The FBI
arrested one Russell Sprague in Illinois yesterday in connection with the
Carmine Caridi dvd screener leak investigation.
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According to an FBI affidavit, most of the screeners were originally sent to Carmine Caridi, a 22-year member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences who has been sending as many as 60 screeners a year to Sprague for at least the past three years. Sprague supplied Caridi with Federal Express shipping boxes and mailing labels.
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Sprague faces up to $500,000 in fines and up to eight years in prison -- three for copyright infringement and five for illegal interception of satellite signals.
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Because of the hidden security markers, installed by Technicolor, that the studios put on Academy screeners for the first time this year, Warners had determined that VHS tapes of the films had been issued to Caridi.
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Ultimately, Technicolor technicians determined that copies of such pirated movies as Warners' "Samurai" and "Mystic," 20th Century Fox's "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," Fox Searchlight's "thirteen" and Buena Vista's "Calendar Girls" all could be traced to Academy screeners that had been provided to Caridi.
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Btw, there is already a
thread running on IMDB on
Carmine Caridi!