World’s First Conviction for Removing Information from DVD
Written by enigmax on August 01, 2007A Georgia man is facing the prospect of years in prison and fines of $750,000 after he admitted being involved in the ‘camming’ of movies and removing ‘copyright management information’ from DVDs. The cost of removing management information from a DVD in the US? 5 years in prison, 2 more than for camming movies.
In the latest of 36 convictions coming out of the FBI’s Operation Copycat, 21 year old Arshad Madhani of Duluth, Georgia is the third person to be convicted for recording or ‘camming‘ a movie in a theater.
During his plea hearing he confessed to being involved in the sourcing and distribution of movies and software. He also admitted organizing and aiding others to ‘cam’ movies still in theaters. The list of movies includes titles such as ‘Cars’, ‘Monster House’, ‘Firewall’, ‘Click’, ‘The BreakUp’ and sundry (forgettable) others. It’s claimed that the movies were then uploaded to servers for other users to download, after they had paid Madhani cash to do so.
For the camming, he’s looking at 3 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and two years of supervised release. Unfortunately, this offense doesn’t carry the longest sentence Madhani faces - we’ll come to that in moment.
From the plea agreement, Madhani appears to be something of a jack-of-all-trades. He admits to being a ‘cammer’ - that is the willful using or directing others in the use of an audio/visual recording device to ‘cam’ or record a movie, currently protected under copyright law.
The most interesting part of the plea is where Madhani further confesses to being a ‘ripper’ by admitting to the circumvention of DVD Digital Rights Management (DRM).
Before making a new ‘master’ from which to take further copies or before uploading to the internet, Madhani removed information from the DVD such as the title, numbers and other markings which identified it as a copyright works - so-called copyright management information.
These actions put Madhani in breach of the DMCA but interestingly, he’s the very first person to be charged for simply removing so-called ‘copyright management information’ from a DVD. Previous cases were all brought for the bypassing of DVD copy-protection mechanisms.
Breaching the DMCA is a serious offense in the US. Just by changing the data held on a DVD, Madhani is facing 5 years in prison plus a $500,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
Madhani also admits to being a ‘racer’, i.e working hard to be the first group or individual to release new movies or software onto the internet for others to download. There doesn’t appear to be any specific punishment for this offense although in the future, the Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal Enforcement Act of 2007(.pdf) will surely have it covered.
Sentencing is set for Monday December 17, 2007 in San Jose, California.
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27 Responses
Hmm… confession, I smell a rat.
Someone is going to rant and bitch to reduce their sentence by revealing other members of the scene, you guys thinking wut im thinking?
US laws suck balls, especially when it comes to copyright
its an old argument I know but, SURELY there is bigger problems to worry about than little ol’ us DL’ing our movies/music/stuff for free!! I heard that the president of universal records could only afford 4 toilets in his private lear jet cos of losing so much money to us pirates!! Shocking!
Anyone know which group he is from?
One law for the rich. Another for the poor. This poor bastard is looking at Jail. Now what if you evaded billions of dollars in taxes?
Rupert Murdoch of FOX pays no taxes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/302366.stm
His reward: The Wall Street Journal
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12430112
And politcians still line up for political donations from him:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/09/politics/main1600694.shtml
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060116&s=smith011606
Incredibly hypocritical.
How about this… if they would start putting more money towards catching the idiots in the US doing the serious shit like murders, organized crime, and drug pushing… perhaps they wouldn’t even notice us.. but… hell the US is making money off thoughts people too so. Just keep in mind… in the US its the all mighty $ that rules, should us “pirates” get enough money together I’m sure we could buy a way to get rid of the laws annoying us so much.
PS.
FUCK YOU RIAA AND MPAA you got my webpage shutdown and my admin put in jail put piece of shit mother fucker. BitTuga.pt
I promise shit is going to change and soon.
The world as we know it; always hunting the poor and the weak to put a smile on their masters’ faces.
RIAA, MPAA and Co here’s a well deserved big FUCK YOU!
“From the plea agreement, Madhani appears to be something of a jack-of-all-trades”
any scener that knows how to CAM and makes a real TS knows how to take the watermarks out of screeners, camming requires vast ammount of knowlage on how shit work (did you know you have to use a pal camera to record ntsc?).
when 911 hapen, the FBI was bussy building a case agaist pirates and doing a mass bust the december of the same year. man
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070801/ap_on_hi_te/customs_gaming_raids;_ylt=AjdCs4qREBdyV19szSk0plus0NUE
and yes their budget is bigger than homeland security since companys make contributions for this ;)
What is it with people arrested for computer crimes and pirating? They seem to tell the police everything they know. Keep your mouths shut FFS and be a man and take it on the chin. Don’t talk and make “their” job any easier.
Im so happy i dont live in the usa. what a fucked up country.. god damn..
Confession? I don’t believe a single word unless they took the poor lad to Guatanamo and kept him there for a couple of days.
Bloody Hell, some people just can’t get enough dough, Artists WERE, HAVE BEEN, ARE and WILL always BE ripped off by the industry mafia! Fuck OFF!!
Arshad Madhani? This does not sound like a “Georgia man” to me. It sounds more like a Pakistani man.
I don’t know about you guys, but I am sick of seeing people like this getting penalties that are harsher than rape charges in some states.
Time to BOYCOTT the MPAA. They are never getting another cent from me. Long live the scene.
Yes, we need to boycott the MPAA Mafia now!
http://edge-op.org/grouch/boycott.html
http://boycottcity.org/view/index.php?itemId=113
come to romania we have bigg balls which smash the copyright!
what I don’t get is why most of these convictions were from people that admitted to committing the crime. Sure they might have shitons of proof, but at least if they put you in front of a jury you’ll have a chance, albeit a potentially small one, of winning. Also are we still talking about Operation SiteDown from two friggin years ago? If so then damn it took ‘em long enough to process this guy.
….Just another case where if “Their” hands are in your pocket, it’s for your money or for your DICK, The Gay Bastards!!!!!
Stay the fuck away from newly released movies!
“Pluged” was his nick. Hafvcd, Rustlers, LRC, FCR, ORC, Camera was the groups.
You copyright critics should start your own freak show. If there was no copyright protection there would be no music. Morons.
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