A man at the Uss home who identified himself by telephone as Uss' father, Robert, had no comment on his son's arrest.

Elizabeth Kaltman, communications director at the Encino, Calif.-based MPAA, said Uss first became known to MPAA investigators in late 2005, when he failed to appear in court concerning allegations of pirated movies. A default judgment of $14,000 was entered against Uss in that case, which was filed by movie company 20th Century Fox Film Corp., she said.

"My understanding is that he's been running this operation for some time," Kaltman said. "Our goal is to stop piracy at its source" to protect MPAA members in the entertainment industry. "It's a fairly significant source of piracy."

Jenny Blank, director of enforcement at the Washington-based BSA, said the software that Uss allegedly copied and sold was originally produced by a wide range of vendors, including Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Autodesk Inc., McAfee Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Symantec Corp. No estimated value of the pirated software has been released, she said.

Uss operated from his basement using a single computer and two disk duplicators, according to the two trade groups.