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Music Pirate Accused of Downloading $28K in Illegal Music

A Phoenix man has been arrested for downloading — and then selling — more than $28,000 worth of pirated music files. Guillermo Duarte Martinez, 39, has been charged with trafficking stolen property and unlawful sale of sounds from recording devices in connection with the case, which was revealed in a sting operation involving undercover officers posing as customers, according to a Phoenix Police Department arrest report. The officers reportedly purchased “thousands” of pirated songs from Martinez, who distributed them on USB drives. In one exchange, he traded 461 illegal music files, which he’d transferred to two USB drives, for two bottles of laundry detergent, the report indicates. Martinez, who owns a business in Phoenix’s Desert Sky Mall, is also accused of selling pirated music at his store. Investigators found entries in his business ledger that indicated he sold the illegal music-filled flash drives “on a daily basis,” per his arrest report.

Is flipping on the radio or just subscribing to Spotify that hard to do in 2020?

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