Man Pleads Guilty to Bootlegging `Hulk’
NEW YORK (AP) — A New Jersey man pleaded guilty Wednesday to making a bootleg copy of the action film “The Hulk” and posting it on the Internet before the movie was released in theaters.
Kerry Gonzalez, 24, of Hamilton, N.J., faces six months to a year in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 26. He pleaded guilty to a single count of copyright infringement.
Officials at Universal Studios, which produced the film, alerted the FBI in early June when the pirated copy of the movie began circulating online.
The government said in court papers that Universal had given a copy to a Manhattan advertising agency, and that an agency employee had given it to a friend who gave it to Gonzalez. He then made it available in a chat room used to post and trade unauthorized movie copies.
In a statement, Universal Pictures officials said that studios owed it to the millions of law-abiding moviegoers to make sure online piracy does not go unchecked.
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