{"id":83355,"date":"2025-05-30T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=83355"},"modified":"2025-05-30T09:00:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T09:00:31","slug":"employee-pleads-guilty-in-spider-man-pre-release-piracy-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=83355","title":{"rendered":"Employee Pleads Guilty in \u201cSpider-Man\u201d Pre-Release Piracy Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spiderThree years ago, pirated Blu-ray copies of \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home\u201d began circulating<\/a> on pirate sites, weeks before its official release.<\/p>\n

Such high-profile leaks are rare, and the source of the breach remained unknown until earlier this year.<\/p>\n

In February, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted<\/a> 37-year-old Steven Hale from Tennessee, a former employee of a disc manufacturing and distribution company in Memphis. While working at the unnamed company between 2021 and 2022, Hale allegedly stole numerous \u201cpre-release\u201d DVD and Blu-ray discs from his employer.<\/p>\n

These stolen discs contained many high-profile movie titles including \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hale Pleads Guilty<\/h2>\n

Hale initially pleaded not guilty to two criminal copyright infringement charges and an additional charge of interstate transportation of stolen goods. This week Hale changed his plea, admitting guilt to one of the charges, and signing a plea agreement with the prosecution.<\/p>\n

Hale entered his guilty plea to Count Two of the indictment. The charge relates to his distribution of ten or more copies of copyrighted works, including pre-release movies, for commercial advantage and private financial gain. This includes the pre-release \u2018Spider-Man: No Way Home\u2019 disc, which is likely the source of the leak.<\/p>\n

The other films covered by this count are \u2018Jungle Cruise,\u2019 \u2018Venom: Let There Be Carnage,\u2019 \u2018Encanto,\u2019 \u2018Eternals,\u2019 \u2018The King\u2019s Man,\u2019 \u2018Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,\u2019 \u2018Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City,\u2019 \u2018Marry Me,\u2019 \u2018Sing 2,\u2019 and \u2018The Matrix Resurrections.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Plea Agreement<\/em><\/center>
\"plea<\/center><\/p>\n

Lower Sentence, Limited Damages<\/h2>\n

As part of the agreement, the prosecution agreed to drop two other counts and the Justice Department will recommend that the court awards the maximum available sentence reduction because Hale accepted responsibility. It will also recommend that the defendant is sentenced at the low end of the guideline range. <\/p>\n

For the remaining count, Hale faces a potential maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. In addition, he has also agreed to pay restitution to all identifiable victims who suffered losses due to his criminal conduct.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, for sentencing guideline purposes, the plea agreement puts the \u201cinfringement amount\u201d between $15,000 and $40,000. That\u2019s lower than the tens of millions of dollars in estimated losses mentioned in the indictment related to \u2018Spider-Man: No Way Home. The final damages amount has yet to be determined by the court.<\/p>\n

1,160 Blu-rays and DVDs<\/h2>\n

The plea agreement doesn\u2019t add much detail to what is already publicly known. Importantly, however, it does reveal that law enforcement seized approximately 1,160 Blu-rays and DVDs from the defendant on or around March 14, 2022. <\/p>\n

This means that the authorities had tracked down Hale as a potential suspect just days after the \u2018Spider-Man\u2019 movie leaked online. After that, it took nearly three years before the defendant was indicted. <\/p>\n

Why the indictment took so long is unknown, but the case may have been part of a broader ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n

Speculation and Sentencing<\/h2>\n

While one can only speculate beyond this point, it is worth pointing out that the early online leaks of \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home\u201d were shared publicly by the infamous release group EVO. This group was known for distributing pre-release content.<\/p>\n

A few months after the authorities tracked down Hale, EVO was dismantled by the Portuguese authorities<\/a>. There is no evidence to suggest that these two cases are connected, but it\u2019s not impossible either. <\/p>\n

What we do know for sure is that Hale will be sentenced by the District Court of Tennessee later this year. This sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place at the end of August.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

A copy of the Plea Agreement, signed by all parties and submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee is available here (pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three years ago, pirated Blu-ray copies of \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home\u201d began circulating on pirate sites, weeks before its official release. Such high-profile leaks are rare, and the source of the breach remained unknown until earlier this year. In February, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted 37-year-old Steven Hale from Tennessee, a former employee of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/83356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}