Acting on a tip from movie rights company EGEDA, late yesterday Spanish police arrested the writer, director, current Academy member and previous Warner and Disney employee on suspicion of “infidelity whilst in the custody of documents and the wrongful disclosure of secrets” – aka leaking pre-release movies to the Internet.

According to the authorities, 46-year-old Sirgo and two of his employees from the “12 Pingüinos” (12 Penguins) production company uploaded various movies including Carlos Iglesias’ ‘Spaniards’ – a movie that has made very little in the local market – and ‘Ispansi‘ by the same director.

“I can not believe that one of our partners has played with the work and enthusiasm of so many people,” Iglesias told the Spanish media on hearing the news. “They have stolen our work. How are we able to make other movies if we do not recover the investment in this?”

Police say they believe that Sirgo used an Academy computer system designed to give early access to yet-to-be-released movies as a source for illegal Internet releases.

Sirgo, who has since been released, has denied all involvement and and says that his personal security codes must’ve been obtained by a 3rd party.

“I’ve never used my professional status of academy member or employer to put any films on the Internet, much less films that compete or have competed for any prize,” Sirgo said through his lawyer. “When the police came to me and told me what was happening, I could not believe it. How will I pirate movies if I am a director?”

However, a source in the Spanish authorities told Publico that even if telling the truth, Sirgo is responsible for his own codes.

Colleagues of Sirgo found the accusations hard to believe.

“He’s a very hard worker,” said animation director Pedro Delgado who knows Sirgo. “The only explanation is that someone has stolen his access code to the Academy.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

EGEDA complained that site allowed members to download movies located on P2P networks, sometimes which had yet to have a theatrical release. Like many file-sharing sites, CVCDGO had been financed by advertising since its 2004 launch and in its short life it allegedly received more than 11 million visits.

Conducted by the country’s Intellectual Property Crime Squad, ‘Operation CVCD’ culminated later in 2005 in raids on locations in Malaga, Seville and Madrid. There police arrested the four male operators of the site who at the time were aged between 27 and 37 years old. The servers, meanwhile, remained located in San Diego in the United States,

The legal proceedings have dragged on ever since, but now the Provincial Court of Madrid has finally closed the case, finding that no offenses had been committed.

In common with every other file-sharing case coming out of the Spanish legal system recently, the Court found that since the site did not host the actual copyright files and generated no profit directly from any infringements of copyright, the presence of advertising on the site did not constitute a crime.

In their ruling, judges Ocariz, Gutierrez and Campillo said that “..since ancient times there has been the loan or sale of books, movies, music and more. The difference now is mainly on the medium used – previously it was paper or analog media and now everything is in a digital format which allows a much faster exchange of a higher quality and also with global reach through the Internet.”

The judges noted that all this takes places between many users all at once without any of them receiving any financial reward.

Lawyer Carlos Sanchez Almeida, whose law firm defended the case, said that the decision meant that the judges were sending a clear message to the government, informing Culture Minister González Sinde that there is a “red line that should not be crossed.”

“The judges have taken a stand for freedom on the Internet,” he added.

The decision cannot be appealed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.