Slashdot Mirror
Leak Star Wars, Go To Jail
Shea O'Brien Foley, a former production assistant at LucasFilm, has been arrested on 13 counts of theft of Star Wars material from LucasFilm worth $450,000. The police investigation was launched after an early Attack of the Clones cut was leaked to and reviewed by Aint It Cool News in March, two months before it hit theaters. Other than the fact that Ain't It Cool News and Harry Knowles aren't being charged with anything, police aren't saying much. Apparently, Jedi mind tricks didn't work on the arresting officers. Update: 10/14 23:51 GMT by T : Michael Singer points to an article on internet.com with more depth.
Of course they didn't work. The guy's not a JEDI! You can't just pull something like that off, without years and years of training. Sheesh.
And the movie industry keeps pushing for copy protection on video cameras just in case of the remote chance someone should shoot the screen and steal a movie. But an insider got the original and leaked it. Imagine that.
He should be put into jail. He broke the law!
I need an mp3 copy of Black Sabbath Paranoid. Could you send me a copy?
thanks
Luke is Vader's son!
This hardly seems like news to me. Assuming of course, that this fellow had to sign an NDA to come to work every day (are there any industry people who know about this stuff present?), he did a BAD thing.
If there wasn't, there are still some fairly blatant theft issues here.
hmmmm?
man, how many star wars movies aren't out yet?
....It was realeased on the warez scene back in August, yet the movie isn't due out until November. And it was the real DVD, not some badly-made bootleg (though slighty downsampled to fit on a DVD-R, you can barely tell the difference).
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Well, this was very poor judgement on his part, but he knew he was taking a risk when he did it. This would be a very different story if it were some kid who uploaded a divx of the movie on a file sharing network, but this was an insider who was entrusted with that material and chose to violate that trust, so I have little sympathy for him. If copyright infringement is stealing, then this is embezzlement, and thats a far greater ethical lapse because the only reason its possible to embezzle is that you were entrusted not to.
Is it a certain a percentage of the revenues? I mean, if the movie had proved to be a complete flop and would have generated negative revenue for Lucas Film. Say minus $420 million dollars, should Lucas Film actually pay the ex-employer for stealing it :))
Assumably the punishment will be base on the value of the "thing" stolen. How is that caclulated? Or will the guy go up on a more generic charge like breech of contract?
He didn't steal something--stealing is depriving someone of a good that they own. No one was deprived, however he did violate copyright law and contract law.
This is illegal, of course. But how much damage did he do? The $450,000 figure is probably silly. I'd imagine that no money was actually lost. Anyone hard up enough to acquire the pirated good before release certainly went to watch it in theatre.
illegal is illegal
Hardly. There are levels of crimes. We don't punish traffic code violators like we do murderers. With no real damage, this is on the level of petty misdemeanor.
The DMV cops? How do they figure in?
Maybe the real cops and the FBI didn't think there was a case to pursue?
Of course, at $300 million, Attack of the Clones didn't pull in nearly as much money as The Phantom Menace, nor did it do as well as Spider-Man, itself a $450 million film, but consider this: TPM was more for children (not surprising in the long run, given that the lead character was a child), so kids went to go see it en masse, dragging parents along, for multiple showings. Box office gold. AOTC, what with its violence (Boba Fett picking up Jango's helmet and with the head falling out probably didn't make parents happy), lack of Jar-Jar (kids these days don't know who Yoda is), and love story, didn't make the kids want to go see it over and over again. Spider-Man, however, did. No surprise there. Plus don't forget that Spider-Man had the bizarre "luck" of being a movie about a superhero saving NYC in a post-9/11 world. The USA decided they liked that idea quite a bit (especially with the New Yorkers bonding on the bridge against the bad guy towards the end).
I personally think the reason AOTC didn't do as well as TPM was because it was the middle film. I walked out of there thinking "great - now I want to see the ending" (episode 3). My test of this theory will be how The Two Towers fares...
Schnapple
What are you talking about? Jedi mind tricks can and do work on arresting officers, even without years of training.
From the Marin Newspaper:
.WAV file.
Foley agreed to allow Webb to look through the items at his home and when they arrived at his Lakeville Circle townhouse the investigator saw "tons of 'Star Wars' items," Webb said in the affidavit. Foley turned over numerous items, including 25 CDs with images of the film, three videotapes of "Episode I" voice-over tests, 115 storyboard image strips and a hard disk drive with downloaded photo images.
Someone send a copy of this story to the RIAA and MPAA. THIS is stealing. Someone has been deprived of property! Throw the book at this clown.
Gotta run and see if maybe he put some of these sound effects on GNUtella before he got busted. I need a clean light-sabre
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
If he's going to jail, I bet he wishes he'd leaked a better movie...
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
From an article with actual substance rather than a big graphic of the reporter:
Among the stolen items that were recovered, according to the affidavit:
? Nineteen CD-ROM discs containing the entire restricted library of sound effects
created during the past 25 years for use in the "Star Wars" films, with an
estimated "collectible value" of $95,000.
? More than 2,000 high-quality digital images from "Episode II," valued at
$125,000.
? Hundreds of video files of "Episode II," from concept shots to final clips,
valued at $100,000.
? About 113 storyboard images - or sketches outlining scenes from the film - with
handwritten notes by Lucas, valued at more than $100,000.
and
When threatened with dismissal, Foley admitted that he had taken photo images,
storyboards and a script for "Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace," but "nothing
big," according to the court document. He specifically denied having a copy of
"Episode II."
Foley said he was an "avid fan" and had taken the items for his "souvenir
collection" at his Petaluma home, according to the court document.
Foley agreed to allow Webb to look through the items at his home and when they
arrived at his Lakeville Circle townhouse the investigator saw "tons of 'Star
Wars' items," Webb said in the affidavit. Foley turned over numerous items,
including 25 CDs with images of the film, three videotapes of "Episode I"
voice-over tests, 115 storyboard image strips and a hard disk drive with
downloaded photo images.
He (or his mother, who lives in the Irvine residence cited below) also, perhaps, attempted to destroy evidence:
Authorities served a search warrant at the Irvine residence the next day, the
court document said, and found "Star Wars" production photos in a trash can, as
well as shredded documents that appeared to be "Star Wars" sketches.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I find this to be an amazing concept. Tell me - how often are you a victom of theft? When the neighborhood thug looks at you a little too long - did he just steal from you? Are you affraid your employer may have to lay you off due to economic pressure... and thus steal your livelihood? Is the increase in political violence direct theft on your person?
Think you could get any form of law enforcement to make a case of these examples of theft?
I don't.
LOL!
/. community can jump up and down and scream when Microsoft begins to charge for something they think should be free.
/. community logic.
I mean honestly, I didn't like the last Star Wars movie, so I have to be entitled to download burn this one to divx for compensation, right? It's only fair.
You nailed it, my friend. 99% of the movie, music, software pirates justify their actions with the "I deserve it" excuse.
"I have been a fan of Star Wars since I was 9, so I deserve to 'own' a copy before anyone else."
"I deserve lower prices at the box office, so I'll just download an illegal copy."
"I wasn't going to pay to see it in the theatre anyways, so I can download it because Lucas isn't losing money either way"
It burns me that some in the
Shout the praises of Linus when he releases something new for free.
And support people that pirate a movie like Star Wars... a movie funded SOLELY by George Lucas.
Review:
It's ok to pirate Microsoft, 'cause they're bad.
It's not ok to pirate Linux, 'cause they're good.
It's ok to pirate Star Wars, 'cause Mr. Lucas has enough money already (forget that he employs nearly 2000 people).
I love
Damn, I thought I was alone. Don't let it get you down, though. In the world technology and computing, /. is a joke. No one takes this site seriously anymore, and it's dismissed as a haven of wanna-be hackers and software pirates. What's funny is, watch how the posts die down during weekends. My bet is it's because /. is generally "tolerable-browsing" in the workplace, so you'll notice higher numbers during weekdays.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Take a copy of a movie and show it to other people while not making any money, go to jail.
... there examples a pleanty. But the moral of the story is, in America's justice system it's only really wrong if you don't make a fortune.
Make millions as a CEO through deception and fraud destroying the financial lives of thousands and contributing to the collapse of the economy as a whole... you can go free.
Sell a relitivly harmless plant to someone to help them releave stress, go to jail.
Make billions by putting out drugs at prices that bankrupt people less they die... you can go free.
The Internet is generally stupid
This is complete bullshit. There's nothing here that suggests he stole the film, he didn't even have a copy.
The guy has a few copies of starwars production images and some audio effects on CDROM and they accuse him of theft. He's a production assistant, are you telling me this isn't commonplace? They all have this kind of stuff lying around. As for the storyboards, look at the memerobelia that regularly surfaces after years, that would otherwise have been thrown in the trash if some grip hadn't grabbed it. Not only do they have the gall to charge him with theft mind you, but grand theft! The guy's an ex-employee and has some images on a CDROM he didn't use and it's "grand" theft. He didn't deprive Lucasfilm of their use and he didn't use them illegally, they were just lying on his disk.
Lucasfilm you hypocrites, look at your own hard disks and 'souvenir' collections and then examine your conscience, if you have any.
Let this be a lesson to the reader, DON'T work for Lucasfilm, DON'T have anything to do with the assholes.
A fishing expedition fails to catch what they're looking for so they charge the guy for something many of them do.
Lets face it folks, anyone who is a fan of something .. then finds themselves in a position of WORKING for a company that produces what they love .. is going to wind up with stuff.
.. and man .. the stuff people would ask to take home. Big card board cutouts of orks .. dice .. tape measures with 'games-workshop' on them.
.. some signed artwork from the studio in the UK, a japanese bayonette , [I helped start Gmaes-Workshop Japan], a few coffee mugs from the studio I worked in, (we were all given mugs) and tonnes of toy soldiers that were not released.
.. asking folks to take them home and read them over (i have a bunch of this stuff still to.)
.. of COURSE he brought some stuff home .. Hell .. some or all of it could have even been legimitate.
.. and every once in a while someone will give me one of the tools they are producing .. if to say 'thanks for working on my project' or to bribe me to get theirs done before someone elses .. it doesnt matter. These are written off by the guys who have 100's of them to give away.
.. has a few duplicates of storyboards to work off off (photo copies .. or what not) finishes his job .. and the geek who was running the rotoscoping camera over it asked if he was just gonna throw those out.
.. who gets himself into this situation as much as he can. [Knowing folks in the Video Game industry, at Games Workshop, At Wizards of the Coast .. I can rest assured from PERSONAL experience .. This happens ALL the time .. some geeks would rather take home something 'cool' from their job than go to lunch .. so the spend their lunch hours talking to the guys who don't need this stuff anymore.
.. was legimatly aquired .. or at least aquired the same way im sure 90% of the guys at SkyWalker Ranch have some cool prop from one of the movies at home.
... considering his job .. might have either brought this stuff home for work purposes .. or just cause he was a geek ?
I worked for games-workshop
I personally have FOUR jackets given to me by the company
The studio often passed out copies of rules for games that were not out yet
My point being, this kid worked for friggen STAR WARS. If he really was such a goober on this stuff
I work for Black & Decker now
SO lets get back to lucas. Some drafter is working on scenery
This guy thinkgs its kinda cute that the geek is drooling over a copy of this story board (that now has epoxy stuck to it) and makes his day by giving it to him.
Imagine, a REAL fan boy
Now is this going to be the case every time ? I don't know . but lets step back and look for a second. Its QUITE possible that all (or at least most) of the stuff this guy has
I mean, WHO wouldnt ??
Ian McCullen has the door knocker off of Bilbo's Door at Bags End. Why is it so hard to believe that this guy
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!