British Man Goes to Jail for Recording Film with iPhone

Pirating movies is nothing new, of course, but one man in particular seems to be getting a lot of attention in the news right now. His name is Philip Danks, he hails from the UK, and he’s about to spend several months in jail for illegally recording and distributing a movie. Danks went to the theater to see Fast & Furious 6 and decided to record the movie with his smartphone. Apparently no one in the theatre thought it was weird that he was holding up his phone during the whole movie, but I guess that’s beside the point.

After Danks got home, he uploaded the entire movie he recorded from his phone onto his website. As a result, it was illegally downloaded for free some 780,000 times from all kinds of people all around the world. The studio behind the hit movie, Universal Studios, claims that they lost out on around $4.1 million because of his actions. Wow – that’s a whole lot of money.

Danks has pled guilty to his charges, and as a result will be in jail for the next 33 months. He’s certainly not the only person to have attempted this before, but it seems Hollywood is doing all they can to crack down on piracy. So, next time you get the urge to record from the big screen – think again. It’s really not worth getting caught.

Do you think his punishment is too severe? Do you think it’s too lenient? Or, do you think Universal Studios has enough money and they should just forget about it? Let us know your thoughts regarding this story in the comments section below.

[Image via yuma310]

SOURCE: Engadget