A California man pleaded guilty Monday to criminal charges of placing pre-DVD release movies on the Internet for free downloading, prosecutors said.

Derek Hawthorne pleaded guilty before a U.S. District Judge in a Los Angeles court to two felony charges of uploading a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The 21-year-old man allegedly uploading copies of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Australia" on websites that users could use to download the movies for free to their own computers. He faces a maximum of six years in federal prison.

Both movies had opened in theaters, but were not yet available on DVD when Hawthorne put them onto the Internet, prosecutors said.

Court documents show Hawthorne obtained screener copies of the movies and then used a computer program that allowed him to upload them, making them instantly available for viewing on the Internet.

An investigation into how Hawthorne obtained the pre-release DVDs is underway, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. 

                                                                                                         Source:Xinhua