Film critic pleads guilty in movie copyright case
A former freelance film critic for the Boston Herald and past president of the Boston Society of Film Critics is to be sentenced in October after pleading guilty in a San Jose, Calif., court last month to aiding in copyright infringement, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Paul Sherman , 46, of Malden, sold on
One man who bought Sherman's DVDs put several of them on the Internet, where they could be viewed before their commercial release, the Chronicle reported Thursday.
Sherman, who pleaded guilty in US District Court to aiding and abetting criminal copyright infringement, told the Chronicle that he ``was kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time."
``I sold some DVDs to someone who, it turns out, was doing nasty things with them," he told the Chronicle.
Sherman, who could not be reached by the Globe for comment, told the Chronicle he knew it was illegal to sell movies before their commercial release.
Sherman last wrote for the Herald in August 2005 after freelancing for them for at least 10 years, Herald managing editor Kevin Convey said last night.
``We obviously had no idea he was doing that," said Convey.
The end of the relationship between the Herald and Sherman had nothing to do with the charges, Convey said.
``We mutually made a decision to go our separate ways," he said.
Sherman was arrested and charged in what authorities dubbed ``Operation Copycat," an antipiracy operation by the US attorney's office focusing on California's Bay Area, the Chronicle reported.
Movie studios lost $6.1 billion to piracy in 2005, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. 