I’m ‘24’ Fan Jorge Romero, and Today Is the Longest Day of My Life.
by John Paczkowski
Posted on June 4, 2007 at 1:01 PM PT
Counterterrorism officer extraordinaire Jack Bauer would have solved this one with a bullet to the temple, so Jorge Romero should consider himself lucky. On Friday, the FBI filed a criminal complaint against Romero for allegedly uploading the first four episodes of the sixth season of “24” to LiveDigital.com, well in advance of their prime-time debut. According to the complaint, Romero downloaded shows from a peer-to-peer service, uploaded them to LiveDigital, and then posted them to Digg.com, apparently in an ill-starred effort to boost his profile on the social-news service. Of course, the only thing he succeeded in doing was to make himself easier to track down, which the FBI did in short order.
Now he faces a three-year prison sentence and the prospect of Hollywood waving his piked head about as a warning to all would-be copyright violators. “The FBI makes this a different ball game,” said Jay Cooper, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig who specializes in intellectual-property issues. “The public doesn’t seem to get that it’s wrong, and maybe a message like this has to get out there so people realize there are criminal penalties.”
