FBI busts New York movie piracy rings

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigationon Wednesday broke up two New York-based movie piracy rings that allegedly sneaked digital camcorders into theatres to shoot hit films, then duplicated and distributed millions of bootleg copies worldwide.

Raids across the city netted 13 people who are believed to have been operating since 1999.

The suspects were arraigned in federal court in Manhattan Wednesday afternoonon charges of conspiracy, copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit goods. If convicted, each could face up to five years in prison.

The suspects used computer file-sharing networks to distribute the counterfeit films to Pakistan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and other countries, according to Michael Robinson, an anti-piracy official for the Motion Picture Association of America, which estimates it lost $18 billion USin global revenue to piracy last year.

The association, which represents Hollywood studios, claimed in a statement Wednesday that thering was "responsible for half of all camcorded copies of films available on the black market and on the Internet in the United States, and 25 per cent of all camcord copies of counterfeit movies worldwide."

Officials allege that the suspects bribed their way into advance screenings to record films that hadn't yet hit theatres. They said one of the movies the suspects were trying to bootleg was Superman Returns, which was released Wednesday.

The FBI learned that "cammers," people specializing in covertly shooting movies in theatres, used assistants to conceal them and prevent people from blocking their view.

According to court papers, the "cammers" were paid several hundred dollars per film by manufacturers who then duplicated the recordings onto DVDs for packaging in counterfeit labels. The bootlegs were then distributedto street pedlars, who sold them for up to $19 US each.