Production assistant has been caught stealing hundreds of thousands from Lucasfilm. (1 Viewer)

Post Edited By Administrator - Please Do Not Post Entire Copyrighted Articles
Mods, not sure if this is the right section. If not, you guys know what to do. Well, I came across this at the CHUD. It looks like Lucas may not have intentionally leaked AOTC to Harry as many, including myself, originally thought. Here's the news story on the production assistant who was arrested for stealing hundreds of thousands of Star Wars and AOTC material.

By Con Garretson
A former employee of Lucasfilm who has denied leaking a copy of "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones" to an Internet reviewer has been charged with 13 felony counts in connection with the theft of an estimated $450,000 worth of materials related to the blockbuster film.
The theft of sound effects, storyboard images, the film score and hundreds of digital images and video files occurred between September 2000 and April 2002, when Shea O'Brien Foley was employed as a production assistant at the Lucas Valley filmmaking company.
Here's the link.
http://www.marinij.com/news/stories/index2002453.html
Whoa! This guy was nuts.

Click to expand...

If he intended them in his personal connection, why the link to AICN?

I heard about this from an ILM employee, minus the actual name, of course. There goes this guy's career... was it worth it?

Interesting article. Thanks for the link. I hope the guy does some actual jail time.

What did I say! I said at the moment that if the leak was not intentional by Lucas, someone is going to get fired sooner or later! I knew it! However this guy has denied leaking the advanced cut to AICN.

Also do you remember those extremely hi resolution pictures on the net? They were something like more than 1000 pixels! Now we know where they came from! It is mentioned in the article. I always thought that it was strange.

Personal collection or not, the fact is he was not authorized to have possesion of that material, period.
He deserves what he get's.
I also hope that he's happy about losing a job like that. I would give anything to work at Lucasfilm in any capacity! I'd bring coffee to the lowest of secretaries as long as I could say to someone "I work at Lucasfilm."
And I wouldn't take advantage either like that guy did. He should be ashamed of himself.

What a CLASS 'A' moron. His whole career is over and reputation in the film business is now s**t. To work at Lucasfilm in a position such as his would be an achievement for any true film/sc-fi/Star Wars fan. To completely jepordise and throw all that away by stealing from the company is just plain stupidity, greed or ego (probably all three). He dug is own hole. Too right, John. He SHOULD be ashamed of himself. He certainly didn't make it difficult for Lucasfilm to track down the thief by using his REAL name when posting to chat rooms! I change my grade: A+ moron.

Kind of ironic a guy named Foley caught stealing sound effects.....

Yes, it was very stupid and he certainly deserves to be axed. But he didn't really 'steal' half a million bucks worth of stuff from Lucasfilm, did he? They still have them all.

Heck, I recently deleted a project that consisted of a few hundred thousand lines of code off my computer. I haven't worked for the company for almost a year. From their vantage point it would have been worth a few 100k, at least. I wasn't malicious... I worked from home. It was just there, according to my release agreement, I should have deleted it before, I guess... It's a bit harder to accidently hold on to say, a few computers or projectors (what other laid off employees decided to do...) -- That's stealing.

Now if he was taking all sorts of original stuff, that's a different story. But it really sounds like it was just stuff he was copying off the network or CDs lying around work. And mostly for his own enjoyment, beyond the things he leaked (and it really doesn't sound like he leaked the film to AICN -- That would be a much, much more difficult proposition.)

I'm not condoning it, or saying he should get off scott free from the law, but copying IP and stealing are pretty different things, imo. Still, damn... that's an awfully stupid thing to do. He shouldn't rot in jail for a long time, but he just tanked his career over, and for what...?

The only problem I have is is chucking someone in jail for 7 years over this pretty much destroys his life, which what he did doesn't seem to warrant that. Some probation, community service and a destroyed career seem punishment enough to me. Call me a softy, but I'm guessing he's already learned his lesson though he still owes some amount of restitution.
Dennis:
His last name made me chuckle too.

Bill, what do you think stealing $500,000 warrants? Yes, he did steal a half million bucks. Taking something that doesn't belong to you is stealing. Maybe he should have thought of that before he committed a felony. You make it seem like stealing half a million dollars of copyright work is akin to stealing a pack of bubblegum. The authorities and Lucasfilm aren't ruining his life. He ruined his own life.

A 'Foley artist' is someone who makes and records sound effects for films.

See www.filmsound.org/terminology/foley.htm for details.
I still think it's hilariously ironic.

Copied, copied the files, he didn't actually took or made money. Remember that “we” “you” “they” all "stole" the music early too and we are as good as or as bad as that guy! Many of “us” “you” them” have right now those files on our harddisk! By those files I mean the pictures!

Unauthorized repoduction of IP is NOT the same thing as stealing. You're not depriving anyone of anything. If someone replicated my car I really wouldn't care very much, I still have my car.

Did he even commit a felony? Copyright infringment felony is in excess of 100 copies (on audio) and 10 copaies (on video [including imagery, I assume.] Apparently all he distrbuted was some pieces of artwork. On the internet, who knows how many times that's considered to be distrbuted? Once to where he sent it, or to the ten million people who viewed it?

The law provides the ability to plead to a misdemeanor for a first time offense (up to the judge, of course) which is a big deterent since any further activity WILL be a felony. The court also takes into account criminal intent in copyright cases, which seems negligible here.

If these were all ORIGNALS and LF no longer had the voice-over tests, all the sound effects, and all those images from EP1, at all, then I feel differently. But despite LF harsh wording, that wouldn't make much sense (why would there be a trail of it on his PC at that point either, if he phsyically stole them...)

I'm not blaming LF for going after him, they're quite right in protecting themselves. And it's his own damn fault, that's for sure. But I would be a bit sad to see the guy get a long jail sentence for this. I just don't see what good it will do.

He'll most likely plea bargain his way to some lesser offense in criminal court and owe some dollar amount to LF in civil court. And that seems fair to me.

Again, if he was attempting to PROFIT off of this, that's different.

Either ways, whatever was his motivation, to destroy your reputation and career for the sake of some collectables is pretty dam supid. What's he going to do now? He'll certainly never work in the film or TV industry again.