‘Sith’ leak man pleads guilty
p2p news / p2pnet: Hollywood’s Big Seven movie studios, who are reporting eye-popping, record-breaking revenues, claim they’re being ruined by p2p file sharers.
The starkly obvious inconsistency doesn’t trouble them or the mainstream media who continue to report movie industry press releases claiming losses in the billions of dollars as though they’re credible statistics from reliable sources.
The same news media fail to balance their stories with other data which suggest Hollywood insiders, not kids with camcorders, are the source of many, if not most, of Hollywood’s file sharing problems.
When Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, showed up online, “There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith,” MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) boss Dan ‘Jedi’ Glickman raged.
The implication was those cursed teenagers who run wild on the p2p networks were somehow responsible.
However, it wasn’t kids. It was insiders.
Marc Hoaglin and friends were charged with leaking Revenge of the Sith, having appropriated it from a post- production facility.
Hoaglin has since pleaded guilty to one count of uploading a copyrighted work that was being prepared for commercial distribution, “a violation of a law enacted this year that makes such conduct a federal felony,” says CBS.
“Hoaglin’s plea deal calls for prosecutors to recommend a sentence ranging from probation to six months behind bars. U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie set a March 6 sentencing date.”
The other defendants were charged with a misdemeanor charge of willfully infringing on a copyright, adds the story.
As we pointed out in September, “An AT&T Labs report said a total of 285 movies its researchers sampled on the p2p networks, 77% were leaked by industry ‘insiders’; actor and studio owner Mel Gibson sued a Hollywood post-production house for the online appearance of his Passion movie; and, Russell Sprague got 130 movies from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member Carmine Caridi, who was ordered to pay Warner Bros a paltry $300,000 for providing Sprague, who died in an LA jail cell, with the copies.”
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
Also read:-
CBS – The (Police) Force Is With Man Over Film Piracy, December 13, 2005
leaked by industry ‘insiders’ – Star Wars online leak, September 28, 2005
