Film Gecko

The Star Wars Empire Strike Back Against Piracy

by Erin Harvey on September 29th, 2005

No more kidding around from George Lucas and company, who have officially laid charges against eight individuals suspected of being involved in the leak of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith the night before it was due to be released. It is estimated that illegally distributed movie was downloaded over 10,000 times in the first 24 hours, after it was stolen from a post-production company by an employee, who is now charged with theft of the film. Six others are charged with copyright infringement and distributing material illegally. The last to be charged was the man responsible for uploading the film to the internet.

With personal electronics and home computers advancing and erasing the techonology gap between Joe Schmoe and big business Hollywood, video piracy via in-theatre recordings and DVD ripping is becoming more and more popular. This however, is a different, and more tradition case, where a member of the film’s inside circle leaked it to the eager masses. I suppose the employee thought himself some sort of cult hero and I hope that he enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame before the heavy hand of Lucas justice gripped his shoulder and shoved him into the courtroom. As much as I would like to tsk, tsk at him, and the folks who downloaded the movie, I must admit that the opportunity to see a film of Star Wars magnitude a day before I was supposed to, would have sorely tempted me to click the download button and view my sinful gains with a great deal of guilty pleasure.

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