FBI charges man for uploading leaked episodes of 24 (Arrogantics)
orge Romero, a man from Chicago, downloaded the first four episodes of 24 Season 6 because they had leaked onto the internet before they aired. However, once he had them he didn’t just watch them - he decided to re-distribute them an another site, LiveDigital.com. He uploaded the first two on January 6th, and the next two the following day.
Now, the FBI is charging him “in the criminal complaint with uploading copyrighted material to a publicly accessible computer network knowing the work was intended for commercial distribution.” The episodes he had uploaded were discovered by News Corp. (which owns FOX) on January 8th, only one day after he had finished uploading them all, and they eventually sent a subpoena to LiveDigital.com to find out who he was. On April 4th he admitted that he had uploaded the episodes, and now he could face up to three years in a federal prison.
Twentieth Century Fox TV sent a statement to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office thanking them for putting piracy above more important issues:
“We hope it will serve as a powerful warning that uploading copyrighted TV shows and movies to the Internet can be a crime with significant penalties and will be prosecuted as such. Video-hosting sites such as LiveDigital.com and YouTube are not copyright-free zones, and individuals like Jorge Romero who post episodes of television shows, particularly before they are even broadcast for the first time, will face harsh civil and criminal sanctions.”
