As if the fact that the U.K. has anti-piracy police wasn’t terrifying enough, now two people have been arrested on charges of stealing The Expendables 3 and uploading it to the Internet. The duo was charged with stealing a high-quality copy of the film from what Cameron Diaz comedies refer to as “the cloud” and uploading it to unnamed torrenting sites, an action that producers of the film (mainly this guy) claim lost them nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue. The potential sentence for the defendants is unknown at this time.
“Today’s operation shows you the significant impact intellectual property crime has on our creative industries, with millions of pounds being lost as a result of criminal actions,” Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit chief Danny Medlycott tells BBC News. “The public need to be aware that piracy is not a victimless crime…piracy threatens the security of thousands of jobs in the UK’s creative industries.” (The Expendables 3 was shot in Bulgaria by American production companies, so presumably the jobs and revenue in question are in exhibition.)
In related transatlantic anti-piracy news, the battle between the U.S. and U.K. over who can make the the most apocalyptic (non-parody) anti-piracy ads has yet to subside.