Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Arrest in Caridi FBI Investigation

Posted by michael on from the threat-to-national-security dept.

skillio writes "The FBI arrested one Russell Sprague in Illinois on Thursday in connection with the previously reported Carmine Caridi dvd screener leak investigation. Given the FBI's figure of up to 60 screeners a year provided by Caridi, and Sprague's clearly sophisticated setup, one can't help but wonder if this will prove to be the main, if not sole, source of these dvd screener leaks. Caridi has yet to be charged, but after he's admitted to supplying Sprague with screeners for the last 3-5 years, I highly doubt his innocence will remain unchallenged for very long."

21 of 482 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you.... by musikit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Carmine Caridi for saving me thousands of dollars on rental fees, movie tickets, popcorn, late fees, dinner with friends/family and candy for providing the worthless crap that the MPAA puts out to the common man on the internet.

    1. Re:Thank you.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If its crap than the easy solution would be dont go to the movies and rent the crap. these guys commited a crime as you do by downloading it. I dont agree with all the over the top pattent and copyright stuff weve seen lately but studios should be able to profit on making a movie. if the studios arent making any money then how do the make new movies?

    2. Re:Thank you.... by Bootsy+Collins · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why are actors paid $50,000,000 for doing a film instead of, say, $50,000 or $200,000? It's just acting. It's not like they're risking their life or health.

      Well, $50M is a bit of an exaggeration -- you're not going to find many (any?) examples of that high a figure -- but some actors do get paid a lot of money, even millions of dollars, to do a film, yes. Why so much? Because that's what the market is. They're paid that much because the studios are willing to pay that much, and the studios are willing to pay that much because the filmgoing public is willing to pay what it pays. That's what our priorities are.

      I think we're at the start of a trend which will end up with people who work in industries where copying is a problem being paid less, and people who actually provide something useful to society, such as teachers, nurses, etc getting paid more.

      That would be nice; but it's hard to imagine. As long as people value entertainment more than they do education, public safety, or public health, entertainment will be where the money goes. And as long as the main contributing factor to the success or failure of a movie continues to be perceived (rightly or wrongly) as its acting lineup or director, directors and acting talent will get big money. However, it's certainly possible that some of that money that would otherwise go to foleys, carpenters, sound editors, costume tailors, etc. (which for a typical movie is comparable to the money than the acting talent earns, simply because there's a lot more crew than actors) will be spent on anti-piracy crap instead, with the result that the foleys/carpenters/sound editors/costume tailors/etc. make less.

    3. Re:Thank you.... by monique · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They're paid that much because the studios are willing to pay that much, and the studios are willing to pay that much because the filmgoing public is willing to pay what it pays. That's what our priorities are.

      This is kind of misleading. Watching a movie costs less than $10 a person. So yes, our priorities are such that we are occasionally willing to pay somewhere around $5/hour for entertainment. That's not to say that any individual values acting talent in the millions.

      That being said, there may be changes in the wind. My local theater upped its prices to something like $9 for evening shows; $7 for a matinee. SEVEN DOLLARS for a matinee! And for this, I get a lecture from an MPAA lackey, several minutes of commercials, and several minutes of trailers, some of which, I admit, may be interesting.

      It's looking more and more like the right financial choice for movie enthusiasts is to buy a high-quality entertainment system and rent the DVD. Rental is cheaper than a movie ticket, you only have to pay for one DVD no matter how many people are watching, you don't (YMMV) have to deal with trailers and whatnot, and you can pause it when you have to pee. Besides, it enhances non-movie experiences, like console gaming, too.

      --
      -monique
  2. Call me crazy... by Txiasaeia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...but I can't find any mention of DVDs in the article. Wasn't this guy being charged with ripping VHS tapes?

    --
    Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
  3. Re:All screeners? by dtolman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are only so many screeners sent out by studios - if this guy _was_ sending out as many as they say he did, he probably represented a large portion of all screeners posted to the internet.

  4. sole source? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    UNLIKELY.

    If it were I'd kinda except all releases to have comen from the same group as well.

    well, it's hardly likely that it will change anything. they might scapegoat him for all the huge losses of entertainment industry that they've invented with a random number generator though.

    and you know what? sometimes the retail dvd is out in usa before the movie hits the big screen here in Finland. with phasing like that who needs screeners?

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  5. Don't burn him by blackmonday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If he was just sending the guy movies because he'd watched them and was done with them, the only laws he broke were of the Academy, not criminal laws. As it says in the first article, if he didn't know the movies were being copied, he's criminally innocent.

    I can't really believe that Caridi really knew that his screeners were being uploaded to the Internet. He's an older guy, I wonder if he's even familiar with the Internet, much less file-sharing. Anyways, if they were guilty wouldn't he let this other guy know, so he could get rid of the evidence before the feds showed up?

    It's pretty safe to say he won't be voting for the Academy Awards anymore.

  6. So is an apology coming from the industry? by Zed2K · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Since many people have been telling the movie industry for years that it is mainly its own people who distribute good copies of movies on the internet and they have constantly denied it. Are they now going to apologize?

  7. Re:Great. by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Could you please direct me to the article of the constitution that grants immunity to 70 year old criminals? Thank you.

    --
    Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
  8. Re:also covered on cnn.com by nate1138 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't it great that a FUCKING US ATTORNEY can't even get the infringement/theft thing straight? She should be disbarred for incompetence.

    There's also this choice bit:

    Among the movies being illegally sold off the Internet: "Master and Commander," "Last Samurai," "Matrix Revolutions," "Mystic River," "Gods and Generals," "Mighty Wind," "Matchstick Men," "Something's Gotta Give," "Love Actually," "Thirteen" and "Calendar Girls."

    There is no evidencd he "sold" anything to anybody. Fuck CNN, they have no respectability anymore.

    --
    Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
  9. And also thank you... by hoggoth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Thank you ... for saving me ... for providing the worthless crap that the MPAA puts out

    Thank you to all the people I've mugged in alleys over the years for saving me thousands of dollars on cars, motorcycles, clothes, drugs, jewelry, and dinner with friends/family for providing the worthless crap that our materialistic society demands we consume.

    I am a victim of a society gone rotten!

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  10. Arresting the Criminals by TheDawgLives · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's nice to see the FBI arresting the person actually breaking the law, unlike the RIAA which suied napster and other P2P services for "providing a conduit to break the law." If the FBI thought like the RIAA, they would destroy all roads in the US, because they facilitate people breaking the speed limit.

    --
    -TheDawgLives suckitdown
  11. FBI has no business by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This should be a civil manner, not something that has been escalated to a federal criminal issue. ( including their funding via taxes )

    Yes I realize that recent laws have allowed this, but that doest make it right.

    At this point the feds can go after anything they want, for any reason. regardless of how severe it isnt.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  12. Will this mark a change? by hugzz · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Just to be noted from the article:
    However, because this year the screeners carried invisible markings for the first time, the studios were able to identify the Academy member for whom they had been intended.

    If everyone who gets a copy of movies knows that they're traceable, wont this seriously cut back the amount of people willing to get screeners onto the internet? I know if I was given screeners and occaisionally leaked them, i'd stop right now (at least until I found out what these "invsible markings" were, and how to remove them)

  13. Good thing criminals are idiots by strictnein · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why wouldn't this guy have disposed of, or at least hidden away in some storage facility (pay with cash), all of his equipment?
    If I'm doing something like he was and my "supplier" gets busted, everything I have is going bye bye. You still might get busted, but they're going to have a hell of a lot harder time prosecuting you if they don't have that stuff as evidence.

    --
    Casual Games/Downloads
  14. Double Standards by thenextpresident · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am probably going to be mod'ed as flamer, but still. I see a lot of double standards here (yeah, it's /., I know). These people broke the law. They should be punished.

    People are complaining about wording in the article or from quotes (people suggesting they "stole" something). Does it really matter? Does the description of the act to a news reporter change the crime? If I describe a murderer's act as "He hurt the victims...", does that change the fact that the murderer committed the crime?

    And for everyone complaining about how the big bad MPAA is going after people for these "littie" crimes. Remember, they are using the same laws that protect the Linux Kernel. When the community goes after a company that doesn't provide the source code they use, and don't follow the GPL, it's basically the same damn thing. We have rights they agreed to, and we expect them to act accordingly.

    I mean, seriously, by suggesting that the MPAA shouldn't be going after these guys is tantamount to suggesting that the laws should be different for big companies and small companies.

    Regardless of the current state of the laws in the country, that's just wrong. If these guys did commit crimes, nuff said. They should be punished.

    Saying that they shouldn't be punished for committing a crime is just wrong.

    --
    Jason Lotito
  15. Re:Well this is certainly odd... by Contact · · Score: 3, Insightful
    That would be like one of the RIAA people being found trading CDs on P2P networks in his off hours...

    Actually, some record industry guys were merrily quoting from an independent report a few months back, and when the author of the report asked where they'd read it (as not many copies had been purchased), they went a bit red and admitted they'd been emailing copies of it to each other.

    If they don't respect copyrights themselves, they really ought to realise why the general public don't seem to do so either.

  16. He should just kill someone by panic911 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I recall hearing about a congressman who is spending 100 days in jail for killing a biker when he hit him wrecklessly with his car. What a wonderful justice system we have in the US, you can kill a man and go to jail for 100 days or you can make copies of a digital video and distribute them and spend the next 15 years in jail. It's a movie, it's not worth ruining peoples lives over.

    I also like how the MPAA (and RIAA, for that matter) determines their statistics for stolen movies/songs. If you have a movie on your computer, thats money that the MPAA lost. But in reality, most likely you would never spend a penny on that movie anyway.

    Stupid MPAA

  17. Re:All screeners? by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure this will only make it so that all distributors of pirated screeners in the future will just blur any identifying marks from the film.

    It's not that simple. The identifying marks are red herrings. The real identifying marks will be obscured. This is easy to do with modern computing technology. Since they're already making multiple copies, and duplication is the hard part, they can stick assorted different symbols/logos into portions of the movie where they will not be noticed. Even easier; Chop specific scenes down here and there by a second or two. If you're writing the mastering software it should be easy to drop MPEG frames off the end of a clip, alter the header, and create your image for burning without screwing anything up. It would also be fairly trivial to add in assorted sounds which are not found in the movie normally, or time-shift them, by overlaying them onto the audio track later. Studios typically have not done this to date because it is harder than not doing anything, but they will start doing it, because they can't just stop sending out screeners (though screeners will typically be sent to less and less people, I think - maybe we'll start seeing more workprints, which must hurt their bottom line less) but they still want to discourage copying.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  18. Re:Great. by k98sven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You do not put people in prisons to protect society, nor to punish them. It is a common misconception, however it is wrong.

    You don't spend a word on explaining HOW it is wrong, or what the correct reasons are?

    That makes no sense. This is a democracy, the 'common' perception of why the government does things IS the reason why the government does things.