Commonplace back at the turn of the current century, we don’t hear much about illegal distribution via physical media anymore; especially originating in the United States. Yet, an individual was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in the Western District of Tennessee for stealing and selling pre-release DVDs, copies of which were re-distributed tens of millions of times on pirate sites and networks before any legitimate release date; according to the MPA’s ACE.
According to court documents, Steven R. Hale, 37, of Memphis, allegedly stole numerous “pre-release” DVDs and Blu-rays … being prepared for commercial distribution in the United States and not available for sale to the public,” from approximately February 2021 to March 2022.
These included DVDs and Blu-rays for such popular films as “F9: The Fast Saga,” “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” “Godzilla v. Kong,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” “Dune,” and “Black Widow.” Hale allegedly sold the DVDs and Blu-rays through e-commerce sites.
At least one pre-release Blu-ray that Hale allegedly stole and sold, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” was “ripped” — that is, extracted from the Blu-ray by bypassing the encryption that prevents unauthorized copying — and copied. That digital copy was then illegally made available over the internet more than a month before the Blu-ray’s official scheduled release date. Copies of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” were downloaded tens of millions of times, with an estimated loss to the copyright owner of tens of millions of dollars.
Not only is the sale of unlicensed material on DVD illegal, but so is the fact that the individual allegedly bypassed copy protection.
Further reading
Employee at multinational DVD company charged with stealing, selling pre-release commercial DVDs for Blockbuster Films. Press release. March 6, 2025. US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee.
ACE referral leads to arrest of individual accused of stealing and selling pre-release DVDs. Press release. March 12, 2025. Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)
Why it matters
The indictment charges the individual with two counts of criminal copyright infringement and one count of interstate transportation of stolen goods. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each criminal copyright infringement count and 10 years in prison on the interstate transportation of stolen goods count.
“(The Motion Picture Association) applaud(s) the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee, for their action in the case against the individual charged with illegally selling copyrighted content, and we thank the case agents and prosecutors who conducted this investigation,” said Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel for the MPA.
