Eight Charged in Episode III Early Release

ewhac writes "Earlier this year, an advance copy of 'Star Wars: Episode III' was released to the Internet a day before the film's official worldwide opening. Yesterday, the US Attorney handed down charges to the eight people believed responsible. Using forensic markers embedded in the advance-release "screeners," law enforcement were able to track down the leaked copy and the people who came in contact with it. As a result of the early release, Episode III only managed to earn $380 million at the box office."

Comments

Uploading VS Downloading

[RUFFyamahaRYDER]

I find it interesting that the only people who are getting in trouble for Internet piracy are the ones who are doing the uploading, but the people doing the downloading do not get in any trouble like in this case. I seem to remember the same kind of thing happening to people on P2P networks. The ones the FBI (or whatever agency) goes after are the massive uploaders, not the downloaders.

Am I wrong here? If not, anyone know why they mostly go for the uploaders and not the downloaders? Are there different laws here? Just curious...

What is it with US and the word "illegal"

[Psionicist]

This is not a troll or flamebait in disguise, it's an honest question.

Whenever US mainstream media writes about piracy they use the word "illegal" over and over again. For example, the link in TFS, SFGate writes "illegal release". Same thing with NYTimes, Washington Post etc... "illegal filesharing" this and "illegal piracy" that. Whenever a new release group is shut down the media use these words along with "stolen", "illicit" (you get the idea).

Why? I live in Sweden. Our mainstream media sure talk about piracy alot, but I have never seen them talk about "illegal" trading etc, even if it is against the law. I have never seen the word "stolen" in the context of piracy either, in Swedish newspapers. Is this something normal for US papers? Do they write about "illegal murder", "illegal robbery" etc too? Or is this just sligtly modified PR?

Thanks.

Re:What is it with US and the word "illegal"

[Macadamizer]

It's only "Legal Murder" and "Legal Robbery" if the state's doing it, but we use colorful euphemisms like "Capital Punishment" and "Eminent Domain"

But at least with eminent domain you get paid. A better example of "legal robbery" would be asset forfeiture laws related to drugs and the like, where the cops can take your car or your house, without ever even charging you for a crime -- all they need is a reasonable belief that such a crime is occuring in your house or car. Some cities even allow forfeiture of your car if you are caught soliciting a prostitute -- and those forfeitures have been upheld in court. That's legal robbery.

Forensic Markers?

[bluffcityjk]

I think the interesting story here is the "forensic markers". Anyone have any insight into what technology is involved here?

Re:Not exactly....

[zxnos]

i concur. but what is the price point at which copyright infringement becomes acceptable? $100 thousand, $10 million, $20 million, etc?

In an unrelated case....

[vrv1]

Towards the bottom of the article:

In an unrelated case, Ronald Redding, 37, of Linthicum Heights, Md., was charged Tuesday with giving his copy of "Million Dollar Baby" to a friend. Redding faces a misdemeanor charge of willfully infringing a copyright by distributing the film.

Does this mean I cant lend a DVD that I buy legally to my friend?

Re:Who pays for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the nature of society that crimes against the rich will be investigated more frequently. I wonder how much tax the government gained from that $380m...

Re:Who pays for this?

[Kjella]

Well, the FBI deals with cases over $5000, which would be 0,001% of the earnings. It doesn't exactly take much to pass that limit. Besides, it's not the police that is using "James Bond tactics", it is the movie studios. They are the ones that place these trackers, keep track of where they are and probably present the police with "Here's the evidence, go round them up". It's nothing new that justice can sometimes be "bought", there's no law stopping you and me from hiring a PI to investigate something the cops probably wouldn't get around to.

Kjella

Re:Who pays for this?

[MacFury]

imagine if your house was broken into and a large amount of valuables stolen, but the police wouldn't come out to look at it because you didn't donate enough to the last election or you weren't in a high enough tax bracket.

Well, I don't need to imagine...I see it happen alot. I could provide the police with the names, addresses, phone numbers and even pictures of people who have stolen from me and vandalised my property. They won't do anything about it. However, if I take matters into my own hands...I could (and most likely would) get fined or sent to prison.

I do not trust any police officier that I don't personally know. In fact, I trust them much less than a typical stranger. Atleast with a typical stranger I can be relatively sure they don't have the power to royally screw over my life like a cop.

Re:Not exactly....

[Glyphn]

Why does it make sense that popular athletes, actors, and musicians make hundreds of millions of dollars while scientists researching diseases and solutions to the energy crisis make far less and risk having their research sent overseas to be done for even less money?

YMMV and all that, but to me it makes sense. For one, there's a lot less risk in pursuing a career in science. Looking back, I'd say the main requirement is persistence--you have (in the US) 10-12 years of post high school education and then maybe a few extra years thrown in for postdoc. During this time, you can expected to be treated (and paid) as your typical minion. After that, the jobs aren't exactly plentiful, but if you chose your degree with some minor forethought, you should be employable. At that point, you can choose broadly between job security and lower pay in academia or higher pay and less job security in industry.

In any case, it's not that hard. Science doesn't require any great social or communication skills or, frankly, much in the way of intelligence either (which is not to say that having these traits doesn't help). Also, oversees competition isn't (IMO) much of a concern, but I concede ignorance outside my discipline.

Compare this to athletes, actors (or TV newscasters, or corporate execs, etc.) where only a handful actually win high-profile and high paying positions. Whole different scale of risk, IMO.

But as another poster said, it's a capitalism thing too so if you're not into that, well, it probably still won't make a lot of sense :)

Re:Not exactly....

[sdpuppy]

Script: Well besides wonders (such as when Mr. Vadar screams "Noooooooo!",

I'd like to kow why a culture with faster than light space ships and cars that levitate, the ability

to install cybernetic limb replacements, recover from near-death

hypothermia has so much difficulty with

Maternity medical problems...

Time to take responsibility

[CelestialWizard]

While I in no way defend or support the theft of property and subsequent distribution, both the Recording and Movie industries need to take some responsibilty.

I realise that in this instance Revenge of the Sith was a huge success and made number 7 in the top 10 grossing movies of all time. However, both the MPAA and RIAA continually push that priacy hurts them. In the case of Sith - let's all be fair and honest - the movie was absolute rubbish. Perhaps if they made better movies (and music) more people would buy them.

Another little tidbit..... revenues are going up for music - inspite of p2p distribution and other online sales stores. I wonder why less and less people are going to the movies??? It's a clear example of the market in action - you produce rubbish, people won't pay to see it. The number of people that would sit there and download movies is quite small compared to the worldwide audience of potential theater goers.

Make better movies, get more people into the theater, make more money.

Re:Not exactly....

[TiggertheMad]

in fact these days many films sounds tracks make more money then the film does.

I understand your point that films make a lot of money on the side that isn't counted towards the film's gross, but your statement is waaaaaay of base.

Pretend that there is no cost to create, market, and distribute a soundtrack because the hollywood accountant weasles have included that in the film's budget to prevent a writer who took a cut of the profits from seeing anything. (Not absolutely feasable, but it helps keep the math simple.

Now, lets assume that we can make $10 per disk/tape/record sold. If a cheap film costs $50 million to make (about average cost, from what I see), We still have to sell 5 million to equal the film revenue. That would be a album that goes platinum five times. Incase you don't follow the music world, a lot of artists would be very happy to go platinum five times. You would be on par with people like Prince, Madonna, Whitney, and a whole slew of very successful pop artists.

I don't see that happening.

Re:Who pays for this?

[Hosiah]

Y'know, I had my car stolen a few years ago when we lived in Las vegas. It was ripped off from the parking lot of my apartment while we slept. The same evening, the exact same make and model of car (but it wasn't ours) was also found abandoned in the *other* end of the apartment complex's parking lot, in trashed condition. Clearly, the car thieves knew how to steal only one make of car, ditched it when it ran out of gas, took off walking, and - what luck! - found ours.

We called the police about it and their whole attitude was "So what? F#ck you!!!". They wouldn't even send a unit out, not even to look at the dumped car. It's things like this I think about (and I think most /.ers think about) when I see stories like this.

Re:Not exactly....

[geminidomino]

It's wrong... (repeat ad nauseum)

That's your opinion.

Personally, I don't bother downloading movies/music/games. It's all mindless pap and I have better things to do with my bandwidth.

But for those that do, consider this rationale:

The unethical, arguably illegal price fixing schemes in place bring these creeps more money than they are actually entitled to. So as long as the numbers downloading the "art" (and I use the term VERY loosely) is a lower percentage than the puffed-up ticket prices, costs of CD/DVD rebuys (since you don't own the disc, you just buy a license!) etc... then the Force is balanced.

Re:Not exactly....

[evilviper]

So most statements about piracy or suckiness should be said in a sarcastic way,

Statements about money lost due to copyright infringement, yes. Statements about suckiness, no.

The highest grossing movie of all time (not star wars) is a very sucky movie to be sure.

There are many, many, many times that a terribly crappy movie makes lots of money. There are also many times that a very good movie makes practically no money. Since quality is not tied to profit, suckiness can't be dismissed so easily.