A man accused of uploading a work-print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has been arrested by the FBI in New York.
The movie became one of the most illegally downloaded of the year, with even movie reviewers getting into all manner of trouble after watching the work-print version, which had a number of special effects scenes missing.
The alleged uploader, is 47-year-old Gilberto Sanchez of New York, who goes by the online name 'theSkilled1'. He is said to have used Megaupload.com to distribute the movie illegally online.
Supportive of the FBI
Speaking about the arrest and subsequent charge of copyright infringement, a spokesperson for Fox, who distributed the film, said: "We're supportive of the FBI's actions.
"We will continue to cooperate with law enforcement officials to identify and prosecute those who illegally steal our creative content."
If 'theSkilled1' is found guilty, then he could face a $250,000 fine and up to three years in prison. Ouch.
Via AfterDawn
Your comments (3) Click to add a new comment
psyfur
December 18th 2009
3. Pirating inst a legal matter for the feds, it's copyright infringement. Over the top actions me thinks from an industry on the way out!
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tech89
December 17th 2009
2. Unlucky guy. He should have uploaded it to Piratebay, then his user identity and details would have been protected much better than megaupload.
I do question why he uploaded a work-print of the film and not a finished print.
Work-prints are annoying as they usually get labelled as finished prints on sharing sites.
The FBI has to go and catch the odd one or two illegal sharers now and then to show that piracy is illegal and consequences etc. If they don't try, then they have the MPAA complain and put more pressure on the FBI.
I download a film and then when it comes out I buy it if it's good. I think it's a system on making sure you pay for goods that are worth paying for in my opinion.
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jbmetrics
December 17th 2009
1. Okay, the guy did something wrong, but in the scheme of crimes, why is US taxpayer money being spent on catching someone who got around security flaws at Fox Studio? And yet there are not enough FBI resources to go after securities fraud costing billions of dollars each year. Priorities are truly messed up.
The question is how much did Fox pay US politicians to pressure the FBI to use already limited resources to go after the guy?
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