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Hollywood – from www.torrentfreak.com – The FBI has raided the apartment of a Screen Actor’s Guild member suspected of uploading several pre-release screeners of Hollywood blockbusters to The Pirate Bay, including Oscar winner The King’s Speech. In addition the feds believe the actor may be connected to the release group ‘TiMPE’. No charges have been filed thus far.
Screen Actor’s Guild member Wes DeSoto had his premises raided last week on suspicion of uploading several pre-release movies during January. Among the leaked films was the Oscar winner The King’s Speech.
The tipoff in this case came from the MPAA’s director of content protection Larry Hahn, who informed the FBI about the five films that were uploaded to The Pirate Bay.
DeSoto allegedly operated under the username ‘mf34inc’, and although all uploaded torrents have now been removed, Google’s cache reveals that this user uploaded The King’s Speech, Rabbit Hole, 127 Hours, The Fighter and Black Swan between January 23 and January 29.
In the comments section of The King’s Speech upload, mf34inc notes that the film’s source is an “iTunes SAG HD screener, only available to SAG members” and that the “torrent is real.” In another comment the user claims to have access to a screener of The Social Network as well, but that he wont release it because there are various high quality uploads of the movie already.
According to a copy of the affidavit obtained by Wired.com, during the raid the FBI searched for software and records relating to the release group ‘TiMPE’ and ‘thepiratebay.org’. The nature of the alleged relationship between and DeSoto and the release group is unclear at this point, but it could be related to the watermarks that led the FBI to the actor who himself starred in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
When speaking with Wired, DeSoto declined to comment but said he has no affiliation with the release group. “I’m nobody in the online file sharing world. This investigation is excessive and a waste of tax dollars,” he noted.
As seen in similar cases, the affidavit references the crime of “uploading a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution,” which is a term under the tough Family Entertainment and Copyright Act.
Although no charges have yet been filed, the above legislation was previously used to jail Star Wars uploaders at the now-defunct EliteTorrents site, and to put the Dark Knight cammer behind bars for two years.