p2pnet - rss feed: Camcorder man jailed for 7 years
p2pnet.net News:- The corks were probably a-popping and the champagne a-flowing at Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) offices on Monday.
A man said to have used a camcorder to copy a movie in a cinema had been sentenced to seven years in a federal prison.
“Johnny Ray Gasca was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson after a jury found him guilty of three misdemeanor counts of copyright infringement related to his covert use of a camcorder in movie theaters,” states The Hollywood Reporter.
Gasca was arrested in 2002, “after being ejected from a private screening of ‘The Core’,” says the story, going on, “He was carrying a black leather bag containing expensive recording equipment.”
Hmmmmn. Wonder if the camcorder gear was made by Sony, one of the Big Six studios that owns the MPAA?
Anyway, Gasca, “subsequently fled custody for 15 months,” adds The Hollywood reporter. But thanks to the diligence of FBI agents working as movie industry copyright cops, he was finally apprehended.
“This native New Yorker already had a bad track record when he moved to Hollywood in 2002,” says a report slugged The Curse of the Green-Glow Camcorder, continuing:
He’d been convicted of petit larceny and assault with intent to cause serious injury with a weapon after shooting someone in the face with a handgun, and had served time in a New York prison. Now he’d come to Hollywood with a special dream: to put himself behind the camera - not to make movies, but to steal them.
His modus operandi? Chutzpah. He’d hang around theaters where advance screenings were scheduled…pose as a movie industry insider…find his way into the theater…rig his camera to the arm rest for stability…and start filming when the lights went down. His high-end sound and recording equipment - creating a distinctive green glow - produced extraordinarily good quality master recordings, and he’d rush home to mass produce them on 11 interlinked VCRs then sell them over the Internet. By beating the public release of blockbuster films, he claimed in his diary to be clearing as much as $4,500 a week.
The Hollywood Reporter again?
Nope. The above quotes, and the pic, are from an official press release on an official FBI page. That it reads like something produced by MPAA hacks is purely coincidental.
Also See:
The Hollywood Reporter - Illegal camcording leads to prison, December 4, 2006
camcorder gear - Sony camcorder crook, July 31, 2006
FBI - The Curse of the Green-Glow Camcorder, September 20, 2005
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December 6th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Anyone who has read my previous posts knows I have no love for the MPAA/RIAA, but I have no sympathy for this dickhead.
“He’d been convicted of petit larceny and assault with intent to cause serious injury with a weapon after shooting someone in the face with a handgun”
He probably plead that down from attempted murder, as you don’t shoot someone in the face unless you want to kill them. What I think happened is the judge took one look at that and gave him the max, your prior record does count against you in a court of law. I don’t agree with prosecuting people for camcording movies, but I have a feeling this “gentleman” would have been standing before a judge again anyway.
I do have sympathy for the housewives, little kids, sick people and even relatives of dead people who have been harassed by the entertainment industry. Violent hoods never get my sympathy.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
I agree Mike. But don’t you think 7 years is a bit steep?
December 6th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Taking this kind of action against a villified member of society for whom most people have no respect for is a great way to set precedent. If nobody fights to get this a$$h01e’s sentence reduced to a reasonable one, it will set precedent that will be used against ordinary hardworking people. This guy should be made to pay (actual not imaginary) damages + court costs if anything.
December 6th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
This only shows how whacky the judicial system has become.
In my casewe proved that many songs were “stolen”. Meaning that two music publishers took the songs as if they owned them and exploited them commercially. Even registering many the stolen songs at the US Copyright Office, while preventing us from collecting about $1,000,000 in royalties (current value) from records RIAA members Sony and Sonolux made (illegally, without our authorization)
The sentence: $21,000 split between two music publishers.
Our cost to recoup yjis huge award: Over $200,000.
Details can be seen here:
THE COST OF GETTING $21,000 AWARDS: OVER $250,000
http://rafa_venegas.web.prdigital.com/awardcosts.htm
And someone gets 7 years jail time for maing a worthless copy of a movie, when a favorite hobby of Americans is to buy 100unit packs of blank DVDs, guess for what? Copying movies for private viewing.
Clearly the criminalzation of the average American is progressing very fast, while the hoods get away with murder by simply buying the judge.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 6th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
I think normally a fair punishment for this would be to have the camcorder confiscated and maybe a fine. I would like to see what kind of sentence gets handed out to someone with no felony criminal record. Ordinarily I would say even one day in jail would be too much for this crime, but the U.S. crimial justice system does take a person’s prior criminal record into account. I think this guy would have gotten a harsh sentence even if he was caught jaywalking.
December 7th, 2006 at 2:32 am
“I think this guy would have gotten a harsh sentence even if he was caught jaywalking.”
Which of course means that a person is being punished a second time for the same crime. That is de facto (if not legal) double jeopardy in my book. It also means that someone is punished for something that was not judged.
Let’s not make the legal system more unstable than it is, which is extremely unstable.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 7th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Apparently you missed the part where he snuck into screenings posing as an insider and selling pre release copies?
“By beating the public release of blockbuster films, he claimed in his diary to be clearing as much as $4,500 a week.”
He is ACTUALLY a pirate… noob.
December 7th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
He would likely recieve the maximum pentalty for jaywalking.