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Film pirates jailed in another round of hard sentencing for prolific file-sharers

By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 18 December 2015

Five men accused of being prolific online pirates, and who between them uploaded thousands of movies onto the net, have been jailed for “putting at risk” over £52 million in revenues for the film sector. Two of those jailed have received sentences over four years, continuing a recent trend of harsher penalties for online pirates.

The five men were identified by an investigation led by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, which accused the defendants of together putting over 9000 movies online without licence, resulting in around five million views of those movies. All five men ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud at the start of the year, a more serious crime than copyright infringement that allows tougher jail terms.

Which is how this week two of the accused were sentenced to over four years in jail; the most prolific of the infringers getting four years six months, while another – who foolishly continued to illegally upload movies even while on bail – getting four years two months. Two of the other accused men got three years six months, while the fifth defendant received a two year suspended sentence.

Welcoming the sentencing, FACT Director General Kieron Sharp told reporters: “Today’s sentencing is a great success for FACT as it marks the first time a release group has been criminally prosecuted. [The defendants] were all aware that they were engaging in criminal activity. Their actions have now cost them their liberty. The result of this case sends out a serious message to anyone engaging in online piracy to think twice or face getting caught, prosecuted and sent to prison”.

Meanwhile the government’s IP Minister Lucy Neville-Rolfe added: “The illegal copying and distribution of films has real consequences for the film industry and consumers. Today’s sentencing shows how seriously the courts take this crime and the power of collaboration between industry, government and enforcement agencies”.

Whereas most of the early legal attacks against online pirates were civil actions, the music and movie industries have been increasingly pushing for criminal action to be taken by those who run prolific piracy operations, even though those operations may be very lo-fi and not necessarily run for profit.

Rights owners have also sought tougher sentences for the pirates, either by pressing fraud rather than copyright charges, or by lobbying government to make the penalties for online copyright infringement closer to those for CD and DVD bootlegging crimes.

In the music space, the landmark case in the UK to date was the BPI’s private prosecution against two men linked to the long defunct music forum Dancing Jesus. Site founder Kane Robinson and prolific uploader Richard Graham together received combined jail sentences of four years five months.

Recently Robinson – who, unlike Graham and the five men jailed this week, was more hands-off in the piracy, in that he operated the site but didn’t prolifically file-share himself – spoke to Noisey about his prosecution and jail time, reckoning the record industry picked him as an easy target to set a precedent that online pirates could be sent to prison.

Robinson couldn’t afford expert legal representation, and said that figures presented at the last minute by the prosecution with regards the financial impact his site had had on the record industry ensured the custodial sentence, even though a more expert legal rep would likely have disputed those figures.

Robinson’s story, and his argument that he was unfairly treated by the record industry and the criminal justice system, is a very interesting read. Though, following his case, and this week’s film piracy judgement, the entertainment industry will be hoping that it is now clear that, in the UK, prolific piracy online might not just result in litigation, but also prison.