The Department of Justice reports that a Tennessee man, Steven R. Hale, was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison for stealing and selling pre-release commercial DVDs and Blu-rays of blockbuster films from February 2021 to March 2022 during his employment at a multi-national company that manufactured and distributed discs for major Hollywood studios.
The titles included major releases such as F9: The Fast Saga; Venom: Let There Be Carnage; Godzilla v. Kong; Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings; Dune; and Black Widow. One stolen Blu-ray, Spider-Man: No Way Home, was illicitly copied and made available online more than a month before its official release, resulting in the illegal distribution of tens of millions of copies and losses of a similar scale for the copyright owner.
Hale pled guilty to criminal copyright infringement and interstate transportation of stolen goods earlier in 2025, admitting that he had sold the discs through online platforms for personal profit.
The case was prosecuted by the Department of Justice's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section along with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee, and it was investigated by the FBI's Nashville Field Office.
The court imposed a prison sentence of more than four years followed by supervised release, citing the extensive damage to copyright holders and the large-scale online piracy that stemmed from the offense.
Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/employee-multinational-dvd-company-sentenced-over-four-years-prison-stealing-selling-pre
Commentary
The above matter involved the theft of intellectual property and copyright. Federal law in the United States provides several layers of protection for both physical and digital assets that qualify as intellectual property.
The primary legal framework comes from the Copyright Act under Title 17 of the U.S. Code, which grants the creators of original works exclusive rights over their reproduction, distribution, and public display.
Corporate vulnerability to intellectual property theft often comes from insider misconduct. Employees who have access to pre-release materials, confidential product designs, or proprietary code can exploit that privilege to steal assets for financial or personal gain. Such misconduct frequently occurs through unauthorized copying, data exfiltration, or digital transmission of trade secrets.
Preventing this form of internal theft requires coordinated legal, technical, and cultural controls. Organizations can leverage data loss prevention systems, file access monitoring, and real-time network analytics to detect and block irregular transfers of protected materials. Routine audits of digital assets and restrictions on external devices and cloud upload permissions further reduce risk.
Legal agreements such as non-disclosure and non-compete clauses help reinforce obligations of confidentiality and ownership over intellectual property developed during employment.
Employees must be made aware that intellectual property is an organizational asset subject to legal protection, and that violations may expose them to federal prosecution.
Establishing clear intellectual property policies and internal reporting channels fosters accountability and encourages early identification of warning signs.
When technological monitoring is combined with defined access privileges, confidential labeling, and ethical awareness, the opportunity for insider theft diminishes dramatically.
