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Feds bust ring of film counterfeiters

FBI says 13 alleged bootleg makers responsible for 25 percent of all illegally produced videos worldwide.

Greg Sandoval Former Staff writer
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. Based in New York, Sandoval is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at @sandoCNET.
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Greg Sandoval
The FBI has broken up a ring of international movie-bootleggers that the agency says was responsible for distributing half of all illegally produced "camcorded" copies in the United States and 25 percent of them worldwide.

FBI agents arrested 13 members of the group Wednesday, according to the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade group that represents six of the top movie studios.

All 13 people were due to be arraigned Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court on charges of conspiracy, copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit labels, the MPAA said. Each charge carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Thieves sneak into movie houses packing digital video recorders to shoot films and later mass produce DVDs to sell. The MPAA said that practice cost the movie industry $3.8 billion last year. Movie studios lose another $2.3 billion on illegal Internet downloads.

"Camcorders...supply 90 percent of newly released movies that end up on the Internet and on the streets," the MPAA said in a statement. "These recordings are duplicated and sold on the black market and loaded onto the Internet triggering an avalanche of millions of illegal downloads."