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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."
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.
So, uh, where might these screeners be released on the internet?
We have a right to examine the evidence, right?
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."
If my name was Russell Sprague, I'd be relieved they were only arresting one of them. Headlines announcing mass Sprague purges would frighten and alarm me.
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."
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
Yes, this Caridi guy was the sole source. Guess you can stop looking! Right, everyone?
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
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.
The accused biog here
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
If they said they were arresting "one CarrotTop" I would be concerned that there might be more than one of him!
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!
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.'"