Hulk Vanquishes an Evildoer for Bootlegging His Movie
"I was not allowed to have this copy of the tape," the defendant, Kerry Gonzalez, told a magistrate judge. "I took it home. I captured it onto my personal computer." Mr. Gonzalez said he tried to use his computer to defeat an embedded security tag to conc
The powerful superhero known as the Hulk smote his enemy yesterday with help from a rather mundane source: the copyright laws of the United States.
And this was no comic-book battle.
The intrigue began in early June when a bootleg version of the new movie "The Hulk" appeared on the Internet, a couple of weeks before the film was to open in theaters.
Yesterday, a contrite New Jersey man who works in the insurance business walked into United States District Court in Manhattan and admitted that he had done the deed.
"I was not allowed to have this copy of the tape," the defendant, Kerry Gonzalez, told a magistrate judge. "I took it home. I captured it onto my personal computer."
Mr. Gonzalez said he tried to use his computer to defeat an embedded security tag to conceal the tape's origins. "Then I distributed it through a chat room," he said.
Mr. Gonzalez, 24, of Hamilton, N.J., made his admissions while pleading guilty to one count of copyright infringement, a felony for which he could face 12 months in prison when he is sentenced in September, the judge said.
The authorities would not say how Mr. Gonzalez was tracked down, but here is a thought: In the end, it was the security tag that defeated him.
The office of James B. Comey, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a court document that the tape of "The Hulk" obtained by Mr. Gonzalez was sent by Universal Pictures to an advertising agency in Manhattan in advance of the film's June 20 opening.
Because the tape was intended for use by only a very limited number of people in the film's advertising campaign, it was unfinished, the document says. The special effects were not finalized, and the soundtrack was incomplete. The agency was not allowed to make or distribute copies.
An agency employee, however, lent a tape to an acquaintance, who then lent it to Mr. Gonzalez, the document says. Around June 6, after Mr. Gonzalez made a digitized copy of the tape, he uploaded it to an Internet chat room based in the Netherlands, the document says. The site is not identified, but the government says it is frequented by "movie enthusiasts who routinely gather in the chat room to post and trade copies of bootleg movies."
From there, the tape became available for further unauthorized copying "by any member of the chat room, to the substantial economic detriment of Universal," the document says.
The Gonzalez prosecution, announced by Mr. Comey and the F.B.I. in New York, was hailed by the movie industry, which has long fought film piracy.
Rick Finkelstein, president and chief operating officer of Universal Pictures, said of the film's director, "Ang Lee spent years working on this film, and put his blood, sweat, and tears into it, literally, and it deserves to be seen in the proper environment that it's offered, at movie theaters."
The film opened on more than 3,500 screens, Universal says.
Mr. Gonzalez's lawyer, Matthew V. Portella, said after court that his client "knew that what he did was wrong" and was ready "to take care of what needed to be done."
Mr. Gonzalez, who was released on bond, told reporters: "I've learned a lesson, a great lesson that will teach me certainly to stay within the law, within my limits."
Mr. Gonzalez, who wore a green suit in court, said afterward, "It was my nicest suit." (The Hulk is green.)
He said he had a degree in business administration, but "no background whatsoever in computers."
"I tried to defeat something that ultimately you can't," he added.
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EarthsMightiestAdmin
6/26/2003
NY Times