SYDNEY, Australia - A Sydney man who uploaded the first known pirated copy of "The Simpsons Movie" to the Internet after recording it on his cell phone was fined US$888 by a magistrate Tuesday for breaching copyright.
An international operation involving Australian Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.'s Fox movie studios, which own the rights to the blockbuster, tracked the unauthorized copy to the home of Jose Duarte, 21, who was arrested in August.
Prosecutor Chuan Ng said the movie was downloaded 3,213 times in the few hours it was available on the Internet.
Duarte's lawyer said Duarte tried twice to upload the movie July 26, the release date, several hours ahead of its appearance in most of the world. He thought he'd failed, said the lawyer, Ken Stewart.
"It would appear that this young man had the sophistication of a dead fish," Stewart said. "I have sat and spent time with this young man, ... and I am quite satisfied that he had no idea what he was doing."
Duarte pleaded guilty in a Sydney Magistrates Court Tuesday to a charge of distributing copyright material and was fined by 1,000 Australian dollars.
