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Arrest in Caridi FBI Investigation
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."
The different versions are probably different 'rips' of the cds provided by Sprague, or if he ripped + released them himself, different versions of this rip.
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."
I don't know, seems to me that Caridi flipped and gave the cops the man they really wanted. I'll bet you they'll be some fines, community service, etc., but I doubt he's going to prison. Sprague is going to be sent up for a long time though.
What did Caridi get out of the arrangement? He denies receiving money, and says he just thought Sprague was a film buff. I wonder if all Caridi ever got from Sprague was praise and adoration: "I've always *loved* your work."
if convicted of the charges that they suggest are involved.
Sprague (charged):
1) criminal copyright infringement, and
2) illegal interception of a satellite signal
Caridi (may be charged):
1) contributory copyright infringement
While I'm no fan of breaking copyright law (or any law for that matter), what pisses me off is that these two will be sentenced to terms longer than Bill Janklow (R,SD). That fucker will get 100 days for killing someone AND his record will be expunged.
No wonder people have no faith in the judicial system.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I thought it was 14 year old girls, 60 year old grandmothers, and college students who were responsible for all teh piracy... It cant possibly be one of the Acadamy members!!
Makes ya wonder tho, after all the commercials geared to make the American public feel guilt for pirating movies, how will the MPAA and such be taken seriously now that its been pretty much proven that one of their own is responsible for HUNDREDS of movie screeners getting out into the wild?
That would be like one of the RIAA people being found trading CDs on P2P networks in his off hours...
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
one can't help but wonder if this will prove to be the main, if not sole, source of these dvd screener leaks
...and does it mean they'll stop playing those damn anti-piracy commercials before movies?
"David makes movies"
"Alls I wants ta do is the bests jobs I cans"
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
Nothing, per se, but you notice how much bad press the RIAA got for suing a little girl, right? Besides, they're probably much happier to find the leak (Caridi), and have the "mad copier" (Sprague) in custody.
Sprague will, no doubt, see some jail time, but he's just as likely to plea bargain his time down if he can provide the Feds and the MPAA with any more names or information.
Caridi, however... let's see, career ruined, good name ruined... sure, they could throw him in jail, but if he sticks to his story, he's likely to get off with little time or punishment other then being ostracized by the major players in Hollywood.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Even If you were not tech savy and you saw a AVR board or other electronic device in a sat reciever, you'd know it was not a regular card. I believe they can expand their search if evidence of another crime is obvious. Most satellite hacks are pretty obvious, besides this was a previous investigation and they probably ran him the FBI DB and his ass was flagged and they looked.
So I actually RTFA, and I'm wondering about the legal basis for the "illegal interception of satellite signals" part. I can see where copyright infringement is illegal, and I can see where duplicating the SatTV smart cards is illegal, but what, exactly, is "illegal interception"? If they beam RF into my home, can't I receive it and -- purely for experimental purposes, say -- try to do something with it? The RF spectrum is licensed for transmitting on, but I thought I had a legal right to receive whatever I wanted. Now whether I can decrypt the data I receive is another question entirely.
Any decent group distributing these movies, have known about, and removed these marks for years now, This is just a slightly new idea in that manner of copy protection, It'll be broken. They just missed it this first time (oops),
As I recall, Normally, they get two seperate copy's of a movie, and compare them, to find out whats different, then remove it from both copys.
or something, Y'know.
What do you call a crime? Corporate CEOs and their radical self-interest, now control our legislative system, which is furiously dismantling our judicial system. (war powers act, PATRIOT, etc) Gen Tommy Franks actually said, that if there's another major terrorist attack, the Constitution may have to be suspended! WTF? We've had much worse crises, and haven't had to suspend the Constitution.
Where do you stand on (the current) abridging, and (the proposed)suspending the United States Constitution?!
Campaign finance reform is national security.
Things you shouldn't do (again i'm speaking under some geek "we" umbrella):
oh, wait...
I'm very much of the belief that good movies are worth watching more than once, BTW.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
The settlement dictates that if you bought one CD, cassete, or album from a member of the RIAA between January 1, 1995, through December 22, 2000, you are entitled to 20 bucks. Max.
If you bought 300 CDs, you would get 20 bucks. Max.
If you bought a CD every day for those five years - 20 dollars. Max.
Please note, the RIAA admits to no wrongdoing. If the total to each claimant is less than 5 dollars, it all goes to charity. (And becomes a tax write off?)
You're right! I don't want 'double standards'. If I do something wrong, like infringe copyright - I want to settle for a fraction of the money a make each year, and admit no wrongdoing.
Just like the 'Big Biz'.
Why do you think it's so hard to justify? With the number of entities trying to screw me over on a daily basis, then 'admitting no wrongdoing' (catchphrase of the 21 century), I have a hard time caring about anything that 'hurts' big business.
According to the FBI, Sprague admitted receiving screeners from Caridi and said that he used the software program Copy Guard Breaker to copy the VHS tapes to DVD and then returned the original VHS tapes and two VHS copies of each to Caridi.
Sprague said that he'd made as many as six duplicate copies of each DVD and distributed them to family and friends. He supplied copies to another friend in exchange for using a FedEx shipping account, the FBI said.
The FBI affidavit does not explain how the films were uploaded to the Internet.
So they found the "source," and it was really Caridi, not Sprague. Caridi was getting "keeper" copies of all of the movies, so who cares that Sprague was making the dupes? Sprague was just the guy that had the equipment and expertise to do it, with a few buddies on the side. He didn't seem to have financial motive. One of his "friends" was kind enough to rip and upload his backroom work for him. Sprague's a hacker but now he faces three years for someone else uploading his hack.
Sprague's a pirate, no question. What he did was wrong. But three years of Federal-Pound-Me-In-The-Ass-Prison for copying movies? (It's probably be low security, but still...) Caridi is the violator and should be held liable for the movie piracy, especially after the agreement he signed.
Separately, DirecTV filed a civil lawsuit against Sprague in May over his alleged theft of its satellite signal. In 2002, Sprague had been named, along with hundreds of other suspects, in a massive crackdown on equipment that can be used to reprogram satellite television access cards, a method by which pirates illegally get programming for free. Paying customers are issued personally encoded cards with their subscription.
Sprague stole satellite TV and made cards for others to do it also... yes the whole debate about "you can't steal signals that reach everyone" will rage on, but there's no question they were defrauding DirecTV. On the other hand, that carries a potential five year prison term, is that appropriate for a first offense?
-Turkey
I think that there is an undertone that you might be missing: many here are worried about the "current state of the laws in the country." As a poster aboved mentioned this type of "crime" was a civil matter and used to be handled by civil courts. Now, however, federal, state, and local governments are doing the grunt work and paying to enforce these new laws.
Also I don't think you are correct in your assertion that the same laws are protecting the linux kernel, the laws being used here are criminal laws that are very specificly targeted a distribution of content, in various ways.
This should be a civil manner, not something that has been escalated to a federal criminal issue. ( including their funding via taxes )
You can check out the FBI's updated priorities here. I too don't see how the FBI got mixed up with movies. Maybe its just advertising, because the most I hear/see from the FBI on a regular basis is at the beginning of DVDs where the FBI warns me to be good with the content of the disc.
But hey, if the FBI is this aggressive for movie copyright violators, then terrorists, organized crime, and spys must so scared that they will stop doing their illegal activities any time now.
If you write, "a man assulted three people..." but fail to mention that he also killed them, you're guilty of negligent reporting.
In fact, in the UK this breaks the NUJ's Code of Conduct (rule 3):
"A journalist shall strive to ensure that the information he/she disseminates is fair and accurate, avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact and falsification by distortion, selection or *misrepresentation*."
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
What if the protection is something that is in every copy but one?
Yeah, conceptually I get what you're saying, but it bothers me on some level that people are satisfied with selling out their morals for $15 (adjusted for DVD price and availability).
I'm not arguing that the MPAA is operating with a firm ethical base, but this is a race to the bottom. If people are genuinely aggrieved about movie prices they should find alternatives and get involved in the political process, because ain't nothing gonna change when the movie industry holds all the cards.
Then they can't track it to one specific person. They'd have to say something like "One of you 3,000 screeners leaked our film and we want answers!" rather then "Yo dumbass, our invisible mark says that this film on the internet was yours. Give us your freedom now!"
Regards,
Steve
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.
The difference here is that the Congressman has money, and can thus "afford justice." So can the **AA. Regardless of how serious you believe the law violations in this case to be, the defendant's comparative lack of money will be a factor here. Like it or not, the USA is a plutocracy.
I'm certainly not saying that what the individuals involved in this case did wasn't wrong, either. Look at it this way -- hypothetically, if someone with boatloads of influence/money got caught doing this exact same thing, how likely would they be to receive the same punishment from the US justice system?
Well, $50M is a bit of an exaggeration -- you're not going to find many (any?) examples of that high a figure
Actually, if you include profit sharing (for the big name actors) then the numbers go way up. Take for example Tom Cruise, who has a profit sharing clause in his contracts. For Mission Impossible 2 he got a salary of about $25M and his share of the profit was around $75M.
Aw crap, ninjas!
A quick search on nforce.nl at least reveals what release group ended up with the movies:
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World *SCREENER* - OBUS
The Last Samurai (2003) *SCREENER* - OBUS
Mystic River (2003) *SCREENER* - OBUS
Calendar Girls (2003) *LIMITED* *SCREENER* - OBUS
Thirteen (2003) *LIMITED* *SCREENER* - OBUS
Check the nfo of Thirteen for a nice description of how they recruit people.
"Do you have connections within the academy network and can you obtain academy screeners/dvd screeners during oscar season. then contact us asap."
Oh, and if any feds are reading this: Even though Cokine is the only "name" of an actual person in the nfo, it does not mean he is affiliated with the group. He is just another starving ascii artist, taking requests over IRC.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
No, they'd be able to determine the two films that were diffed with each other because the two identifiers that were missing would be traceable. If the identifiers run the entire length of the film in the overscan, or appear repeatedly, it could be shown that it was highly unlikely that exactly the right frames were dropped by mere coincidence.
Well, anyway, this VCD had the telltale sign of being a screener, every now and then on the bottom it would flash "For Your Consideration."
Well, this got my mind going, someone had actually hired voice actors to dub a pirate VCD. Will wonders never cease.
Incidentally, before my friends are condemned for being wicked and evil, I should point out that I had bought a used copy of The Two Towers on DVD that I would gladly have lent them, they just wanted to watch it translated into Thai.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
You think you have it bad?
My name is Robert Hansen. I was born in Iowa, not far away from a city called Estherville.
Know who the other famous Robert Hansen from Estherville, Iowa is?
AN ALASKAN SERIAL KILLER WHO MURDERED TWENTY-ODD HOOKERS.
I discovered this while dating an Alaskan. You ever seen the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is dating a guy named David Berkowitz? You ever sat there on the couch with your Alaskan girlfriend, watched this episode, and felt enormous sympathy pangs for both Elaine and David?
And let's not even get into Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent turned traitor...