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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.
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.
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
The accused biog here
> 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
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 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
Let me rephrase: no mention of "DVD screeners," because they no longer exist -- the Academy sends out VHS tapes now to combat piracy, for all the good it did them.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
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.
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
Yeah! I for one am sick and tired of seeing major Hollywod studios go out of business! Oh, if only people had watched 'Cheaper by the Dozen' In theaters instead of pirating it to realize it was terrible! Why! If only they were able to profit in some way from these movies somehow!
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.
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?
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?