A man has been sentenced to three years in jail for filming a movie

Sentenced this week in Wolverhampton Crown Court, 25-year-old Philip Dank received a sentence of nearly three years for physically filming action film ‘Fast & Furious 6′ as well as distributing the film on the Internet. The pirated copy of the film was downloaded approximately 779,000 times and representatives of Universal Pictures estimated the financial loss around £2.3 million ($3.8 million) in lost ticket sales. In addition to pleading guilty to the charges, Dank also plead guilty to selling over 600 copies of the film for £1.50 each.

The concept of someone recording films at movie theaters for pirating purposes seems so outdated. Yet, that’s still happening in some parts of the world, apparently. Most recently, there’s the case of Philip Danks, a 25-year-old UK man who just got sentenced to 33 months of jail time after using his phone to record a film in the theater and, subsequently, upload it to his website to let the internet download it at no cost — at least initially. So which movie, you ask? None other than Fast & Furious 6. According to Universal Pictures, Danks’ pirated upload was downloaded nearly 780,000 times, which the studio claimed resulted in a loss of about £2.5 million, or about 4.1 million in US dollars. After his initial arrest, and before he pleaded guilty to the charges yesterday, Danks took to his Facebook page to share his feelings about the ordeal: “Seven billion people and I was the first. Fuck you Universal Pictures.” He’s now facing 33 months in jail, while 120 hours of unpaid community service were served to a friend who helped him along the way.