On Thursday, a court in Tennessee sentenced Steven Hale, a former employee of a company that manufactured and distributed DVDs and Blu-rays, to 57 months in prison. Hale had been stealing pre-release DVDs and Blu-rays of blockbuster movies and distributing them online.
“The defendant profited from the creativity and intellectual property of others by stealing DVDs and Blu-rays of movies that were being prepared for commercial distribution,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s sentencing signals our commitment to protecting American innovation from pirates that would exploit others’ work for a quick profit, which, in this case, cost one copyright owner tens of millions of dollars.”
The distribution took place between February 2021 and March 2022 and in that time, Hale stole hundreds of the discs that were meant to be for commercial use but not made available to the public, according to court records. Titles included “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” “Dune,” and “Black Widow.”
Hale also stole and sold “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” The movie was ripped from a Blu-ray and made available online over a month before the disc’s release date. Court documents say the film was “downloaded tens of millions of times, with an estimated loss to the copyright owner of tens of millions of dollars.”
“The copyright owner lost tens of millions of dollars as a result of Steven Hale stealing DVDs and Blu-rays of blockbuster movies and selling them before their official scheduled release dates,” said Special Agent in Charge Joseph E. Carrico of the FBI Nashville Field Office. “Today’s sentence should send a strong message that willfully stealing another party’s intellectual property is a serious crime and the FBI is committed to holding violators accountable.”
Hale pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement in May 2025 and had to return approximately 1,160 stolen DVDs and Blu-rays.