Australian man arrested for leaking The Simpsons

Australian man arrested for leaking The Simpsons
A coalition between the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and Twentieth Century Fox organized a raid in hopes of tracking down an Australian citizen who apparently recorded The Simpsons movie on his cellular phone and shortly thereafter, uploaded it to the file-sharing masses. The three worked in cooperation with one another to Track down the leaked film that hit the Internet back in July, earlier than its official movie release date. As they soon found out, their raid could not keep up with the speed of the Internet and quickly fizzled away into nothingness.

Adrianne Pecotic, executive director of AFACT stated, "Within 72 hours of making and uploading this unauthorized recording, AFACT had tracked it to other Streaming sites and P2P systems where it had been illegally downloaded in excess of 110,000 times and in all probability, copied and sold as a pirate DVD all over the world."



Apparently AFACT had been tipped off by Twentieth Century Fox which had been monitoring several P2P network, searching for the first upload of The Simpsons movie. It noted that even though it was monitoring, the speed in which the movie spread was too fast for them to do anything about the leak itself. AFACT stated that in the time it took them to detect the leak, it had already spread to many other sites, had been re-edited into additional languages, as well as encoded into other varying video formats. All of these manifestations had then been uploaded to several BitTorrent trackers. Two different organizations were sited for releasing said manifestations.

The identity of the man who uploaded the original low quality stream has not been released, but he is expected to try his case before the courts in October of this year. No word was given as to how AFACT found this man as the original source, but it is speculated that a simple IP address discovery may have been used.

Source:
ARS Technica


Written by: Dave Horvath @ 17 Aug 2007 14:25
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  • 18 comments
  • PeaInAPod

    Quote: in all probability, copied and sold as a pirate DVD all over the world."If this was recorded on a cellphone then I highly doubt that anyone but uneducated teens would download this. And being mass produced on DVD and pirated? No way. A CD maybe, lol.

    17.8.2007 14:55 #1

  • DoomLight

    after damn near 20 years of the simpsons. is fox really that greedy to penny pinch on this stinkin movie? i wont even download it let alone pay for it. blah

    feel sorry for the bloke that got locked up tho for this shyte

    17.8.2007 15:15 #2

  • chubbyInc

    I think I saw a screen shot somewhere for that copy and looked to me unwatchable........Who would want to ruin the movie by watching it in extremely crappy quality.

    17.8.2007 15:16 #3

  • Unfocused

    Quote:all probability, copied and sold as a pirate DVD all over the world."Yeah, cause that's what I'm all about...Taking a crappy celphone recording and watching it on a 72" Plasma. Yeah, High Def all the way!

    Quote:earlier than its official movie release dateOnce again, if it came out early, this had to come from the studio! Why can't they ever blame it on themselves? Would that just be to easy?

    Quote:in the time it took them to detect the leakHow come I can find TV episodes within minutes of them hitting the net, and they can't detect anything until hours later. They must be using the wrong search engines...

    17.8.2007 16:29 #4

  • b18bek9

    the funny thing is the dvdrip of the movie is all over....why go ater crappy phone movie try the person leaking the dvdscreener

    17.8.2007 16:36 #5

  • Unfocused

    Because if they go after the person that leaked the DVD screener, that would be even closer to pointing the finger at themselves. At least to the sheeple, if they go after the cel phone camera, this sounds more like their idea of piracy.

    17.8.2007 18:16 #6

  • Burnasty

    I am beginning to think most of these stories aren't real and just made up by the entertainment business to scare the public into not copying stuff. This seems like a lot of wasted man power and resources for a copy of a movie.

    17.8.2007 19:24 #7

  • rdn98

    You be surprised what they will do.

    Seems sort of futile, don't you think? It's been weeks since release, in fact, Simpsons did great in the box office, more than the producers ever dreamt of, despite the fact it was torrented.

    17.8.2007 19:45 #8

  • chubbyInc

    Yeah the DVDrip was out less than a week after The Simpsons was released in theaters. But the quality of that rip makes me believe it was done at a theater during closed hours. But I think it had watermarks so I'm sure it would easier for them to find the person/persons who made that copy.
    Instead they go after someone with a cellphone, which is to strengthen their purpose of putting metal detectors and mandatory security via night vision goggled personal during the films.
    The "Nice Night Out at the Movies" will take on a new meaning.

    17.8.2007 20:37 #9

  • Burnasty

    Just another reason to invest in home theatre and forget the movies.

    17.8.2007 20:49 #10

  • theridges

    i remember when the cellphone vid popped up...
    i grabbed a sample of it but it was moreless unwatchable...
    i think the day before simpons was released here in the states there was already like 3 Fully watchable TS's that were out..and like 3 days later a TC which was marked as a DVDSCR but is great quality...
    dont know why there going after cellphone guy..he definitely is the one making money off of it...the ones who dropped the TS's and that TC are the ones getting the bux.

    18.8.2007 00:25 #11

  • venomX05

    damn...they treat that guy like he killed 20 people, robbed 5 banks, and took a shot at the president.

    why not just send the FBI/CIA/and Homeland Security after him as well?

    18.8.2007 06:47 #12

  • Unfocused

    @venomX05

    That might already be the plan. You are going to read that they captured him and found plans in his cel phone to poisin the public water supply.

    Gotta love propaganda.

    18.8.2007 08:18 #13

  • EricCarr

    You would think they would go after the bigger fish and let the minnows go, but not in this case. They are out to get the little man.

    The DVD Screener is great though. The person that leaked that should be the person of intrest in this case. Not some young kid with a cell phone.

    18.8.2007 18:02 #14

  • Blazter

    recorded from a cell phone...bleh. a good cam vid requires a lot more high tech equipment than that. Anyone who downloaded it probably deleted it. they are wasting their time with this guy.

    19.8.2007 11:31 #15

  • borhan9

    Quote:Adrianne Pecotic, executive director of AFACT stated, "Within 72 hours of making and uploading this unauthorized recording, AFACT had tracked it to other Streaming sites and P2P systems where it had been illegally downloaded in excess of 110,000 times and in all probability, copied and sold as a pirate DVD all over the world."Just goes to show you they are fighting a losing battle.

    21.8.2007 21:36 #16

  • tleewade

    look it is a cartoon. whaT WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

    25.8.2007 07:09 #17

  • dayoshi

    sold all over the word l i dont think so

    30.11.2007 02:24 #18

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