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X-Men Origins Pirate Draws a 1-Year Sentence
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from geek.com: "In 2009, a copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine found its way on to Megaupload a month before it was due to appear in movie theaters. The so-called 'workprint' copy was unfinished — so unfinished in fact, anyone viewing this copy saw green screens and wires attached to actors used to help with the more acrobatic movements during action scenes. Hugh Jackman even commented on the leak, describing it as like getting a 'Ferrari without a paint job.' The person who decided to share the movie illegally was tracked down, however. He is a 49-year-old New Yorker by the name of Gilberto Sanchez, and he's just been prosecuted." The New York Times' 2010 interview with Sanchez is a good read, too.
not like he was ripping DVD's to play on his ipod or iphone because the digital copy thing for blu ray is a scam. not like he only watched the stolen copy in his home. he uploaded it so it could be downloaded by others
Sooo, instead of imposing a fine, we'll let the taxpayer foot the bill for a year's incarceration. Brilliant.
Except, of course, those convicted of sodomy charges. There's the Federal no-ass-pounding prison for that.
Jokes aside, it's interesting how among all the different types of intellectual property, only copyright is settled in criminal courts.
If only you had been there, he would be a free man today. In fact, the film probably was better without all that sterile, fake looking animation.
TFA says the jailed guy got the movie on DVD for $5 from some guy in a Chinese restaurant. So the movie was already in commercial, pirate distribution on DVD and the feds did nothing about that. Instead they went after the movie buff who uploaded the DVD for no commercial gain. This sounds more like the usual "war against the internet" than "going after the right person" as the articles propagandistically pretend.
"The person who decided to share the movie illegally was tracked down"
Well, not exactly... the person who first uploaded it was tracked down, not the person who first stole it, copy it, and give it to the Koreans to sell on the street.
Seems the person to first share it is still out there...
it's interesting how among all the different types of intellectual property, only copyright is settled in criminal courts.
There are criminal offenses defined under trademark law, too.
And are policed by the FBI and ICE and Homeland Security ... pretty sweet deal, make the government responsible for policing your profits, and at their expense.
The police (and the government) now officially work for the corporations. It's amazing the laws you can buy.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Here's the obligatory proportions post. How many people have been arrested for the housing market crash thus far? How much monetary damage did those people actually do in comparison to this guy?... yeah.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I don't think it matters. The movie butchered so many comic book back stories that it was incredibly painful to watch even after "the paint was applied."
I wouldn't call it a Ferrari either. Maybe a Pinto without a paint job.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
That copy was not ripped from a theatrical release DVD. It was obviously copied directly from a data file in some productions houses' work flow. This guy was just an accessory after the fact. And that "Sanchez explained that he actually bought the movie on DVD for $5 from a Korean man in a Chinese restaurant.". So where does the data originate from?
Who ever released the original data is the person who needs to spend time in jail, not some patsy who bought a cheap DVD from an anonymous pusher in some shady restaurant dealing.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The biggest problem with his analogy is that X-Men Origins: Wolverine was more like a Volkswagen Beetle. The "paint job" they added in post-production was all it had going for it.
At least watching the workprint made it fun: "Claws Grow".
Hell yeah! I found the workprint to be far more entertaining than the finished film as well. I watched it at least 3 times and laughed my ass off every single time. Remember the plane crash? "EXPLOSION!!!" The part when Wolverine gets hit by the Big Rig was great, too.
I wish more studios would include workprints and stuff like that on their legitimate DVD/BD releases. The process of making a movie is often times far more fascinating to me than the movie itself.
Look, I don't really follow the Slashdot party line on this one; I think stealing from artists you respect is stupid, because they won't make you more stuff. And Sanchez was an idiot for uploading this thing from the illegal pirated copy he bought. But his punishment does seem disproportionate, and they still got the wrong guy.
This guy bought stolen goods, and made illegal copies of copyrighted materials. Somebody, somewhere, actually stole the proof from the studio. That is the real crime they should be punishing if they want to stop pre-release pirates. And I won't even bother to point out how effortlessly easy it would be to track copies and identify leaks in this technical audience, because I'm sure you can all come up with half-a-dozen schemes yourselves. If the studios can't be bothered to prevent the leaks or identify and punish the leakers in the first place, why should we care what happens to the leaked materials?
I can just imagine his first conversations with fellow prisoners - so what are you in here for? Convict 1) I killed 3 people. Convict 2) I raped some kids. Sanchez) I uploaded a movie to a filesharing site. He is definitely going to be someone's bitch!
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference to Godwin's Law approaches 1
It's possibly worth noting that that version was actually more interesting than the final cut.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Also has anyone else ever seen when the police do a "raid" on the bootleg dvd sellers on Canal Street in NYC? I've seen it happen a few times and the police move as slowly as possible, it seems to allow everyone time to pack up all their shit and escape. Sometimes enough time for people to pack up entire carts and run down the street with them. Not exactly a possibility for this dude, clearly. No idea what the sentence time is for someone caught with pirated material in real life is compared to online possession/distribution, or maybe it's the same?
This is a research account for studying online commenting so we can create tools to improve moderation.
The movie butchered so many comic book back stories that it was incredibly painful to watch even after "the paint was applied."
Tell me about it. Not only this guy, but every distributor of that crap should be jailed for unleashing such an atrocity. I saw it on TV and still felt like demanding my money back.
And they all moved away from him over on the Group W bench....
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
A corporation doesn't commit a crime. It has no guilty intent or intent at all. The one who commits a crime is the executive who makes the decision, and they certainly can be sent to prison.
And this is the way it should be. A company can easily behave if those without ethics are removed from the board.
Thank it's not a person, and shouldn't have the rights of one.
I know what the law says, and I know that he broke the law. But consider this: there was no provable financial harm to the producers of the film. No one was hurt. No one was deprived of anything. Yet, this guy is deprived of his freedom for one year and earns a permanent criminal record. This was a classic victimless crime and I would argue that that makes it no crime at all.
I find it interesting that you would be more interested in the process than the narrative itself. I remember a time when people went to films to be lost and engrossed. A noticeable special effect was a bad thing which took you out of the film. Now, it seems people WANT to see outrageous effects which call attention to themselves. I'm guessing it's because the narrative of many films simply does not grab an audience any more, so there's really nothing to take you out of.
I think the difference is that copyright infringement is mostly perpetrated by individuals, patent and trade mark is left to businesses. To intimidate a person, you threaten them with jail. To intimidate a business, you threaten them with a lawsuit.
Recently, a Social Security employee was robbed and shot. The shooter, recently released from prison after 9 months "time-served" of a 10 year sentence for armed robbery.
So armed robbery, and you can be out in less than a year. Upload an unfinished video of a film and it's a year in prison.
The avg person's well being is meaningless to the Law. But the profits of a stealing mega-corporation, now that the Law is concerned with.
There is a point where the Sheriff is corrupt, and his badge is nothing more than a bully pulpit.
>The one who commits a crime is the executive who makes the
> decision, and they certainly can be sent to prison.
I was under the impression that at least part of the basic reason for a corporation was to shield people from liability. To be reasonable, I'm guessing that it was meant as financial, not criminal liability.
But then we get to a thing I call, "blame diffusion," where you spread a bad, even criminal decision around many people. At this point while something truly bad may happen, something that would clearly be criminal had one individual done it, each person in the chain of command has done only something minor or "mildly negligent," and at no single point does it rise to the level of being criminal. IMHO corporate processes can be designed to make things happen this way, and very possibly are, for this exact reason.
> A company can easily behave if those without ethics are
> removed from the board.
That presumes you can find someone else "at that level" who does have some ethics. Given that executives seem to be a rather exclusive club these days, finding a member of that club with good ethics and ready to fill your position may be very difficult indeed.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Don't worry, that was an typo on the editor's part. I clearly remember Hugh Jackman describing it like getting a "Fiero without a paint job."
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
It's more like having a Ferrari with every kind of shielding stripped so you actually get to see how the valves work and how the transmission shifts.
Personally, I'd almost say that "working copy" is more interesting than the finished movie. But that's the geek in me, I don't like magicians for the same reason: I wanna know how stuff works!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hey, sounded like you were entertained by it. So, you paid them a few dollars for the hard work they did, right?
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Indeed, if you ever get a chance look up close at a Ferrari F40, it has paint, but just barely enough to make it look Ferrari red from a distance.
The paint is thin and nearly translucent as it is opaque, so it adds the least possible weight. You can see the carbon fiber/nomex/kevlar weave right through it; it's also notoriously easy to scuff, and difficult to polish. The paint job wouldn't be close to acceptable on a factory Kia, but people paid for what is basically a street legal thoroughbred race machine, and shaving a few pounds of paint off makes it go faster, you know.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
(Zen wisdom incoming)
Movie ideas are like tea. You take the leaves and herbs, and you brew them with some hot water, and you get some wonderful tea, and it is powerful and strong, and it will refresh you and invigorate you.
And you see that the tea was good and you decide to make another cup of tea. You take the same herbs and the same leaves and you brew them with some more hot water. And you notice that the tea tastes bad and stale, and that you should rather wash your feet with it than drink it.
As for tea, it is for movies: Throw away the herbs and leaves after using them once and use some fresh ones. Even if that costs a few bucks, but at least you spare yourself the embarrassment of showing that you don't know jack about tea. Or movies.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
At least your favorite Marvel character isn't Deadpool. If that were a decent Deadpool adaptation, then his Common Sense would've started tingling and he would've gotten the hell out of that shitty excuse for a movie.
See Citizens United v. FEC for the First Amendment right the Supreme court recently ruled that corporations have.
Watching the workprint was the best part. It's interesting to see the behind-the-scenes stuff.
My thoughts when I read this story: "Sounds interesting, where do I get a copy?"
No sig today...
Hey, that's an insult to Fieros!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
His first mistake (after, of course, uploading the movie) was in not demanding a lawyer present for all interrogations
This is a common misunderstanding.
A lawyer is necessary when you've been charged with a crime and you're going in front of a judge.
You don't need one when you're being interrogated (i.e. before you've been charged). All you need to do is BE SILENT. Do not talk to anyone. Don't say anything.
"Did you upload this movie?" silence.
"Is this your computer?" silence
"If you cooperate we'll make it easier on you." silence
If you do have a lawyer during an interrogation, all he will do is tell you to keep silent.
I don't think it matters. The movie butchered so many comic book back stories...
Ha! Good one!
that it was incredibly painful to watch even after "the paint was applied."
I wouldn't call it a Ferrari either. Maybe a Pinto without a paint job.
...wait, were you serious? It seems silly to pretend that the last 15 retcons or complete rewrites were okay, but this one is a step too far! I haven't seen the movie in question and have no reason to believe it's not horrible, but to borrow from James Nicoll, the problem with defending the purity of Marvel back stories is that Marvel back stories about as pure as a cribhouse whore.
This is the problem with trying to please Comic book people in a major motion picture ADAPTATION. The script writers have to take short cuts to make the movie film length, and that cuts into the many years of development that exists in Comic book universe. It's absurb to think that the writers need to stay so many degrees away from the comics, as it is a completely different medium to tell a similar story. If you want complex back stories, stick to a medium which can build upon the stories. Feature Films are not your bag, but don't try to ruin it for the rest of us.
A movie doesn't have to be "pure" (or true) to the comics, it just has to be good. The X-Men movies directed by Bryan Singer were good. After he left, they took a nosedive.