Oscars voter fined for piracy

US actor and Oscars voter Carmine Caridi has been fined 300,000 after preview copies sent to him of potential Academy Award winners ended up on the in

17:06 24 November 2004

US actor and Oscars voter Carmine Caridi has been fined 300,000 after preview copies sent to him of potential Academy Award winners ended up on the internet.

Warner Bros sued the 70-year-old actor for sending exclusive copies of Mystic River and Tom's Cruise's The Last Samurai to another man, Russell Sprague.

Mr Caridi, whose career includes two small parts in mafia trilogy The Godfather, is understood to have admitted to sending Mr Sprague around 60 copies of new movies on VHS format.

According to his defence lawyers, the actor was under the illusion that Mr Sprague was simply interested in film. The US District Court in Los Angeles has now ordered Mr Caridi to pay $150,000 for each of the films passed on.

Mr Sprague is awaiting sentencing for his guilty plea to one count of copyright infringement.

Many of Hollywood's leading studios send preview copies of their new films to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in an effort to canvas enough votes to gain an Oscar nomination.

However, Mr Caridi's case has led to the introduction of a crackdown on this practice.