Fast & Furious 6 recorder jailed
A UK man has been jailed for more than two years for recording Fast & Furious 6 from the back of a cinema before offering it up for hundreds of thousands of people to download illegally.
Philip Danks was sentenced to 33 months after it was claimed the film’s distributor, Universal Pictures, lost out on “millions” as a result of his actions.
The 25-year-old’s recording, which he also promoted via his Facebook page, was downloaded 700,000 times by internet users.
Detective sergeant Rod Rose, of West Midlands Police, said police assisted copyright protection agency the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) throughout the case.
He added that Danks had continued to illegally distribute movies after his initial arrest in May last year.
The incident itself took place on May 17, 2013, when Danks went to the Showcase cinema in Walsall, near Birmingham, and used a camcorder to record the latest instalment of the franchise on the first day of its release.
In a statement, FACT, which claimed Danks’ actions had cost the film industry “millions of pounds”, said it was able to identify him by linking him to the online name of an uploader known as ‘TheCod3r’.
FACT director general Kieron Sharp said: “We are grateful to West Midlands Police for their assistance in bringing to justice two men who were causing untold harm to the film industry in the UK, something which also threatens this country’s economy”.
Another man, Michael Bell, was given a community order requiring him to undertake 120 hours' unpaid work after he was deemed to have played a part in uploading the film.
