Ex-Lucas Employee Charged With Star Wars Theft
from the tracking-down-the-thief dept
While we keep hearing about various albums and movies showing up online before they are released, you never seem to hear of anyone being caught for releasing them early. Not any more. It seems that the guy accused of leaking Star Wars Episode II online has been tracked down and is now in jail. He apparently worked at LucasFilm for a while as a production assistant and is accused of stealing various things from the Skywalker Ranch, including early versions of the movie. Now, clearly, the theft of these materials is wrong, but I wonder about these claims of “damages” from LucasFilm. They’re saying that the damages are “inestimable” because of the “premature release” of the movie over the internet. Now, I wonder just how many people decided not to go to the theater to watch Episode II because they first watched it on their computer monitor with their crappy speakers? If you could find one person, I’d be surprised. Even if you could find 10 people, we’re talking total “damages” of under $100.
