Gilberto Sanchez, a budding musician who goes by such usernames as "SkillfulGil" or "SkillyGilly", says he obtained a leaked copy of 'Wolverine' from a New York street vendor.
(Credit: MiGente.com)The FBI has accused the man who allegedly was first, or among the first, to upload a pirated copy of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" that circulated online in April. What authorities have apparently yet to do is identify the original source of the leak.
On Wednesday, after Gilberto Sanchez was charged in New York with violating federal copyright laws by posting "Wolverine" to a file-sharing site a month before the film's theatrical release, he told reporters from The New York Daily News: "It's just ridiculous. I bought it from a Korean guy on the street for five bucks. Then I uploaded it. I didn't make any money."
Sanchez, who is 47 and works as a glazier, doesn't appear to have any direct ties to 20th Century Fox, the Hollywood studio that produced "Wolverine," or the film industry. To hear Sanchez tell it, he was way downstream from the original leak and authorities should be on the lookout for one of the thousands of New York street vendors.
But Sanchez's explanation raises more questions than it answers. The first of which is whether the trail of the person who first leaked the movie has gone cold in the eight months since the unauthorized copy first appeared on the Web. Security experts I've spoken with, however, say long delays are common with these kinds of file-sharing cases, which sometimes require law enforcement officials to spend months compiling evidence.
The two things that almost everybody agrees on are: 1) the case illustrates once again how hard it is to protect digital content, and 2) Sanchez isn't the original source of the leak.
In April, someone posted to the Web an incomplete version of "Wolverine," which cost $100 million to make and stars actor Hugh Jackman. The indictment filed against Sanchez in Los Angeles earlier this month did not say whether he was allegedly the only person to upload it or the first, but Sanchez is the only person who's been indicted in connection with the investigation. The copy that began circulating online was missing music and many computer-generated effects but was still a popular attraction. According to Big Champagne, which tracks file sharing, the movie was viewed 4 million times before it was screened in theaters on May 1.
In the months after the leak, "Wolverine" went on to gross $375 million worldwide, so it doesn't appear the pirated copy prevented the film from turning a profit. But 20th Century Fox, which produced the movie, argues the unauthorized version was watched about 14 million times online and no matter how one slices it, the leak cost the studio big money.
A man accused of uploading "Xmen Origins: Wolverine" suggests leaked copy circulated on discs before appearing online.
(Credit: 20th Century Fox)More recently, the U.S. Attorney's office has begun efforts to extradite Sanchez to Los Angeles, according to Philip Weinstein, his attorney. Weinstein said he has advised his client not to comment on the case.
According to my Hollywood sources, the authorities have ruled out Sanchez as the original source of the leak.
At many top studios, security is tight. Access to working copies is restricted. Copies are tracked and the names of anyone who touches them are supposed to be recorded. That happens not only at the studios but often at the firms hired to do post-production work, such as special-effects houses.
While sources say Sanchez didn't have that kind of access, what isn't clear is whether he knows someone who did.
The government said in its indictment against Sanchez that he posts comments on the Internet under such usernames as "SkillfulGil" and "SkillyGilly." A Google search showed that those names are prevalent at some video-sharing sites as well as numerous music-themed community sites, including MySpace and Crazypellas.net.
Many of the posts from these sites are accompanied by snapshots of a person resembling the Gilberto Sanchez who was photographed by the Daily News on Wednesday.
In one 2008 post at Crazypellas.net, SkillfulGil discussed ripping and posting movies to the Web. At the same site on July 7, two months after the "Wolverine" leak, SkillfulGil wrote: "I had FBI with search warrant in my place. They took my PC. Now (they're) building a fed case on me for the same thing. Copyright Infringement...So I guess I'll (be) made an example of."
An FBI spokeswoman said Tuesday that Sanchez's residence was searched by agents last summer.
Tracing the source of the leak
If, like Sanchez says, the leaked "Wolverine" copy was first available on bootleg DVD and was sold from a street corner to any passerby, then isn't it logical to assume others uploaded the movie to the Web? Couldn't tracing the discs back to their source help lead agents to the original leak? And if there were others who uploaded the film to the Web, wouldn't the government be arresting them as well?
According to my film industry sources, one possible reason that federal officials haven't arrested anyone else is that they may be building a case.
One example for how long it can take to build a case was illustrated in last year's leak of "The Love Guru."
FBI agents had to follow a long trail before filing a criminal complaint nine months after the original leak. (Ben Sheffner, a well-known pro-copyright blogger and attorney, posted a copy of the criminal complaint at his site, Copyrights & Campaigns).
In that case, agents had strong suspicions early on about who leaked the much-maligned Mike Meyers film, according to court documents.
Jack Yates, an employee of Los Angeles Duplication & Broadcasting ("LADB"), was asked to make screener copies that were supposed to appear on talk shows for promotional purposes (one of the copies went to Jay Leno). Yates, however, was seen on the company's video cameras making an extra copy and taking it to his car.
In interviews with agents, Yates denied knowledge of the copy. So federal officials were forced to track down the IP address associated with the first uploading of the movie.
The trail of who obtained a copy of the film involved multiple people but Yates was eventually undone when investigators traced it back to his cousin.
Last summer, the 28-year-old Yates was sentenced to six months in jail.
You might suffer paralysis in several digits when I tell you that there is now a dating site exclusively for those deemed gorgeous.
BeautifulPeople.com exists to protect its members from having to espy the corpulent, the disproportioned, and the downright fugly-puglies.
On its home page, next to a photograph of a quite impossibly eugenic couple, the site presents its most famous media quote: "The sexiest Web site in the world today."
Entertainment Weekly? No, CNN.
Now, another august publication, the Telegraph, has reported some painful news from this online island of the beautiful: BeautifulPeople.com says British people are ugly.
Perhaps you might wish to blame the fish, chips, haggis, curry, and 14 pints of lager consumed by the average inhabitant of the Fragmented Kingdom. Perhaps you might indicate that such a lifestyle suggests an increasing amount of procreation between beings of indeterminate provenance in indeterminate places.
But BeautifulPeople.com revealed that only 12 percent of British men and 15 percent of their female cohorts were accepted by the prettiest online community in the world. This compares rather desperately with the 65 percent of Swedish males who enter this refined paradise and 76 percent of Norwegian women.
The site went live around the world just a couple of weeks ago and so far 83 percent of those who have attempted entry have failed to satisfy the bouncers.
Oh, did I mention that when you present yourself at BeautifulPeople.com's doors you have 48 hours to impress with your deeply ingrained pulchritude and your pulsating profile before you are voted in or out?
BeautifulPeople.com's managing director, Greg Hodge, told the Telegraph: "It hurts me. I'm British."
I am concerned, as I often am, for the Brits.
They donate so many pretty actors and actresses to the world--Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Michael Gambon--that one wonders if they are using their theatrical greats to cover up for some serious national genetic deficiencies.
One can only appeal to the British government to launch an immediate campaign in all media. The government should spend some of its vast advertising resources in encouraging its most striking citizens to put their finest jaws and fingers forward and apply for membership to this site.
National pride is at stake. And if the British can substantially increase their presence on BeautifulPeople.com, it might be the start of yet another British cultural renaissance.
(Credit:
Twitter)
Actress-singer Courtney Love used Twitter to rail against what she claimed was the unauthorized use of Kurt Cobain's likeness in the video game Guitar Hero 5, going so far as to threaten a lawsuit.
But Activision, the maker of Guitar Hero, said the company is in possession of an agreement signed by Love that authorized it to create an avatar in the likeness of the former Nirvana front man. At this point who knows who is in the right. What is certain is that Love--widowed when Cobain shot himself in 1995--didn't present a convincing case by issuing meandering, disjointed, caustic, and barely readable Twitter posts.
Perhaps she came to the same conclusion. On Thursday evening, Love blocked public access to her Twitter account, courtneylover79.
(Credit:
Activision)
Love's Twitter-tweak of Activision is a powerful endorsement for the need of celebrity publicists. In an age when a cell phone is all that is needed for stars to communicate with their fans, a carefully cultivated image can get shredded with a few ill-advised key strokes. Love's tweeting is an example of what can happen when someone famous, either out of anger, despair, or lunacy, addresses the Web without proper supervision.
"Have fun with your avatars you slimebags," the 45-year-old Love wrote in a Tweet posted early Thursday morning (most of the grammar and spelling is as it appeared in Love's posts). "i rant? F*** off i have proof youve simply never bothred to look. so f***ing play your videogame.
"we have NOTHING to do with this," she said in another post as she denied involvement with the Cobain avatar, "it was presented to me and oi said 'show me a better avataR' TO DRAG MY HEELS., never did i intend on allowing GUITARHERO for me or for Kurt i am NOT yoko f***ing Ono no ofense to her, but i am a different person entirely and this is insane."
Love later acknowledged that she did sign some sort of agreement with Activision.
"I signed whats known as a (deal) memo under great pressure and i was pleasnat to work with? HA i wouldnt show up i made them change all sorts of s***t, and even then i had no intention of doing his btw we get NO money for this, travesty, Frances (her and Cobain's daughter) gets NO money for the rape."
From reading Love's tweets, what appears to have happened is Activision went to Love for permission to use Cobain's likeness. When she saw that Cobain's avatar not only can be programmed to perform Nirvana's music but also the songs from Bon Jovi, Bush, and Madonna, she became dissatisfied. Her outrage also came after rock critics and Nirvana fans began holding her responsible for the alleged defiling of Cobain's memory.
Despite all her bluster, there may be little that Love can do to force Activision to make changes, said Mark Litvack, a well-known entertainment attorney at the law firm Reed Smith.
Litvack said that California law does indeed protect a deceased person's likeness. A California statute commonly referred to as the "Fred Astaire law," named after the legendary dancer and movie star whose likeness was used without permission following his death, says that anyone using another person's likeness for commercial purposes without consent from them or their estate "shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured."
"But Activision would have known this," Litvack said. "It appears, she licensed her husband's likeness and the fact that she licensed them away was her decision. I get the sense that this is a case of sellers' remorse and as far as the law is concerned all she's left with is her remorse."
One way Love may benefit from her bizarre tweeting is that it's drawing attention to the Cobain avatar.
Anyone who has any knowledge of Cobain knows he took himself and his music very seriously and is unlikely to have allowed his likeness to be seen shimmying around on stage like some teen pop star or feigning the poses of a rap singer, which is what his avatar can be made to do on Guitar Hero 5.
Some may find the depiction to be disrespectful or at the very least not very authentic. That may do more to force Activision's hand than any Twitter bashing from Cobain's inarticulate wife.
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