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Late last month, the Hurt Locker’s producers filed a copyright infringement complaint against 5,000 people it accused of illegally downloading digital copies of the critically-acclaimed film using BitTorrent. In the complaint, the producers of the film informed the court that the defendants were only known to them by their IP addresses, and that they would amend the complaint to include true names of the downloaders at a later time.
The makers of Hurt Locker have now taken the first step toward identifying the alleged infringers by providing a list of 700 IP addresses to the court. The list also contains the names of their respective ISPs and the time when the infringement was recorded.
Time Warner customers don’t figure on the list as their ISP has chosen to excuse itself from what it considers a tedious process. As for the ISPs that do figure on the list, they will only be required to reveal the true identities of alleged offenders only if the court orders them to do so. And in the eventuality that it does, the downloaders will receive a $2500 settlement offer.
Image Credit: Hurt Locker
Comments are closed on this article
bautrey
June 11, 2010 at 2:30am
Isn't $2500 a bit much for one movie? But i suppose this lawsuit could be more like a scarefactor for pirators. I think he should have went after the distributors instead of the downloaders, they are the ones that supplied the movie so they should receive a much heavier punishment.
albe23
June 10, 2010 at 6:52am
I would really like to know how they are justifying $2500 per IP in"damages." I seriously doubt the $20 per IP wasted on buying this movie and/or the lawyer working for them is 1.25mil. Poor little producers didn't make it at the box office or in stores and are now trying to get their money how they see fit. Hooray for Time Warner telling them to go screw themselves.
"Force has no place where there is need of skill." - Herodotus (484 BC -
430 BC)
aviaggio
June 10, 2010 at 10:32am
It has nothing to do with justification. The amount of the extortion, um, I mean settlement, is based upon what they believe most people will pay to avoid being Jammied.
They really don't want to take people to court, they want them to settle. That's the only way they make money, which is the entire point of their extortion, errr, I mean copyright enforcement, scheme.
schmitty6633
June 10, 2010 at 9:33am
1 person downloading an illegal dvd rip will eventually share the file.
1 person shares to 10 people who share to 10 more people who share to 10 more people.
See how it works? One person seeding a dvd rip can eventually accumulate $1000s of dollars in damages.
tkid124
June 10, 2010 at 10:33am
We do not prosecute people for what they will do, unless you can prove they intended to. Really the courts are not to blame for this law being applied in a manner it was never meant to be. Congress has been just too busy for the past 5 years to realize that this law does not fit the idea of peer to peer networks. All of a sudden the people downloading the file are the host, and the hosts are the downloaders. This law was written for people who were helping others get around copyrights on a grand scale or to make a profit, not some mom downloading a movie or a kid getting the latest CD.
The law is out of date, period. Until it is up to speed, we will have these stupid settlements that have no basis in reality. Might I recommend a fine that would be fair might look something like the national average price of a movie ticket plus the MSRP of the content they downloaded on opening day plus $150 in legal fees for a settlement? If a defendant wants to take it to court then they can do so.Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I do not download copyright content that I do not own or have permission from the content creator to. (Ex Hulu, Pandora, free samples) I am in no way encouraging any individual to break the law, nor am I advocating that any reader take any actions that would limit the justice to either side of this or any court case. Individuals are responsible for their own actions, you choose to responded to this comment under your own free will, and free me from any resulting action. (AKA if you break the law don’t sue me, I’m broke.)
Mosher
June 10, 2010 at 2:56pm
Add to that the fact that no one person (other than the original up-loader) gives anything of real value to anyone. instead each of the tens or hundreds of seeder's passes around tiny bits of the content, like if you had a bucket of flour, and each of us took whatever stuck to his finger, you might loose the whole bucket, but who are you gonna blame?
This is obviously not a very moral approach, but laws, until changed, are just that, laws!
I see no way you can charge someone involved in a fraction of a single case of copyright infringement. meaning, we should see a case of Jon Doe downloaded x, he copied it from these 80 people, the loss to the content owner was $15, now everyone chip in. . .
Lummoxx
June 10, 2010 at 5:07am
While I don't support infringement, neither do I support these massive damage assessements levied against someone for downloading a file.
However, wouldn't a cheap, simple defense be to just go out, buy a copy, take it to court with you, and explain that you wanted a digital version to watch on your <insert portable device of choice>, but couldn't figure out how to rip it yourself, due to the copy protection, illegality of breaking the encryption, etc.?
Pball1224
June 10, 2010 at 8:32am
I think to even have a hope of that working you would need to provide a recipt showing that you purchased the DVD prior to the date/time of the download. But I also recall recently hearing that a court ruled in fovor of it being illegal simply to break the encryption even on a DVD you own.
I also do not support illegal online file sharing but I too think a settlement of $2,500 is a bit high. I could more easily understand $500, or at most maybe $1,000 to make these people an example. $2,500 just seems like greed more than a legitimate penalty.
omen3330
June 10, 2010 at 9:56am
It is not illegal to make copies of any digital media you own, however it is illegal to circumvent any DRM so saying you downloaded to try copy it would qualify as DRM circumvention.
