14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year, what was deemed the biggest leak the movie industry had ever seen took place, when “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” the unfinished cut, made its way on the Internet almost a full month ahead of its theatrical release. After all this time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation finally cracked the case, arresting a man who is suspected of having uploaded the unauthorized copy on the Internet, the New York Times informs.
Still, the investigation is far from over, as neither the fact that suspect Gilberto Sanchez was actually the one to upload the film nor the identity of the person who took out the film from the editing room has yet been irrefutably established. The FBI continues to investigate the matter but, if found guilty, Sanchez faces quite a hefty sentence, which includes both jail time and a heavy fee.
“After a nine-month hunt, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested a Bronx man on Wednesday suspected of posting an unfinished version of the 20th Century Fox movie ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ on the Web before it was released in theaters. […] Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested at his home at about 6 a.m., according to Ms. Eimiller. Mr. Sanchez was indicted last Thursday by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges of uploading the unfinished copy of the movie to a Web site, Megaupload.com, last spring,” the NY Times says.
“If convicted, Mr. Sanchez faces three years in prison and a $250,000 fine or twice the gross gain or gross loss attributable to the offense, whichever is greater, according to the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Lisa E. Feldman, an assistant attorney in that office’s Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes unit, will prosecute the case. She said that Mr. Sanchez had been released on bail,” the aforementioned media outlet further informs.
At the time of the leak, 20th Century Fox, the movie studio behind “Wolverine,” expressed major concern as to how the leak would affect ticket sales. By the time the film arrived in theaters, the unauthorized copy had been downloaded 4.1 million times, though Fox continues to say that number might actually be more likely in the 10 million range. Still, the production went on to become a hit: with a budget estimated at around $100 million, it made $373 million at the international box-office.