Man Faces Jail For Uploading ‘24′

A Chicago man is facing 36 months in jail for uploading episodes of Fox's 24 to the Net before they’d been aired on television.

A Chicago man is facing prison after being arrested by the FBI for “uploading copyrighted material to a publicly accessible computer network knowing thematerial was intended for commercial distribution.”   The man, Jorge Romero, has been accused of uploading four episodes of this season’s 24 ontoLiveDigital.com before Fox was due to air them, then posting links to them on other sites.   When interviewed by the FBI, Romero allegedly admitted uploading the shows, but claimed to have foundthem on another site, and he hasn’t been accused of originating the material.   If found guilty, Romero faces up to three years in prison.   The case originated in January, whenFox subpoenaed both LiveDigital and YouTube to discover who’d placed episodesof 24 and The Simpsons online. Both companies complied, although the complaint here doesn’t involved YouTube.   “We are grateful to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s offices in LosAngeles for aggressively pursuing this matter, and we hope it will serve as a powerful warning that uploading copyrighted TV shows and movies to the Internet can be a crime with significant penaltiesand will be prosecuted as such,” 20th Century Fox said in a statement.   It’s a sign of how seriously companies are taking their TV shows. Viacom has a billion dollar suit againstYouTube. While companies have pursued movie pirating, it’s only very recently that TV copyright issues have fully surfaced. But when popular series pop up online before they’ve beenaired, it’s natural that companies would act, especially given the growing popularity of video on handheld devices.