George Bridi, 52, was also ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, according to Reuters.

Bridi, a former disc jockey,pleaded guilty on November 18, 2021, to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement in connection to the Sparks Group, an international piracy group that Bridi was a part of, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.

Bridi has already been in jail for 17 and a half months after being arrested in Cyprus in August 2020 for working with the Sparks Group, Reuters reported. He was extradited a year later.

Authorities say the Sparks Group would leak movies and TV shows before they were set to release, costing studios tens of millions of dollars over almost a decade, according to Reuters. The group would use computers to override discs’ copyright protections, a practice called “cracking” or “ripping,” prosecutors said. They would then recode the discs with alternate names, like “Drones,” “Rovers,” “Geckos” and “Sprinter” to be able to share them online, prosecutors said.

Bridi’s lawyer argued for his client’s release, saying he already spent enough time in prison, according to Reuters. Bridi desired to reunite with his wife and twin teenage sons, the lawyer said.

Prosecutors were seeking a sentence between 27 to 33 months in prison, the sentencing letter says.

Berman said Bridi had an “important supervisory role” in the group, according to Reuters.

Bridi would fraudulently order pre-release DVDs and Blu-ray discs from wholesale distributors in New York and New Jersey, the sentencing letter says. Those discs would be sent to what Bridi called “aggregators,” who would then send them to him. He also arranged to send discs to other members and associates of the Sparks Group.

“Infringement of U.S. copyrights is a big problem in our economy,” Berman was quoted by Reuters. “It’s doubly troubling that it can be conducted…from outside the U.S.”

Jonatan Correa has also been charged in the case involving the Sparks Group, according to the sentencing letter.

Correa, like Bridi, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. He was sentenced in May 2021 to more than two years of supervised release, Reuters reported. Another defendant, Umar Ahmad of Norway, is still at large.

Update 2/7/2022 1:28 p.m.: This story has been updated to provide additional details on the case and quotes from U.S. District Judge Richard Berman.