A National Archives technician is accused making pirated copies of DVDs and selling the recordings, offering his coworkers a list of more than a thousand titles to choose from. Timajin Nell is charged with criminal copyright infringement in federal court in Greenbelt.
The National Archives and Records Administration‘s inspector general’s office was tipped off to the operation in April, when a federal employee reported that Nell was using his work desktop computer to make pirated movies and music CDs, according to a criminal complaint.
A search of his College Park building’s office the next month turned up DVDs with printed labels or titles handwritten on them. The complaint says one movie was labeled “Beastly” — but that film wasn’t released until the end of June.
Agents copied his computer hard drive and found e-mails discussing DVD and CD sales back to 2009, the complaint says.
In a March e-mail, Nell sent other Archives employees a spreadsheet with 1,144 movie titles that were available, according to the complaint. The spreadsheet noted whether the films were reproduced from an original DVD, a “bootleg” copy filmed with a camcorder inside a movie theater or a “screener,” an illegal copy of a legitimate advance copy used for marketing.
Agents also found more than 8,000 music files in his Archives network files. In a May e-mail, he sent potential customers three spreadsheets of available songs, totaling nearly 1,000 selections.
An Archives spokeswoman declined to comment. No attorney was listed in court records for Nell, who could not be reached Tuesday.
The case is the second time this fall an Archives worker has been caught up in legal trouble over selling illegally obtained media. Last month, a former archivist admitted to stealing hundreds of sound recordings from the agency and selling them on eBay.
The Archives upped its security in the wake of those allegations, requiring all visitors and employees to have their bags searched before leaving.
On Oct. 12, an agent searching Nell’s bag noticed a newly released DVD and mentioned wanting to rent it. Nell told the agent he had another copy; the next week, Nell sold the agent a copy in an Archives cafeteria, according to the complaint. Nell told the agent that he had more than 1,000 movie titles that could be purchased, the complaint says.
