A man who recorded the movie Fast and Furious 6 in a Walsall cinema, whose illegal copy was downloaded from torrent sites over 700,000 times, has been jailed for 33 months.
The Wolverhampton-based judge asserted that “bold, arrogant and cocksure” Philip Danks, 25, should serve the period for damages made to the film company.
The Federation Against the Act of Copyright Theft claimed that the 700,000 downloads harmed producer, Universal Studio’s, movie income to the tune of millions.
Additionally, Danks also sold physical copies of the movie from his Facebook page, from which he posted, refering to the trial: “Not loking [sic] good.” Accomplice, Michael Bell, who had a part in uploading the file, was also issued a community order of 120 hours unpaid work.
Det Sgt Rod Rose, of West Midlands Police, said: "We assisted the Federation Against Copyright Theft throughout this case with search warrants, forcing entry to addresses and making arrests.
"We also supported with evidence recovery and interviewing suspects.
"Fraud comes in many guises and ultimately affects all of us."
Police tracked the uploader of the content from his torrent site sign-in’ TheCod3r’ as it was also the same username he used on dating website ‘Plenty of Fish’.
This comes after the co-founder of the Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, was arrested in June, after being on the run for nearly two years.
