FBI nabs worker at DVD company for ripping prerelease Marvel blockbusters

Accused DVD thief faces up to 15 years for online piracy if convicted.

See full article...

 

[carldjennings]

It's rare we have a story about piracy where the person was actually stealing

Yeah, it's kind of weird that they didn't charge him with actual theft..

 

[objectofconstantwidth]

Ah, so 1 downloaded illegal copy equals $1 loss. Glad we could finally clear that up.

Also, did Trump issue an order that all departments must speak like he does?

Yes, in fact the original statement read, "meeyons and meeyons" but Ars staff translated it.

 

[Penguin Warlord]

Piracy is not a crime.

Corporations using lobbyists and IP laws to lock stories and ideas away from people for generations so that they can make a profit off the artificial scarcity is a crime.

At least in the human sense of the words.

 

[AlicePlaysWithRockets]

This man is a hero to me. Just wish he had used the proper precautions.

 

[IrishMonkee]

So long as one does not seed the torrent, then they didn't break any laws, according to Meta.

 

[sam_I_am_not]

What a world.. Be a sexual pest, convicted of sexual harseemnt and sexual assualt, fleece a charity of $ and a litany of other issies, become President of the US, share a DVD, hang 'em high!

 

[ChipBoundary]

If he committed vehicular homicide in my home state he would only face up to seven years. The justice system is deeply broken.

If he committed numerous vehicular homicides, he'd be facing many more than seven years. He is facing what he's facing because each one he did is a separate charge. It's about scale.

 

[JMTronicHobbyist]

If he committed vehicular homicide in my home state he would only face up to seven years. The justice system is deeply broken.

In my state they would buy him coffee and tell him they're sorry the car was damaged.
*Edit to add citation - although technically I'd say it's like the claim DJT didn't rape - maybe not but that's what is call it
From https://www.wctv.tv/2024/11/19/heres-why-arrests-may-not-immediately-follow-fatal-car-crashes/

State Attorney Jack Campbell, the local prosecutor, told WCTV that a driver being negligent isn’t enough on its own even if they do kill somebody.


“The courts in Florida found that generally speed alone is not enough for (a felony),” Campbell said. “A simple traffic violation is not enough.... we have to look at it on case by case basis.”

Additionally, Campbell said the legislature, courts and society have generally found that the act of killing someone during a crash is not enough to put someone away in prison.

To do that, the driver needed to act “reckless,” not just “negligent.”

 

[bastard_op]

Oh seriously, who in life at this point hasn't pirated and/or seeded a spider man movie. If not, you're missing out on life experience.

 

[coonwhiz]

The DOJ claimed that "copies of Spider-Man: No Way Home were downloaded tens of millions of times, with an estimated loss to the copyright owner of tens of millions of dollars."

Sooo. like 2 Trump golf outings?

 

[cuvtixo]

That amount of handwringing and cynicism in this thread is embarrassing.

of all the reactions one could have (and post), you felt embarrassment? Isn't this cynicism indicative of a wider social problem? A man could face 15 years for this. That's not handwringing or cynicism. That's a man's life, and our taxes pay for his imprisonment. We pay to imprison this man, who made a little money by releasing copies a few days before..., and they are accusing him of theft of tens of millions of dollars, as if every one who downloaded would have bought the movie at full price. If you want to criticize the handwringing about piracy, well, that's embarrassing all right, but you seem to think it's the other way around. On an article from yesterday no less.

 

[Murry Wilson]

Ever since physical media "died" for the mainstream, the only thing I get any decent royalties for any more are limited edition boutique releases aimed at whales. That shit sells out pretty quickly.

Still, I miss DVDs and VHS covering my bills even on marginal projects. It was a nice backup and kept me making stuff for years. Now all I seem to do are fancy rereleases of old projects.

That are immediately ripped and put on tracker sites. I figure it's my karmic debt for bootlegging Eraserhead.

Yeah I know, woe is me. Could be much worse for the indie filmmaker.

 

[RickVS]

Curious how he thought that he wouldn't get caught seeing as how prolific his law breaking was and the absolute zeal with which the copyright holders are going after piracy nowadays.

 

[Odomitus]

My point of view on this is predicated on an unusual situation. There is no theater within 500 nautical miles of my community, and driving there can only be accomplished for about 3 months out of the year anyway. Even then, it would be a 700 mile drive, a substantial portion of which is off-road travel.

If anyone expects me to wait to watch new movies until they come out on streaming they can go suck an egg. I'd be happy to buy tickets to watch in a theater, but actually getting to a theater simply isn't realistic.

Instead, I'll thank Steven Hale for his service to unserved communities. Arrr!

 

[mozbo]

I dunno...

For the ripping and such, yeah, if that's all he did for his own personal entertainment, I can see a case for leniency.

But the sharing part is what got him in trouble in the first place.

He was STUPID. And stupidity should be accompanied by an equal level of pain.

<snip>

I agree.

Lets start with RFK Jr.
What's he at, several dozen manslaughter cases?

 

[Derecho Imminent]

Regardless of how you feel about copyright law, that was a pretty stupid thing to do.

 

[RandomReader_Delta_X]

This is an old video related to the subject, but it remains interesting. There obviously has to be a balance for any business. Can't survive if literally everybody refuses to pay, but the solution is not to invent a load of numbers and destroy the lives of people because of the absurd punishment that's directly bound to those imaginary numbers.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0

 

[tf2haberdasher]

He should have said he was using it to train a new AI model and then they’d have let him go free. No copyright infringement there.

 

[gregorerlich]

Don't do the crime....

This should never have been a fucking crime. Stealing the individual disks, sure, that's theft. Give him six months probation for that. Uploading a file? Fifteen years in prison? That's fucking insane. You don't get fifteen years in prison for raping someone, which generally, you know, permanently damages a precious human psyche and is one of the most evil things a person can do.

This should never have been a criminal matter at all, this should be dealt with in civil courts, and given the record box office, it would appear that the damages were roughly zero dollars and the plaintiffs should be awarded that - nothing. No harm, no foul.

This is sick.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Does that apply to everyone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictments_against_Donald_Trump

Only in the bright and happy timeline, not this one.

I shave off my goatee every morning but it keeps growing back

 

[Starouscz]

what are all the "free speech," absolutists doing about this ? Nothing

 

[irnoob]

Cast in the name of God. Ye not guilty!

 

[AndyRogan]

So the studio lost 10s of millions, but still made over 1B, doesn't seem like piracy hurt them too much

 

[icebergFromLaputa]

The kid who swatted hundreds of people only got 4 years.

Because profits of big corporations are more important in the eyes of the law.

 

[Kanten]

The way some distributors loudly pushed "only in theaters" like a badge of honor in their marketing while the pandemic was still raging was stupid in the first place.

 

[ACF423]

He is the one who posted Venom the Last Dance? Jail him for life.

 

[morlamweb]

If he committed vehicular homicide in my home state he would only face up to seven years. The justice system is deeply broken.

The idea that the defendant would face consecutive 5- and 10-year terms is an invention of the headline writer. It's extremely unlikely that he'd face consecutive sentences if he pleads guilty; hell, even if found guilty after a trial, consecutive sentences are unlikely. Federal sentencing guidelines would limit his term down to a likely 5 years. This is just lazy writing on Ars' part. It's clickbait for the pro-piracy faction here at Ars.

 

[morlamweb]

And most insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, even violent ones, got no more than that. Before getting pardoned.

I know this guy has not been sentenced yet and probably won't get the full 15 years. And stealing anything, including pirating DVDs on a commercial scale, is clearly wrong. But there is something not right with the proportions of crime and punishment somewhere here.

Swatters and Jan 6 insurrectionists all faced stiffer sentences than what they actually received. Just like this thief. And just like them, the actual sentence will be far lower than the theoretical maximum of 5+10 years consecutive.

 

[Wuchoowannado]

this guy is like the tech version of luigi mangione, lol

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

It was also a hard fight to get the Spider-Man movie, in particular, on the big screen. When Spider-Man: No Way Home was released, Marvel struck a deal with the estate of Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko to settle several copyright disputes over who owns the rights to the character and others in the Marvel universe, Fortune reported That settlement allowed for Spider-Man: No Way Home's release, which seemed to mark a return to big box office earnings for studios, despite the rampant piracy.

Almost seventy years of copyright fuckery by Marvel and then Sony, but it's the DVD thief that gets the major headlines. "Rightsholders," I tell ya.

Ironically I think this is absolutely the kind of case they SHOULD be pursuing (literal theft and dissemination of copyrighted materials). But the shitty way the company itself dealt with its creators and IP rights really should be a factor in any judgment in their favor, I think.

 

[dEvErGEN]

I am once again BEGGING that Ars start covering news accurately and honestly.

This person is charged with physically stealing the unreleased films, then selling them.

Yeah piracy was a part of it, but its highly misleading and dishonest to call this a “Sharing DVD rip” in the headline when that’s just incidental to the massive theft story.

 

[Pat_Murph]

The kid who swatted hundreds of people only got 4 years.

The man who committed a couo on he United States didn't get anything and his goons only got a few years.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

I am once again BEGGING that Ars start covering news accurately and honestly.

This person is charged with physically stealing the unreleased films, then selling them.

Yeah piracy was a part of it, but its highly misleading and dishonest to call this a “Sharing DVD rip” in the headline when that’s just incidental to the massive theft story.

The original headline was "FBI nabs worker at DVD company for ripping prerelease Marvel blockbusters," which I thought was more informative.

 

[Veritas super omens]

It is a crime. It should be punished....appropriately. Like maybe 3 days in jail and six months probation. This is a very, very bad timeline. Astrophycist's? Where is that "one little trick" to revert the timeline hiding?

 

[icebergFromLaputa]

I am once again BEGGING that Ars start covering news accurately and honestly.

This person is charged with physically stealing the unreleased films, then selling them.

Yeah piracy was a part of it, but its highly misleading and dishonest to call this a “Sharing DVD rip” in the headline when that’s just incidental to the massive theft story.

The main damage is assumed to be from piracy over the Internet, not just because he stole physical DVDs.

 

[9ab734]

IMO the title of this article is not good. "Feds arrest man for sharing DVD rip of Spider-Man movie with millions online". His huge problem is that he shared them before they were even released.

 

[umichans]

I am once again BEGGING that Ars start covering news accurately and honestly.

This person is charged with physically stealing the unreleased films, then selling them.

Yeah piracy was a part of it, but its highly misleading and dishonest to call this a “Sharing DVD rip” in the headline when that’s just incidental to the massive theft story.

If you read the DOJ press release, there is NO CHARGE of theft and ONE count of interstate transportation of stolen goods. Piracy (IP theft) is the main feature of their charges.

Maybe you should be begging yourself to read and then maybe you and the other semantics/wordsmith FBI should set up a taskforce to deal with ARS terrible crime.