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Title: Man Who Stole 1,000 DVDs From Employer Strikes Plea Deal Over Movie
Leaks
Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/29/21621...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An accused movie
pirate who stole more than 1,000 Blu-ray discs and DVDs while working for a
DVD manufacturing company struck a plea deal (PDF) this week to lower his
sentence after the FBI claimed the man's piracy cost movie studios millions.
Steven Hale no longer works for the DVD company. He was arrested in March,
accused of "bypassing encryption that prevents unauthorized copying" and
ripping pre-release copies of movies he could only access because his former
employer was used by major movie studios. As alleged by the feds, his game
was beating studios to releases to achieve the greatest possible financial
gains from online leaks. Among the popular movies that Hale is believed to
have leaked between 2021 and 2022 was Spider-Man: No Way Home, which the FBI
alleged was copied "tens of millions of times" at an estimated loss of "tens
of millions of dollars" for just one studio on one movie. Other movies Hale
ripped included animated hits like Encanto and Sing 2, as well as anticipated
sequels like The Matrix: Resurrections and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The
cops first caught wind of Hale's scheme in March 2022. They seized about
1,160 Blu-rays and DVDs in what TorrentFreak noted were the days just "after
the Spider-Man movie leaked online." It's unclear why it took close to three
years before Hale's arrest, but TorrentFreak suggested that Hale's case is
perhaps part of a bigger investigation into the Spider-Man leaks. A plea deal
for Hale significantly reduced the estimated damages from his piracy case to
under $40,000 and led to the dismissal of two charges, though he still faces
up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for one remaining copyright
infringement charge. His final sentence and restitution amount will be
decided at a court hearing in Tennessee at the end of August.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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