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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 FBI arrested one Russell Sprague
Why is it that cops always arrest one of somebody? It's not like raids on human clone factories are that common.
I doubt that he would be the only person doing screeners. There's probably about 2-5 people per movie, as you'll get different weirdnesses (such as blured out text) in the same movie, depending on the release group.
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.
...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.
If the guy committed a crime, what's wrong with putting him in prison?
So, uh, where might these screeners be released on the internet?
We have a right to examine the evidence, right?
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.
"Stealing movies is tantamount to taking money out of the pockets of everyone involved with the film industry," said United States Attorney Debra W. Yang in a statement. Kinda like how The Godfather 3 is tantamount to taking 3 hours of my life.
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.
the national nightmare is over. Finally, the screeners can roam the wilderness, free and unripped.
George: I'm a bootlegger.
Anna: You're a what?
George: I'm bootleggin' a movie, baby!
Anna: Isn't that illegal?
George: I can do hard time for this one. And community service!
Jerry: I don't care about Brody. I was up on 96th Street today, there was a kid couldn't have been more than ten years old. He was asking a street vendor if he had any other bootlegs as good as Death Blow. That's who I care about. The little kid who needs bootlegs, because his parent or guardian won't let him see the excessive violence and strong sexual content you and I take for granted.
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."
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?
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.
FBI Agent 1: Hey, I've got some evidence here that a massive terrorist attack is going to take place at...
FBI Agent 2: Not now! We've got to stop those damn dirty stinkin' hippie copyright infringers! To the FBImobile!
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
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!"
Can you drop the fucking make-believe-land movie crap and go after those real-life terrorists instead?
And see if you can get back my VCR and tape collection from the guy who burglarized my house.
The latest Slashdot meme.
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
I often wonder, the commodization of computers made the pricepoint go down.. who pays 3k for a computer any more? no one..
ever watch the original 'blob'? one great scene, where the kids are pulled out of the movie house by the local law enforcement.. they complain "ok sherrif, you've got out eighty cents"-- movies were a dime.. and until my adulthood, so were phone calls.. think about it.. movies and payphone calls were the same price at one point in time. and payphones held level for DECADES
could not the widespread of free movies have forced the studios to re-normalize (read, de-gouge) to a point where the value was obvious?
instead of selling popcorn/candy/soda/food at a huge markup, and forbidding bringing it in from outside.. charge enough of a price that precludes anyone from wanting to bring it in from outside.
instead of selling 10-20 bags at 1$ profit, sell 100-200 bags at 20 cents profit
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The accused biog here
But average /.ers still think its hunky dory to go out to the net and download it. Everybody wants something for free, doesn't matter what it is.
We can all go on and on about the evils of big business, how all they want to do is rip us off. But most people also think that the rules that apply to us "little people" such as honesty and integrity should apply to Big Biz as well, no double standards. So why do most here still think it's OK to steal music and movies?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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.
> 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
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
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 ----
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)
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
So it's not okay for me to disagree with a law, or the harshness of the punishment for it?
Sorry, I thought I was supposed to never question anything.
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.
"The FBI affidavit does not explain how the films were uploaded to the Internet."
The FBI understands how the screeners were distributed and then illegally copied using elaborate equipment. As for how that digital information made it on to the interweb, they are still researching the possibilities. Their suspicions include the use of some kind of Computing Machine.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
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
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.
Happy 70th Birthday, Carmine! Our agents will be there shortly with your birthday present.
- Love, FBI.
I'm guessing they didn't want to release the actual name of the program he used for fear that other people might start using it after they find it on Google.
And now we know why Hollywood's been so focused on creating perfect CGI characters. It gets rid of all that overhead you just listed. Save a few million here, a few million there, pretty soon you've financed one hell of a render farm.
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.
Made in '03. Hero (with Jet Li) was made in 2002, but will be released in '04. So, its going to be considered an '04 movie in Hollywood.
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
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?
from what my brother tells me (he is a cop), federal prison is fairly cushy (unless its a ultra max), where as state lockup can be hellish, espcially if your in one of the rather poor southern states like Louisana (sp?) or Texas.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
-Turkey
I highly doubt that he is the "sole source" for all DVD screeners. It simply wouldn't make sense considering how many groups there are out there releasing them in competition with each other and with different versions. If there was one source there would be one group always getting the first release for every movie, which just isn't the case. My best guess was that he was OBUS's source. They're the only group that released all of the movies listed in the article and while they are a major group, they're far from the largest or most well known.
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.
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.
it is moderately well known that data above and beyond SMTPE timecode is frequently embedded in lines 18 through, I think it is 27, in your average NTSC video frame. if you have an older TV with horizontal hold controls, roll the picture down a little and watch the black line dance above the picture.
this is, among other things, how Panasonic VCRs can automatically set their clocks when you switch them to the local PBS channel.
all you have to do is put a dupe serial number in that retrace bar's timespace, between the horizontal sync pulses, and you've tagged the tape with a unique number.
it's a little harder to blur these out, because you have to replace the information or you break picture sync, putting an ugly hook in the top of the picture.
ain't worth my time to chase it further, but bet on the serials being there... and if MPAA is truly paranoid and in league with the shadows, the name of the intended recipient of the screener. if they use some sort of argument like, "it takes a month to cut these tape copies," bet big on it.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
My name is Russell Sprague, and I have been frightened and alarmed.
/. article emailed a few times to me, had my boss's boss taunting me since the moment he walked in the door... Today's not a good day to be a Russell Sprague.
I've had this
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)