14 DAY TRIAL // A 21-year-old man from Fresno, California, has been arrested by the FBI after he allegedly uploaded a copy of 2016 blockbuster movie Deadpool to Facebook, just as it was being released in theaters.
According to the FBI, Trevon Maurice Franklin uploaded the movie to Facebook only 8 days after its official release in February 2016, with more than 5 million Internet users watching it on his page for free,
The FBI arrested the man earlier this week and charged him with copyright infringement, seeking a sentence of three years in prison.
The Bureau claims that in addition to posting it online, Franklin also created 10 different physical copies of the movie, though it’s not clear if he reproduced them for selling or not.
“They are trying to send a message”
While it’s not happening too often for the FBI to go after an individual who uploaded a movie to Facebook, attorney Roger Bonakdar believes that what the agency is trying to do is actually send a message to everyone thinking of doing the same.
“They are trying to send a message with this case. To the community to warn them that there are very serious consequences to something they think is innocuous,” the attorney was quoted as saying by ABC.
But this doesn’t necessarily mean that whoever is arrested for copyright infringement is also sent to prison. An evaluation of the damages resulting from online copyright infringement is a thing that’s impossible to do right now, the attorney explains, especially because the clicks that a specific page gets do not equal the number of views of the video.
“You can track how many clicks, but there will be a question as to who watched the whole thing. What's the real damage?” he said.
Deadpool’s international box office gross exceeds $783 million, with the United Kingdom alone generating $54 million, more than the actual production budget of the film estimated at $52 million.