Teen Faces 17 Years For Taping Movie

[CCI]

A 19-year-old Missouri teen has become the first in the United States to be charged with the new federal offense of videotaping a movie with a camcorder; he now faces up to 17 years in jail.

The strict new laws, designed to combat movie piracy, went into effect in April of this year and made it a felony to video tape movies and then distribute them.

The lawsuit alleges that Curtis Salisbury of St. Charles, secretly taped “The Perfect Man” and “Bewitched” and then distributed copies of them on the internet via P2P file sharing networks.

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[bucknut11]

Wow. If convicted, that's a serious crack-down

 

[Misanthrope]

The heading to this thread is a tad misleading. He's facing 17 years for stealing movies, and trying to sell them.

Entertainment-industry insiders and tech-savvy hackers use "warez" networks, as they're commonly known, to distribute movies, music and software for free, often before they're released to the public.

The files then end up on peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa, where they can be downloaded by millions of people, or burned onto discs and sold on street corners.

Law enforcement officials say most participants in warez networks are generally not motivated by profit. In this instance, Salisbury sought payment for the movies he uploaded, the Justice Department said.