Slashdot Mirror
The Hurt Locker Producers Sue First 5,000 File-Sharers
Voltage Pictures, the production company behind 2008's Oscar-winning Iraq war film The Hurt Locker, today sued 5,000 people who illegally downloaded the movie over BitTorrent. Quoting CNET:
"Attorneys for Voltage wrote in the complaint that unless the court stops the people who pirate The Hurt Locker then Voltage will suffer 'great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money.' Voltage has asked the court to prevent those who downloaded the movie without paying for it from downloading its movies ever again, and order them to destroy all copies of The Hurt Locker from their computers and any other electronic devices they may have transferred the film to. As for monetary damages, the movie's producers want those found to have pilfered the movie to pay actual or statutory damages and cover the costs that went into filing the suits."
According to the complaint (PDF), the 5,000 infringers are known only by their IP addresses at this time.
We've been playing this game for over a decade now..
Are there already good alternatives for bittorrents?
The onion-based darknets seem to be empty because it hasn't been as necessary yet there hasn't been anything other then torrents it seems..?
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
I've been wondering about this since I first heard about what these guys are doing. Basically they are capturing your IP when you are in the swarm downloading "the.hurt.locker.2009[dvdsrc]" or whatever. But what would happen if people started renaming the files like "the.hurt.locker.[parody]" or "this.is.not.the.hurt.locker.movie" or whatever. Basically, you wouldn't know it was the actual "hurt locker" movie until after you downloaded the entire thing. Couldn't you then just say, "Yeah, I noticed it was the real movie right after it downloaded and I immediately deleted it." Not sure if that would hold up in court, but you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty... right?
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
What do you say? Is it worth downloading the BluRay version?
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4748387/The.Hurt.Locker.2008.720p.BluRay.x264-CiRCLE
Or just go with the DVD version?
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5421482/The_Hurt_Locker_(2008)_DVDRip_XviD-MAX
Well, I don't know what the alternative is.
I just don't like the idea of the justice system being subverted in such a way that a corporation can sue someone anonymously, and I don't like the idea of a family being destroyed financially because their kid downloaded a movie, when otherwise shoplifting the movie would be a petty theft charge.
I would rather see them out of business if this is the only way they can make money. I'm a model mpaa customer. I have over 200 bluray movies purchased, but they would still label me a criminal because I have taken (at considerable effort) the evil step of digitizing all my movies (ripped and encoded to my fileserver in mkv). I have a live copy, and a backup, and the physical copy sits in a closet. They have never been shared. If I lived in America, they would undoubtedly sue me if they discovered what I have done.
Allowing me to rip movies harms their business plan of reselling the same movie every format change.
Fuck them.
They're also suing for something at this point incomprehensible... a block that prevents the infringer from ever downloading their movies again. Good luck with that at the tech level.
I was not really impressed with the film. Sure it was a quality film with a solid message. I didn't feel it was worth an academy award. I'm sure I am not alone.
I guess some people can make the right decisions about making a good movie, but make all the wrong decisions about how to appeal to the audience for the next movie.
Irreparable harm is being done to their next movie. It'll be known as the movie made by those guys that sue their customers.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Even if you were telling the truth, you'd still be put in the real hurt locker by the legal costs. Innocence in a court of law isn't free.
Hell, I run a computer repair business. What's one of the first things these asshats would do? Confiscate every computer here, mine and my customers, to sit on a shelf somewhere until they get around to "examining" them. And in this rural area, my name would make the front page, "local business raided in connection with piracy!"
Hello bankruptcy.
is it illegal to torrent a copy if you purchased a copy and have no optical drives in which to play it?
just a though.
The main problem is that even court costs can be enough to destroy somebody's life. The odds are if you're downloading you're probably not among the wealthy elite in the world. They're probably more like me, in their 20's and only a few missed paychecks from being homeless. I simply don't think that a few hundred megabytes is worth the real human misery that you would cause. Legally they are in the right, but that doesn't make it right.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Seems to have worked pretty well for Lost, Heroes, Bones, and other television shows.
Who says? How many of the sued saw it in the theater and just wanted a copy on their HD? How many were, will be, or would have been paying customers of other movies of the same creators or studio?
I, for one, spend a lot of money on CDs. And yes, sometimes I'll also illegally (depending on jurisdiction) download stuff, because there is an upper limit to what I can afford to spend, and there is much more fantastic music around. Nobody gets hurt by this, because I would not have spent any more money anyway, The only effect of not downloading would be that I wouldn't have listened to this music. And I've often bought CDs after a download if I liked the stuff. So yes, it would be wise to consider me a customer or potential customer even if I haven't paid for a particular mp3. Suing me would be a damn stupid business move.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Illegal or not, you have just explained why the studio is making a huge mistake with these lawsuits. This behavior is making their products unattractive.
I was not really impressed with the film. Sure it was a quality film with a solid message. I didn't feel it was worth an academy award. I'm sure I am not alone
My comment about the film was, "Is there an Academy Award for 'Least Believable Main Character,' because I think Hurt Locker just won that one too."
It had potential to be good. The reviews were good. The film just isn't. When the two big directors up for Best Picture are the directors of Point Break and Rambo, the field is pretty weak.
I spend more money on movies (cinema and DVD/BD purchases) than I ever did before. I see a simple explanation: Hurt Locker made no money and investors need to blame someone. Hell, let's blame piracy. Surely the only possible reason since they received rave reviews. Marketing has absolutely nothing to do with it. I for one haven't seen any of the Oscar winning movies. Yet my initial statement stands true. Maybe people aren't into war movies where aliens are absent.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.