United States v. Douglas Gordon

The first two counts of a three-count superseding indictment charge Douglas Gordon, a former co-owner of a chain of Edge Video movie rental stores in Maine, with willfully infringing copyrights of motion pictures by reproducing and distributing counterfeit DVD copies of movies in 2014 and 2016.  The third count of the indictment charges the defendant with engaging in a mail fraud scheme from about April, 2014 to about January, 2019.  He is further charged in the third count with having established FindrareDVDs (FRD), Lostmoviesfound (LMF) and Lostmoviefinder (LMFinder) websites to advertise the sale of more than 100 motion pictures in DVD format.  The FRD, LMF and LMFinder websites allegedly misled customers about the quality of DVD versions of motion pictures and accepted “Mail in” orders as well as “On-line” orders.  The indictment alleges customers had expectations based on false representations and material omissions on the websites of receiving an authentic motion picture in a DVD format of good quality.  For the purpose of executing or attempting to execute the scheme to defraud, the Defendant is alleged to have received very large numbers of customer orders for DVDs of motion pictures and to have knowingly caused to be delivered by mail, burned DVD copies of movies of inferior quality, or did aid and abet the same.