Pirate Sentenced to Prison For Uploading Deadpool on Facebook
- 22-year old Trevon Franklin from Fresno, California has been sentenced to three weeks of prison for uploading a copy of Deadpool.
- The movie was uploaded in 2016 using his screen name “Tre-Von M. King.”
- The sentence was passed down by a federal court in California.
The global war against piracy continues as yet another pirate is sentenced to prison in California. Twenty-two year old US citizen Trevor Franklin has been sentenced by a Federal court in California to a three-week sentence. The sentence could have lasted up to six months, but the judge showed leniency. Franklin uploaded a copy of Deadpool in early 2016 under his username “Tre-Von M. King.” The movie was viewed 6,386,456 times on Facebook. An FBI investigation led to the arrest of the man, and Franklin pleaded guilty in court.
With Facebook being home to 2 billion users a month, the pirated copy of Deadpool amassed a large number of views causing Franklin’s indictment. With all of Franklin’s Facebook credentials available on Franklin’s profile, catching him was easy for the authorities. Deadpool distributor 20th Century Fox found out about the upload which led to the FBI investigation.
Franklin was not the only individual who made the copy of Deadpool available online. There were others who are guilty of the same but a large number of views Franklin received caught everyone’s attention. The pirate faced limited defense and had to sign a plea agreement just months into the lawsuit. He admitted uploading the copy of Deadpool, and a sentence was handed out yesterday.
The US Government had recommended a six-month sentence last month, but Franklin will have to serve far less time. The authorities wanted a longer sentence because of how public Franklin was about the incident and that he appeared not to care about how his upload would affect the movie makers. The court handling the lawsuit handed a short sentence because Franklin has no prior infringements and he regrets his decision of uploading the movie.
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