Andre Yoskowitz
16 Dec 2009 22:13
In April, one full month before its theatrical release, a workprint of the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine
was uploaded to P2P and warez sites and promptly became one of the most downloaded pirated movies of the year.
This week, the FBI has arrested 47 year-old Gilberto Sanchez of the Bronx, NY (aka "theSkilled1" online) for uploading the film to MegaUpload.com and charged him with copyright infringement.
Sanchez now faces up to three years in prison as well as a $250,000 USD fine.
"We're supportive of the FBI's actions," noted Fox, the distributor of the film. "We will continue to cooperate with law enforcement officials to identify and prosecute those who illegally steal our creative content."
Perhaps more notably then the arrest is the fact that the indictment does not make it clear how Sanchez got the workprint in the first place, meaning it is possible that he was not the source of the leak.
Despite the rampant piracy, the movie went on to make over $300 million in the box office, and is the year's second best-selling Blu-ray behind Transformers 2.