The Online Adventures of the Man Who Leaked ‘Wolverine’
By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: January 12, 2010
The man who stole Wolverine opened the door to his Bronx apartment with a grunt, his thin frame hunched over at the waist, an unlikely villain with a bad back and pajama pants. “I’m a scapegoat for this,” said Gilberto Sanchez, 47, after flopping down at his desk — the crime scene — and dragging on a cigarette. “I’m gonna get crucified.”
Librado Romero/The New York Times
Gilberto Sanchez, a glass installer and musician, posted a bootleg copy of “Wolverine” on the Web and has since been charged with violation of copyright law.
It has
been nine months since the theft of the superhero, or more accurately, the superhero’s story. On March 31, 2009, someone posted a “work print” — an unfinished copy — of the film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” on a Web site. It was a full month before the movie, starring Hugh Jackman as the famous mutant, was to open in theaters. Hollywood analysts called the leak unprecedented and speculated whether its free, albeit brief, availability to the public — and the unkind buzz that followed — would dampen its box office draw. Mr. Jackson himself was said by the studio to be “heartbroken.”
“The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the studio behind the movie, 20th Century Fox, said the day it appeared online. While the studio was up in arms, Mr. Sanchez, a glass installer and musician who knows his way around a high-speed computer, was watching “Wolverine” in his living room with three grandchildren from a former marriage. There were special effects and music missing, but no matter. “So we see a string pulling up Hugh Jackman,” he shrugged later.
Mr. Sanchez likes movies as much as the next guy, but detests the cost of taking the brood to the theater. He said that he bought a bootleg copy of “Wolverine” on the street, and posted a copy on the sharing site
megaupload.com, for the cachet.
Eight months later, on Dec. 16, Mr. Sanchez was awakened by a knock at 6 a.m., and opened the door to F.B.I. agents, who placed him under arrest. He was charged with violation of copyright law, arraigned in federal court in Manhattan and allowed to return home, but he faces the possibility of prison time, possibly in California, where his indictment originated.
The whole affair has Mr. Sanchez deeply rattled. “I’m out on bond, waiting for them to sentence me or give me a pat on the hand and tell me, ‘Don’t do it again,’ ” he said. Someone from CBS called and invited him to appear with Mr. Jackman on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” No, thanks.
“I’m not going to sit next to Wolverine,” he said. “That’s a setup.”
In an interview in his $695-a-month apartment in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Bronx, Mr. Sanchez, who was in and out of city jails in the 1990s on drug charges, told his story.
It started in a neighborhood Chinese restaurant. A Korean man entered, muttering “DVDs” and “digital” over and over. The sale of counterfeit DVDs is nothing new in New York, or in this corner of the Bronx. “Koreans set up on these sidewalks every day,” Mr. Sanchez said.
At first, he doubted the claim of “digital” quality, so the peddler popped a copy into a portable player. “I said, ‘Wow,’ ” Mr. Sanchez recalled. He forked over $5 and took the disc home.
After watching it with the grandchildren, he made a copy on his computer and posted it on megaupload, where his screen name is “SkillyGilly,” so others could share in the fun and he could get props in the movie-loving community. He ignored a friend’s warnings — “You’re going to get in trouble. It’s not even out yet.” — and watched as several other copies surfaced on the site soon afterward.
At 5 a.m. the next day, that friend called and told him to turn on the TV.
“Fox News is in an uproar for the leak of ‘Wolverine,’ ” Mr. Sanchez recalled. “They’re offering a reward.” By then, he said, his copy of the movie had been downloaded 198 times, at no charge; Mr. Sanchez said he never sought to make any money off the bootleg.
He was scared, but did not imagine he would be blamed — “Some employee had it — ‘Hey, take this down to graphics’ — and he stopped off and showed it to his friends,” Mr. Sanchez said. “They made more copies, more copies, until the Koreans had a copy.”
Two weeks later, the F.B.I. showed up, having tracked “SkillyGilly” through computer footprints. Mr. Sanchez said he explained what had happened. “ ‘Talk to the Korean,’ ” he said he told them. “ ‘You keep following leads and you’ll get to a warehouse.’ ” But when the F.B.I. asked if he could identify the peddler, he said no.
A few months later, agents took his computer, then returned it, he said. Several months passed, and then, the agents were back with an arrest warrant. Wesley Hsu, an assistant United States attorney in the Central District of California who is supervising the prosecution, said financial gain is not necessarily the sole motive for so-called pirates.
“It’s some sort of Internet prestige thing,” Mr. Hsu said. “They’re giving to get. That’s sort of how the culture works.”
Mr. Sanchez, who speaks to rehabilitation groups — “I’m Gilberto Sanchez, I’ve been to jail, I’ve been through this, I’ve been through that” — said he has no intention of fighting the charge. “I can’t say no,” he said, pointing to his computer. “That’s like DNA.”
His fate is unclear: In 2003, a New Jersey man was fined and put on probation after uploading an unfinished print of “The Hulk” before its release. But last year, a man who took a copy of “The Love Guru,” from a tape-duplication company was sentenced to six months in prison.
An F.B.I. spokeswoman said the investigation into who stole the movie from the studio in the first place is continuing. A spokesman for 20th Century Fox did not return telephone calls last week.
“Wolverine” went on to gross $373 million worldwide, despite bad reviews, and despite the online adventures of a glass installer from the Bronx who, a day after his interview, was laid out flat on the floor of his apartment, the only comfortable position for his back.
He tried to imagine what Mr. Jackman might say to him if they ever meet. He hoped it would go something like this: “‘Hey, you did what you did. You didn’t hurt us.’”
I confess that I did watch the leaked version. 
But *only* after I'd seen it in theatres.
)
