January 2013 to 5 years in jail and 3 years of supervised release as well as being ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution.
With all the headlines about Internet cybersecurity breaches, there seem to be few headlines about the consequences for cybercriminals.
That is because not all cybercriminals are caught, and when they are it often takes months, if not years, before trials. Even when the cybercriminals plead guilty, the sentencing phase often occurs months after the trial. As a result, the public is rarely aware of what happens to the criminals for their Internet crimes.