 |
|
|
In January this year the first four episodes of this season’s
“24” had found their way into the Web on the video sharing sites
LiveDigital.com and YouTube.com.
Today, FBI filed a criminal complaint against Jorge Romero
accusing him of uploading two episodes to the LiveDigital.com website on
January 6 – eight days before it was broadcast on Fox. Romero is accused of
uploading the second two episodes of "24" to the same website on
January 7, the same day that he allegedly posted links to the uploads on other
websites, which made it easier for people interested in seeing the unauthorized
episodes to find them.
Fox broadcast the first four episodes of "24" on
January 14 and 15, and subsequently released the four-episode season premier on
DVD.
The complaint charges Romero "with uploading
copyrighted material to a publicly accessible computer network knowing the work
was intended for commercial distribution, a felony that carries a statutory
maximum sentence of three years in federal prison."
Romero, who admitted that he had obtained the
pirated copies from another website, that he uploaded the episodes of
"24" to LiveDigitial.com prior to them being aired by Fox, and that
he put links to the uploads on another website. If convicted, Romero faces
three years in prison.
Twentieth Century Fox, issued a statement in support of the FBI's
investigation. "We are grateful to the FBI and U.S. Attorney's offices in
Los Angeles for aggressively pursuing this matter, and 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," the company said.
© 2007 - 2008 - eFluxMedia
