Drew MPAA investigator sting suspicions for wearing heavy winter coat in July, was confronted after movie whereby then camera was seized and police notified.
Robert L. Henderson, 42yo, of Grandview, Mo. plead guilty last October to criminal copyright infringement for using a video camera to record “The Dark Knight” during its opening weekend as well as selling bootleg DVDs has been sentenced to 2yrs in prison and must pay $24,738 dollars in restitution to the MPAA.
The $24,738 is for the the 1,240 counterfeit DVDs seized from Henderson that it presumes would have otherwise been sold and deprived the MPAA of their profits.
“The theft of films by camcording is a serious threat to the health of the motion picture industry and the 2.4 million Americans it employs,” said Mike Robinson, Sr. Vice President Content Protection, Chief of Operations for the MPAA. “This is an appropriate sentence for a very serious crime, and we hope it will serve as a warning to would-be movie thieves that they will face severe consequences for engaging in these activities.”
Henderson was caught in an MPAA sting after it dispatched investigators to the East Glenn Movie Theater in Lee’s Summit, Mo, the location for previous bootleg Cams. They felt the opening weekend of “Dark Knight” would be prime bait for the bootlegger, and apparently correctly so. Henderson immediately drew the investigators suspicions after entering the movie theater wearing a winter coat in July.
They later confronted Henderson, seized his video camera and called the police. Henderson’s camera also contained a recording of “Hell Boy 2” and a partial recording of “The Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian.” It was during a search of his home afterwards by police that they found the bootleg DVDs numbering 1,240.
“We are grateful to everyone involved in the apprehension and prosecution of this defendant,” add Robinson, whom also praised the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 which made camcording in a theater a federal felony.
The sad thing is that despite all the MPAA’s concern “Dark Knight” still had the biggest box office opening weekend of all time ($158 million) and went on to enjoy #3 all time box office ticket sales and #5 worldwide. This despite being the most pirated movie of all time.
Henderson’s sentencing comes just two months after the arrest and indictment of Gilberto Sanchez, a 42yo man from the Bronx, accused of uploading an unfinished workprint copy of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine to web data hosting site Megaupload last spring.
Stay tuned.
http://ow.ly/19CUd Dark Night Pirate Sentenced to Jail Time Too bad he didn’t record it this year: http://bit.ly/bBUhA8 would have been free
Wait… So in this case every dvd does not equate to $8000 each, sounds like the MPAA lawyer sucks.