'Passion' Pirates Prosecuted

Newsmax.com ^ | 2/14/04 | Carl Limbacher

[truthandlife]

allegedly swiped a "rough-cut version" of Mel Gibson's soon-to-be-released film, "The Passion of the Christ," and made bootleg copies, plus a fourth man, according to Reuters, who got his films from veteran Hollywood character actor Carmine Caridi.

The smuggled celluloid mysteriously found its way to the New York Post, and eventually the Internet, prompting a months-long probe resulting in criminal charges.

"There is a compelling national interest in pursuing these crimes vigorously," said FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ralph Boelter.

The 70-year-old Caridi will not be prosecuted, but his friend Russell William Sprague, 51, was indicted by a federal grand jury on conspiracy and copyright infringement charges.

According to the L.A. Times, the complaint accuses the culprits – Richard Young, 42; Victor Ochoa, 31, and Frank Pelayo Jr., 23, all of whom were employees of Los Angeles post-production company Lightning Dubbs, which renamed itself Lightning Media – only of making illegal copies of "The Passion" and "Kill Bill: Vol.1," not of profiteering or posting the films to the Internet.

Lightning Media President Cheryl Brady said, "These people worked side by side with friends who will now be damaged because of what they have done." She told Forbes she tracked them down with the FBI, and fired them immediately.

With controversy swirling around the film, which depicts the final hours of the life of Jesus Christ, the Post treated the besieged Gibson kindly. But not before taking the liberty of having his film screened by a multi-religious panel and reporting their reactions in a December edition of the paper – nearly three months before the film's release.

The feds are continuing a recently enforced crackdown on copyright infringement, including stealing and illegal copying and recording of movies at previews and special screenings, and broadening investigation of other production operations.

[truthandlife]

'Passion' ping

[toddst]

"These people worked side by side with friends who will now be damaged because of what they have done."

I don't believe for a minute the inside people who produced the copies weren't paid under the table for their efforts Post-production services better tighten up their controls or face being cut off by film companies.

Dispite using all his resources, Satan isn't going to derail Mr. Gibson's film. I'm confident many lives will be changed through seeing the "Passion."

[Judai]

I can't wait to see the movie!

[Valin]

I tend to take a VERY hardline on this sort of thing. Toss them all in the slammer and throw away the key.

[Libertina]

Hi Judai~! Me too. BTW We should schedule a movie weekend either in my part of the world or yours. I still haven't seen LOTR etc...

[LadyDoc]

Nothing new. I remember seeing a bootleg/fuzzy copy of a James Bond flick on cable tv in the Philippines the week it opened in Manila, a couple weeks after it opened in the USA.

And LOTR/Return of the King has been pirated: one expat. saw it played in an Indonesian bar last Christmas...

Piracy of cd and video is an ongoing problem...especially in Asia

[kstewskis]

WOW!-ping

[Brian Allen]

<< Piracy of cd and video is an ongoing problem...especially in Asia >>

Here in Asia piracy is a massive, Multi-Billion Dollar, industry.

Every Asian government, even the "friendly" ones, like Singapore's, is in it up to its ears.

As and educated guess, I would say that more than 90% of all films and sofwares in use in Asia are stolen/pirated.

Blessings -- B A

[Robert Drobot]

I was surprised to learn from an immigrant European Catholic he will be able to get a bootleg copy of "The Passion of The Christ" from his friends in Europe. Until now, this guy always impressed me as being very devout in his faith.

Bootlegging ( stealing ) isn't a sin in his Catechism, I guess.

[Brian Allen]

Russia, least we forget, is essentially an Asian country -- and the treacherously evil Cli'ton "administration" and its Euro-peon Neo-Soviet's Neo-Axis/NATO cohorts, led by a High Church Anglican, Tiny Blair, who religiously, one might say, attends Mass and takes Communion with his Catholic wife, picked up where, a short half century earlier, Herr Hitler and his gruesome, loathsome and fearsome Muslim henchmen had been forced to suspend operations, [Air] invaded Christian Serbia and fought and killed Christian Serbians.

A major effect and perhaps even the major effect of that invasion of their homeland and thrashing of Christian Serbians has been that the Russian Mafia's sex-slaves and drugs and guns and counterfeit-goods pipelines through the Islamic Balkans and into the states, including once-great Britain, that comprise the Western Euro-peons' Neo-Soviet, remain open.

Thank God we're with the Good Guys, eh?

Otherwise we might fear for our very Christian/Western Civilization.

[OR: Is the November election important? -- Or is the Novenber election ....... um ......... important?]

Blessings -- Brian

[Robert Drobot]

What has your post got to do with the price of tea in China?