FBI raid home of SAG member suspected of illegally uploading Kings Speech to internet



The FBI has raided the home of a Screen Actors Guild member suspected of illegally uploading Hollywood films to file sharing website The Pirate Bay.

Agents raided the Los Angeles apartment of Wes DeSoto on Tuesday after noticing traceable 'watermarks' in special screener versions of blockbusters such as Black Swan, The Kings Speech and The Fighter that had been illegally uploaded to the notorious website.

According to an affidavit, the FBI traced De Soto's unique I.P. number which led them to his home. DeSoto has not been charged.



Tracked: The affidavit says Wes DeSoto was tracked through an IP address to his Los Angeles home

Speaking to Wired magazine Mr DeSoto said: 'I’m nobody in the online file sharing world. This investigation is excessive and a waste of tax dollars.'

As a member of SAG, DeSoto has advanced access to digital copies of films still in cinemas and not released on DVD.

Swiped: Natalie Portman seen here in Black Swan, one of the films uploaded to thepiratebay.org

In order to access the films, SAG members are sent special codes that unlock the films in iTunes for members to watch at home, allowing them to vote on their favourites for the SAG awards.

FBI documents claim DeSoto was tracked after Larry Hahn, director of content protection for the MPAA, spotted five unreleased movies had been uploaded to The Pirate Bay bearing the distinctive SAG watermark.



In February FBI investigators began tracking a person using the online pseudonym mf34inc.

Soon afterwards, mf34inc posted to other members that: 'SAG now sends out iTunes download codes for screens,' before adding, 'I’m a SAG member and thought I’d share these.'

After further monitoring, authorities spotted mf34inc uploading the film Rabbit Hole and, according to the affidavit, they isolated the unique I.P. address of the uploader.

After obtaining a subpoena from Time Warner Cable investigators were able to track the I.P. number to DeSoto's home, documents recorded.



The spokesman for the FBI said: 'Each of these movies was high-quality, and believed to have been movie-screener versions provided to members of the Screen Actors Guild.



'Each of the movies had been released for theatrical viewing in the previous three months, before having been uploaded to thepiratebay.org, but none of the movies had been sold or distributed publicly in the DVD or video-streaming formats.'

Uploaded: A screen from The Kings Speech, one of the films DeSoto is suspected of uploading to the piratebay.org

The Pirate Bay is a peer-to-peer file-sharing website on which millions of users exchange illegal copies of music, TV shows and movies.

The site was ordered to go offline in 2009, with the four Swedish nationals connected to the site jailed for a year and ordered to pay £2.6m in damages to companies such as Columbia Pictures, EMI, Warner Brothers and Sony Music Entertainment.

However, one user packaged the whole website into one file - containing 21.3GB of data - and uploaded the file onto Pirate Bay for other users to download and re-publish.