First came the news that Kim Dotcom, Hollywood’s favorite devil incarnate, may not see a trial for piracy, because authorities completely fucked up.

Now we learn that good ol’ HBO decided to shit on its own reputation by pulling an anti-piracy arrest stunt that turned out almost as badly.

Christian Alvarez, a 26-year old student at the University of Chile, was recently arrested after a 2-month sting investigation prompted by HBO (Did any of your cable TV money go towards this? Just asking). The charge was for being one of the main operators of Cuevana.tv, a very popular online site for TV programs and films in South America. Alvarez claimed the site acts like a forum and that he had some extra privileges and nothing more.

In what seems like a repeat of events in the Kim Dotcom case, after the arrest of Alvarez, everything for HBO started going downhill. He was eventually freed of the original charges and only charged with what would, in this country, be construed as a misdemeanor.

What’s almost hilarious is that he was ordered not to visit Cuevara.tv or other sites like it for 12 months, plus he was ordered to give two talks about piracy to school children, something he planned on doing anyway as he had wanted to talk about the issue of intellectual property.

One thing HBO was able to accomplish from this debacle is to show–once again–how the Hollywood industry is being run by dicks who don’t give a shit about independent productions, even in other countries. How? By having a spokesperson from the Argentine Pirate Party come forward and explain that Cuevana.tv is a necessary springboard for local South American film producers, because Hollywood films are saturating the local movie theaters.

Thank you, HBO! I actually didn’t know that until this case came along.