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US Government's Pirate Movie Bootlegger Gets 24 Months Probation
Solandri writes: Ricardo Taylor, a former supervisor at the U.S. Department of Labor, ran a bootleg DVD operation for seven years, copying DVDs and selling them to other employees via the Department's internal email system. You know — exactly the sort of thing our draconian copyright fines were meant to prevent. He made more than $19,000 from these pirated movie sales in 2013 alone. His punishment? 24 months probation. Apparently, using the Internet to share Copyrighted materials at no personal profit is a more serious crime than selling copyrighted works for profit on physical media. More details on this local NBC site with auto-playing video.
it is who you know, who you work for. If laws exist the have got to be applied consistently. I wonder if the RIAA will appeal for a tougher sentence ?
It would be interesting to see those apprehended in the future for piracy use this as part of a plea for clemency.
You are 57 years old ---
at an age when most of us are worried about retaining our jobs, retirement benefits and health insurance.
You managed a federal government mail room and a movie theater and are now for all practical purposes unemployable in the only jobs you have ever known.
Out of habit, you retained a full set of account books and ledgers documenting every pirate transaction,
Your guilty plea on the federal criminal charge soon to be followed by a settlement with the rights agencies for the damages they can now claim and win in the federal civil courts.