A Chicago man pleaded guilty this week to a felony charge for posting the first four episodes of this season’s “24” on the Internet before they were aired on Fox television in January. Fox said its losses from the infringement exceeded $4 million.
Jorge Romero, 25, admitted that he uploaded the first two episodes of this season’s “24” to the LiveDigital.com website on January 6 – eight days before it was broadcast on Fox.
Romero also admitted uploading the second two episodes of “24” to the same website on January 7. Romero further admitted that, after uploading the episodes, he publicized the uploads by providing links on other publicly available sites, including Digg.com.
Fox broadcast the first four episodes of “24” on January 14 and 15, and subsequently released the four-episode season premier on DVD, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation press release.
The case began when Fox employees saw the yet-to-be released episodes on LiveDigital.com prior to the release date. After investigators determined that the accounts used to upload the episodes were assigned to Romero and his family, law enforcement agents obtained a search warrant for Romero’s home. During the search, agents seized a computer on which they found evidence that Romero uploaded the stolen materials.
The agents also interviewed Romero, who acknowledged his role in the scheme. Romero pleaded guilty to uploading copyrighted material to a publicly accessible computer network by using the file sharing program BitTorrent, knowing the work was intended for commercial distribution, a felony that carries a statutory maximum sentence of three years in federal prison.
Romero is free on bond for now and will be sentenced on September 10. He could get 3 years of jail time, experts said.
