Meet the man arrested for pirating 'Wolverine'

By Eriq Gardner

We're starting to get to know the man arrested yesterday for allegedly uploading an unfinished copy of Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" to the web more than a month before its May 1 release.

Accused pirate Gilberto Sanchez was released from custody yesterday on a $50,000 bond. Waiting for the paperwork, Sanchez, 47, told a reporter he was a glazier by trade and called the arrest "ridiculous."

Sanchez, who lives in the Bronx, admitted uploading the film to popular file-sharing site megaupload.com (which, for our money, means the arrest wasn't ridiculous at all). How did the copy of "Wolverine" end up in his hands? "I bought it from a Korean guy on the street for five bucks."

OK then. Case closed.

Actually, the FBI probably has a lot of work left to do on this case. We may know who is responsible for putting the copy of the film online, but who is culpable for releasing it in the first place? The grand jury indictment targeting Sanchez doesn't address how he acquired the film or whether any Korean guys on the street were involved.  

If convicted, 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 U.S. attorney’s office.

Comments

[Wizard Prang]

Hollywood's search for weak targets continues.

Not that Sanchez is innocent - far from it - but the penalty is far to heavy-handed. A rapist could get a lesser sentence.