from TF.Net:
THE CATCH Team Nabs Pirates
Posted By Joshua on June 27, 2005
A big bust in San Diego for THE CATCH team - the same guys who nabbed the Star Wars pirates a few weeks ago. Sign On SanDiego has the story ...
The CATCH team, short for the Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Team, was formed in 2000. The unit includes investigators and prosecutors from local, state and federal agencies in San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties.
Last month, the team made national news when it helped the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shut down a Web site that allowed 10,000 visitors nationwide to illegally download the new "Star Wars" movie in just one day.
Hendron and a team of investigators from three states built the Operation Office Pirate case over two years by tracing e-mails, calling the sellers, sending letters to their post office boxes, conducting surveillance at their home offices and searching their storage units.
"We made undercover buys from everybody involved," said Hendron, the lead investigator on the case.
When investigators questioned the sellers about the extraordinarily low prices, they were given familiar stories: They had "bought overstock," they had purchased inventory from a company that had gone out of business, or they were "getting a special deal from Microsoft."
from TF.Net:
Movie Pirate on the Ropes
Posted By Joshua on June 27, 2005
The
Daily Breeze is reporting on a case that isn't getting as much attention in the media as perhaps it should. Sounded interesting to Star Wars fans ...
Gasca is correct that prosecutors and the movie industry hope the case will deter other potential pirates. If convicted, Gasca faces a maximum sentence of more than 25 years in prison.
"He's a well-known repeat offender who used aliases and schmoozed his way into movies in order to camcord them before their release," said Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America, the lobbying arm of the movie industry.
Camcorder jockeys are responsible for roughly 90 percent of all black market video releases, the MPAA contends. The recordings of prerelease screenings often can be sold on the streets days before a movie opens, and can hurt opening weekend grosses.
Gasca reportedly had people sit in front and beside him so no one would obstruct his shot, and he designed a device to mount the camera to theater seats and minimize movement.
He reportedly told FBI investigators that he was caught with a camera at a screening of "Spider-Man" in New York, sold copies of a "Star Wars" episode and attended as many as 30 Los Angeles screenings, using a camcorder at six of them.
Five times seen it have I, with money in hand and child by my side....
pirates lose the communal view...and see large FX on a small screen too...
Lucas states he is glad he is done...for movies now are under the gun...
With copies and downloads and pirates galore...film budgets are going the way of Al Gore..(ouch!)
Sith was good, for me I must say...but parents with young kids I think stayed away...
All box office takes made less this year than last...maybe the days of cinema are past?
With $10 tickets and $7 Coke...a film going family will likely go broke...
So enjoy the last great blockbuster while you can...watch your pirated DVD P.Skywalker fan...November 8th will be the true III release, then all of this drama will finally cease (stretch...I know)
Thank you all ....enjoy the veal 😉
This is a myth! Pirating movies out of the theater does not hurt the box office what so ever. If people are happy watching a crappy quality small screen pirate copy then they would never go see it in the theater anyway, so no loss there. It is all a myth that the theaters are lossing money cause of it.