'24' pirate on YouTube gets nailed

20th Century Fox served YouTube and LiveDigital with subpoenas some weeks ago in search of the identity of a man they claimed had been uploading copies of their hit drama 24 days before it was broadcast on network television. As as expected, both video sharing sites complied with the request and gave to Fox all the information they had on the user, who has now been criminally charged by the FBI for his actions.

From The Hollywood Reporter.

The FBI's criminal complaint charges Romero "with uploading copyrighted material to a publicly accessible computer network knowing the work was intended for commercial distribution, a felony that carries a statutory maximum sentence of three years in federal prison."

This is great news, because hopefully it will scare some of the little shits who upload this stuff to YouTube and the like into respecting other peoples intellectual property rights and to cease actions that harm the very shows they seem to enjoy. The fewer people that watch these shows on TV, the less money the networks will make from commercial advertisers, which means fewer shows on the air, which means big budget dramas like 24 will disappear.

I am all for this activity from the studios, and I realize that cases like this won't stop everyone, but we need to have enough of them to scare the majority into growing up a little. Three cheers for 20th Century Fox, and as a writer, their stock with me just went up a bit.

Topics: Television, Fox, 24, YouTube