How a Virginia Law Firm Outpaces the MPAA at Suing Over Movie Downloads

Jamie points out this Ars Technica piece on a series of suits brought by the Virginia law firm of Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver against users they accuse of illegally downloading movies. The firm has an interesting business model in these suits; sue enough users in a DC Federal court to be worth splitting the sum of many small settlement offers (generally $1,500-2,500 apiece) with the filmmakers, rather than rely on winning after trial a small number of larger judgments. Most people settle, and Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver has so far named more than 14,000 "Does" — as in John Doe — including, as mentioned a few days ago, 5,000 who downloaded The Hurt Locker.

Comments

worth a read

[alain94040]

I found this on the topic: the actual settlement form. Read it all at http://www.copyrightsettlement.info/wfesettlement.pdf

Payment. You shall pay to the Company the total, lump sum of Two Thousand Five Dollars (US $2,500) by cashier’s check or credit card with no charge back or check cancellation.

Confidentiality. You agree that the terms of this Agreement shall remain STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL and MAY NOT be disclosed to any other party including but not limited to internet or on-line forums.

So don't go post this on slashdot or you'll owe this lawfirm $15,000!

--
The Founder Conference'2010

Re:worth a read

[eldavojohn]

So don't go post this on slashdot or you'll owe this lawfirm $15,000!

That's not true. If you post about this on Slashdot, you just cannot automatically opt for the settlement. You still have the option to fight this in a court of law if you feel that you are innocent and publicize that as much as you desire. Once you go public though, you cannot select that settlement option. Also I think the plaintiff would aim a court decision more between $150,000 or $1.5 million though from what we've seen with prior cases that go to court where the individual is found guilty.

Re:worth a read

[Captain Hook]

Surely the confidentiality agreement only comes into force once you have signed the contract? Especially since you had no previous relationship with the law firm and as such it would effectively be spam.

Re:worth a read

[91degrees]

Yes, but the offer is removed from the table as soon as you go public.

Re:worth a read

[Anonymous Coward]

"Two Thousand Five Dollars", isn't that $2,005 instead of $2,500?

(just my 500 cents)

Re:worth a read

[Pastis]

Basically pay us and shut up. That's really extortion.

Re:worth a read

[Kjella]

Also I think the plaintiff would aim a court decision more between $150,000 or $1.5 million though from what we've seen with prior cases that go to court where the individual is found guilty.

Not so sure about the court decision, but they'll almost certainly sue for the maximum of $150,000/work. Obviously they are going for a min-max strategy here and they want a lawsuit to look as unappealing as possible.

Re:worth a read

[VGPowerlord]

Also I think the plaintiff would aim a court decision more between $150,000 or $1.5 million though from what we've seen with prior cases that go to court where the individual is found guilty.

Not so sure about the court decision, but they'll almost certainly sue for the maximum of $150,000/work. Obviously they are going for a min-max strategy here and they want a lawsuit to look as unappealing as possible.

Not if they don't own the rights to the work or represent someone who does.

Re:worth a read

[Beardo the Bearded]

My lawyer would tell me that it's not worth bothering for less than $2500, so they've got a reasonable plan there.

It would take far more to fight that in court, even in Canada, where we've got that loser-pay system.

Re:worth a read

[Jedi Alec]

where the individual is found guilty.

Repeat after me: Civil suit. No guilty. No innocent. Just a finding in favor of either party where everybody loses but the lawyers.

Re:worth a read

[cdrudge]

Just a finding in favor of either party where everybody loses but the lawyers.

The movie studio received $0 prior to it being downloaded, so as long as the final legal bill is greater then $0 they make more then what they would have otherwise received. (This doesn't take into account negative press impacting future revenues though). The law firm makes money pretty much no matter what. Infringers don't win, but they brought it on themselves for downloading it. The only people that really lose are the mistaken identity people that didn't download but were accused of doing so.

Re:worth a read

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a thought. Find a law firm, put together a web-site, and announce that you are collecting plantiffs for anyone who feels "damaged" by purchasing some lousy media product - be it movie or music - I sure it could easily total into the millions. Then said law firm sends notices to each soon-to-be defendant media producer that says you harmed my client, please pay $2500 and sign this confidentiality agreement, otherwise we'll be forced to sue you in court for signficantly more damages.
Essentially the same thing these nitwits are doing but in reverse.
Sure, they can fight, but they'll find it more trouble and expense than its worth.
The problem is finding a law firm, or lawyer who has the balls and wants to make a name for themselves.

Re:worth a read

[multisync]

The "offtopic" mod is for the "signature" that isn't really a signature.

If you want to advertise in your signature, that's fine, but put it in the right place so that people who don't want to see it don't have to.

alain94040 (785132) is under no obligation to adhere to your definition of what constitutes a "signature." His formatting mimics that of the standard Slashdot signature. No reasonable person could mistake it for the content of his message.

Therefore, your Off Topic moderation was inappropriate. His comment was very much on topic.

You were just pissed off that you are unable to block his sig, and decided to penalize him for it. Well boo hoo; that's not what your mod points are for.

Posting anon so as not to remove the moderation.

Your attempted abuse of the moderation system was not successful. His comment's moderation summary after your anonymous post reads:

Moderation +3
100% Interesting

Next time, take him to task by posting a reply and risking an Off Topic mod yourself. Gutlessly moderating him Off Topic then posting an anonymous admonishment isn't exactly taking the high road.

Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[eldavojohn]

I submitted this same exact story referencing the same exact Slashdot article on the Hurt Locker this morning around 7am and it instantly went to being the lowest color any of my submissions have ever been at (jet black). So I was pretty sure I had done something wrong enough to attract the attention of an editor. When I submit stories I check for the story in firehose and by google searching Slashdot and this wasn't there. I didn't get the popup for duplicate URL submission either ... I guess Jamie or someone just really wanted to claim the scoop on this story. What's even more bizarre is that the summary seems to be misdirected at Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver when it's actually a larger set of plaintiffs composing the US Copyright Group. That's who is listed as behind the ~15,000 lawsuits. Oh well ...

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[denis-The-menace]

I don't bother submitting anything on /. b/c I *know* it's a waste of time.

Some users are favoured over all others.
This is the same for all blogs.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, I've posted several articles to slashdot before as well, and they either get ignored to resurface 2 weeks later by someone else, or never surface at all. The editors can lick my nuts.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[idontgno]

True. People complain about the Wiki editor cabal. The submitter cabal on /. is almost as bad, except that they can't get into a vicious edit war with you. Abusive moderation, perhaps.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[rickb928]

Quit yer whinin.

I've submitted stories and got rejected without explanation. Sort of like Internet dating, and for the same reasons.

I pretty much don't bother to submit unless it caught my eye and seemed out of the norm for /. (interesting, out of the mainstream, and understandable to a normal person, yeah I know, pine inthe sky). /. is not a democracy. Get used to it. I vote with my page views, so if you're offended out there in /. admin land, you can get over it too. Happy, Visiting, or Complaining. Any 2 of the three. Logic need not apply.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[somersault]

The journal I submitted got through (it was a question about PERL vs PHP for web development/security), that was my first one. I think I then posted my next journal as a story by mistake, but it got rejected anyway as it wasn't a question or story.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[LBDobbs]

The colors mean something?

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot sucks and the editors abuse their power? No!

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[Fippy Darkpaw]

Some wikipedia editors volunteered to help out over here.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[mcgrew]

It happens. maybe 25% of my submissions are accepted, but a lot of them are rejected and then accepted when somebody else submist the same story. Like moderators, sometimes the firehosers have their heads up their asses.

Don't sweat it. You get more accepted than I do!

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit yer whinin.

I've submitted stories and got rejected without explanation...

I pretty much don't bother to submit...

Yeah, this insightful post pretty much says it all. The slashdot submission is not designed to encourage good submissions, and it's not designed to encourage bad submissions. It really isn't designed at all, in the classical sense. It just exists. Users can't improve it, and the editors won't improve it.

There's no point in discussing it or even really thinking about it. If it works for you, use it. If it doesn't work, don't use it. The editors don't seem to care one way or the other.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[rickb928]

Huh? I think you posted even less content than I did. That's usually pretty easy, but I think you meant to be more relevant.

We have both failed.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try more hyperbole. The one article I got posted was a complete exaggeration. Other more reasonably researched and worded articles didn't make it. You basically have to troll the editors. I only come here for the discussions.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[drinkypoo]

I was about to go through my submissions and show which of the nine unaccepted stories (I've had one accepted) were picked up afterwards anyway with an inferior submission, I know there's more than a couple, but submissions only shows my last, latest, rejected submission. Is this just another thing that subscribers get? I'm still not about to PAY to be abused by bad moderation, but I am curious. I believe I've earned the ire of an editor before, one time I got a bunch of comments scored down to 1 from starting score 2 without any moderation appearing, while I was at or near the karma kap. I guess that could have just been some kind of bug though, we are talking about slashcode.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have fallen for the firm's misdirection! Dunlap Grubb and Weaver = the so-called "US Copyright Group". They are one and the same. The law firm created a fake name for themselves to make them appear to be a larger organization and to trick the public into thinking they are a government agency or a benevolent non-profit group rather than a profit-motivated suburban bankruptcy law firm, which is what they really are - see www.bankruptcyinva.com. Read a copy of the complaint itself and you'll see that the "US Copyright Group" is not listed anywhere. All the lawsuits are filed by Dunlap Grubb & Weaver.

Re:Bizarre Editor Abuse?

[DinDaddy]

I thought US Copyright Group basically were Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver?

Yeah....

[Pojut]

In the case of The Hurt Locker, when you stand to make almost as much money suing 5,000 people for "stealing" your movie as it did at the box office, maybe you should have made a better movie.

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up! Isn't it punishment enough to have watched The Hurt Locker?

Re:Yeah....

[darkmeridian]

Why do you equate commercial success with critical success? The Hurt Locker won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director. It was a good movie even if the masses did not really go out to watch it.

Re:Yeah....

[enilnomi]

You're gonna have to clue me in on the joke... I mean, if the cost of settling for those 5,000 Does is $2,000 each, then that's $10M to split between the producers and lawyers. Hurt Locker has racked up about $48M in worldwide box office so far (against a production cost of $15M). How is $10M "almost as much money" as $48M? (Not to mention the $28M from DVD and BD sales.)

And, let's see....9 Oscar nominations with 6 wins, including Best Picture and Best Director; about 100 awards from groups that like to hand out prizes; 97% on Rotten Tomatoes; the praise of two Iraq veterans with whom I watched it...yeah, it's a crappy film. Are you forgetting that it's lowest-box-office-ever-for-Best-Picture status in large part stems from its extreme shortage of prints?

And just because it's slashdot....what's up with putting "stealing" in quotes? Are you saying that if I'm offering my car for sale and someone drives it away without paying, that my car hasn't been stolen? And that the fault for that is mine, by virtue of it not being a very good car? Oh wait, I get it -- Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal should be selling T-shirts at every venue, since making money from your actual art is so passé...

Re:Yeah....

[Pojut]

You're gonna have to clue me in on the joke... I mean, if the cost of settling for those 5,000 Does is $2,000 each, then that's $10M to split between the producers and lawyers. Hurt Locker has racked up about $48M in worldwide box office so far (against a production cost of $15M). How is $10M "almost as much money" as $48M? (Not to mention the $28M from DVD and BD sales.)

You're right, it isn't.

And, let's see....9 Oscar nominations with 6 wins, including Best Picture and Best Director; about 100 awards from groups that like to hand out prizes; 97% on Rotten Tomatoes; the praise of two Iraq veterans with whom I watched it...yeah, it's a crappy film. Are you forgetting that it's lowest-box-office-ever-for-Best-Picture status in large part stems from its extreme shortage of prints?

I never once said it was crappy. I personally liked it...not enough for a best picture, but I liked it. Apparently, a LOT of other people didn't. Hence my post.

And just because it's slashdot....what's up with putting "stealing" in quotes? Are you saying that if I'm offering my car for sale and someone drives it away without paying, that my car hasn't been stolen?

You would no longer have access to your car, hence it would have been stolen. If someone took a copy of the DVD from a Virgin Megastore, that would be stealing, as it would prevent another person from having that same DVD.

Downloading a movie isn't stealing, as it isn't restricting your ability to obtain those exact same zeros and ones. It's illegal and immoral, but it isn't stealing.

Re:Yeah....

[zerospeaks]

I downloaded it off bittorrent. I thought it was a pretty good movie! Not good enough to see in theaters though.

Re:Yeah....

[superdave80]

"...in large part stems from its extreme shortage of prints?" ...and they are now suing people for making copies? Now THAT'S funny!

Re:Yeah....

[Pojut]

I caught it one night on-demand while spending a night at a friend's house. I actually kinda wish I had seen it in theaters...it seems like one of those movies where the large screen size is required for some of the impact.

Avatar actually suffers from this same fate...we have a pretty decent 42" flatscreen, but it wasn't nearly as engaging at home as it was on the big screen.

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully, the law disagrees with you, therefore making you an idiot.

Re:Yeah....

[zerospeaks]

but the money, and the crowd, and the crying babies, and the black people talking, and the people munching on popcorn.... No thanks. It has to be something really special! Then I go to IMAX. Like IronMan two or Transformers 2 (which I was disappointed), hell I even went to see Terminator Salvation, what a waste of time! and movies like that is exactly why I don't go run to the theaters every weekend.

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

It is STEALING. Look in the dictionary. A couple of the definitions fit.

If you want to redefine words to fit your own semantic needs, fine. But you don't need to be so darn pushy about it.

(Haha I just stole your words, MarkvW)

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

Industry accounting will verify that this movie a black-hole monetarily. Thus the need to sue individual p2p'ers for unauthorized replication and distribution.

If I was an offender on the Jon Doe list, I'd offer them the price of the local movie theatre ticket + $20. Anything more than that, and I want technical analysis from MAC identification through source code verification of their identification techniques. And raking everyone in the chain of said evidence through strict scrutiny and lambasting.

Re:Yeah....

[Pojut]

That's why you wait until it has been out for a few weeks:-)

Some movies, however, are made better by seeing them with a large audience. A couple of examples:

The South Park movie. I saw that shit in a theater so packed people were overflowing into the aisles (yes it was opening night, and yes people snuck in). That was one of the best moviegoing experiences of my life...every single person in that audience were huge South Park fans, and every single person was way into it. It was kind of like going to a Rocky Horror Picture Show viewing, except no one knew what was coming.

Another example: The Grudge. I went with a friend to see it in theaters on opening night, and there was the absolute PERFECT crowd for this movie. Upon later viewing at home, we realized how lame and horrible it was, but dude, I swear to you: that night, seeing that movie, in that theater, with that crowd, it was somehow the scariest moviegoing experience in my life. People were screaming, grown men were crying...I don't know if we got a theater full of people on shrooms or what, but for some reason, for that hour and forty five minutes or so, that theater was positively TERRIFIED of what was happening on screen. It was simultaneously really weird, slightly emotionally damaging, and an amazing experience.

One last example: The Dark Knight. My fiancee and I saw it at an IMAX, and the crowd was almost entirely teenagers. "Great", we thought. "These fuckers are going to talk throughout the whole thing". The instant the movie started, the entire theater fell silent. No one made a single solitary sound the entire time. As the credits started to roll, the whole theater sat in stunned silence for a few seconds...and then erupted in thunderous applause. The entire time the movie was playing, it was like the theater had vanished, everyone in it had merged together, and we all had the EXACT SAME experience for two and a half hours.

I've had similar experiences at the movies. It's all about the audience...the audience makes or breaks it.

Re:Yeah....

[ArsonSmith]

what's up with putting "stealing" in quotes? Are you saying that if I'm offering my car for sale and someone drives it away without paying, that my car hasn't been stolen? And that the fault for that is mine, by virtue of it not being a very good car?

wrong analogy, if they took a picture of your car and went home and built an identical car to yours, would that be a problem? Funny thing about that, in social circles I've seen people get honestly mad when they get a new car and someone they know goes and gets the same car.

Re:Yeah....

[mandelbr0t]

I decided it wasn't even worth the download...

Re:Yeah....

[mcgrew]

what's up with putting "stealing" in quotes? Are you saying that if I'm offering my car for sale and someone drives it away without paying, that my car hasn't been stolen?

You answered your own question. If someone makes a copy of your car and drives off with the copy, you still have your car and it hasn't been stolen. Calling copyright infringement "theft" is a lie.

Re:Yeah....

[geminidomino]

(Haha I just stole your words, MarkvW)

Give them back. They might be contagious.

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

But it only won those awards because everyone wanted to piss off Cameron by voting for his ex-wife.

Re:Yeah....

[AK Marc]

Then why not call it rape? "Did you rape the new movie." "Yeah, I like raping movies, it's fun."

If you want to call it stealing and say the dictionary agrees with you, at least name the dictionary you are looking in. There are hundreds, and the one I have handy has no definition that fits. They all require appropriation (exclusive possession), and that's never the case with copying. There is no definition of "theft" or "stealing" in a legal sense that includes illegal copying. And all the dictionaries I have to check at the moment also would exclude illegal copying from either of those two words. So put up or shut up. Miriam-Webster thinks you are a liar. Prove them wrong with an actual reference.

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

Racist asshole.

Re:Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

it may be racist but that doesn't mean it isn't true. I've been to plenty of movies in predominantly black areas and for some reason there is a lot of talking on the screen. "Oh girl watch out, he's gonna stab you in the back!" and shit like that, My business partner is a black guy from SC LA and we've discussed this at length.

Re:Yeah....

[DinDaddy]

But then their whole "you wouldn't rape a DVD from a store, would you?" educational campaign would sound funny.

Re:Yeah....

[Hurricane78]

It's illegal and immoral, but it isn't stealing.

So... how does it feel, being brainwashed by the **AA?
It’s not immoral. THEY are immoral. They created a business model based on an imaginary world where information is a physical good and you can use business models for physical goods for information. And it exploded in their faces.
So they bought the law, which is the only reason it is illegal.
Now they are extorting thousands of people so they can keep up their perverse delusional model, and you dare to support them?

The whole concept of selling information that you already sold, is completely fucked up. When it’s passed on, control is gone. Period. They should have asked for what they wanted for it when they first passed it on. Now it’s too late. Cry me a river. Boo-hoo. ...fuckin’ Idiots.

You statement is like saying that it’s illegal and immoral to obey gravity, by falling, but at least it isn’t stealing.
Because someone decided to sell the act of falling, and bought a law that gives him exclusive rights to pass on that right.
What’s next? It being illegal to sing a children’s song for your kids? Oh wait, they already thought of that.

Man, you do not deserve to be a citizen of any non-evil country. Especially not mine.

So In Essence

[Barrinmw]

Don't download Indie movies anymore. I am sure word of mouth will still spread on how great those movies are...right?

Re:So In Essence

[Pojut]

Interesting, isn't it? Here, you have some indie film makers suing downloaders...and yet, many other indie film makers rely on downloaders to get the word out about their work. Other than Hurt Locker, I sure as hell never heard of the other movies.

I guess that's the difference between an artist and a professional?

Re:So In Essence

[0100010001010011]

Some directors have thanked pirates.

I would have never heard of the Man from Earth if it didn't show up in an RSS feed.

Ink is another more recent movie.

Games too

Re:So In Essence

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they suing downloaders or uploaders? The story says downloaders, you say downloaders and nobody appears to dispute that. It is my understanding that downloading can not be proven, except by offering the upload, but then the data is downloaded from someone who has permission to distribute and downloading that isn't illegal. Aren't we really talking about uploads here, i.e. when P2P programs also offer the downloaded data back to others?

Re:So In Essence

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious too, since I'm a horrible person with a special client that does not upload to other peers

Re:So In Essence

[thijsh]

Probably, but the distinction is almost gone with P2P. Since every uploader is also a downloader except the original torrent seeder...

Re:So In Essence

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, isn't it? Here, you have some indie film makers suing downloaders...and yet, many other indie film makers rely on downloaders to get the word out about their work. Other than Hurt Locker, I sure as hell never heard of the other movies.

I guess that's the difference between an artist and a professional?

I think that would be a good thing, kill the pretentious Indie film makers because the word doesn't get out.

So don't download or watch Indie films; its probably not worth your time anyway.

Re:So In Essence

[Lythrdskynrd]

Come on! It's pretty obvious from the description alone that The Steam Experiment didn't need your help.

The Steam Experiment, 2,000 Does. A few days later, yet another suit hit the DC District Court. Production company West Bay One sued an even 2,000 Does over its film The Steam Experiment, also known as The Chaos Experiment. The film stars Val Kilmer. According to the Internet Movie Database plot summary, "A deranged scientist locks 6 people in a steam room and threatens to turn up the heat if the local paper doesn't publish his story about global warming."

in all seriousness though, I've read a lot about indie film finance and if they can earn 1/3 of $1.5 Million, that covers the cost of making the movie. Pretty much a no-brainer; much like "The Steam Experiment".

Re:So In Essence

[Anonymous Coward]

every uploader is also a downloader

What if you don't upload?

Re:So In Essence

[Mad Leper]

P2P is a distribution system, and the DVD's in question have a quite prominent warning that they are not to be distributed or performed without permission by the copyright holders.

So anyone using P2P to "download" their movies becomes a distributor and places themselves directly in sights of the MPAA/RIAA. The pirate community has a hard time understanding the difference between "downloading" and "distributing", so any discussion of legality or lawsuits is always defined (wrongly) as an attack on downloaders.

Re:So In Essence

[Idiomatick]

They can do both.... spreads the word with the case too, in fact I should go dl it now.

Seriously...

[whisper_jeff]

Seriously, when is something going to be done about these guys? Their business model is built on "it costs more in legal fees for people to fight these accusations than to settle with us out of court so they'll just pay up" which, really, amounts to extortion. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how they are being allowed to get away with this shit. In a sane, logical world, somebody (the feds, the bar, whomever) would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Sadly, I don't think we live in a sane world any more...

At this point, I think I'm just holding out hope that a competing law firm will think things through and decide they can make money by suing these vulture law firms for harassment and whatever else they can drum up. After all, if those firms can make money just suing at random, surely another law firm can also make money counter-suing, right? Well, where is our white knight law firm who's eager to make a name for themselves? If the feds won't put a stop to it, maybe a last-to-sue war between legal firms can put a stop to it.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, when is something going to be done about these guys? Their business model is built on "it costs more in legal fees for people to fight these accusations than to settle with us out of court so they'll just pay up" which, really, amounts to extortion. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how they are being allowed to get away with this shit.

They don't, in other countries.

Switch country. The grass IS greener - really.

Re:Seriously...

[kevinNCSU]

Well, the main kink is that the defendants know they can't take them to court, win, and then sue them to recover court costs because the defendants (whether you agree with copyright law or not)know they committed an illegal act.

So it's really more a problem of whether the law should be the way it is then lawyers extorting people. If it's OK to get big companies to settle by threatening to take them to court when they've done something wrong it makes sense that it should work the other way around. The only reason people see this as extortion right now is that they don't agree with the law itself.

Re:Seriously...

[Hatta]

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how they are being allowed to get away with this shit.

Because our justice system is wholly subservient to business interests. It's not that hard to understand.

In a sane, logical world, somebody (the feds, the bar, whomever) would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Sadly, I don't think we live in a sane world any more...

Is this really what tipped you off? Were the hundreds of thousands of pot smokers in jail not enough?

Re:Seriously...

[91degrees]

One factor is that most of the accused have actually committed copyright infringement. So even if they did defend themselves, they'd lose.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that the issue here is that there is often next to no proof of these alleged acts actually occurring. If the charges are spurious, the average citizen still will not have the adequate funds to defend themselves from the claim.

In that case, the "settlement offer" may be their only option, regardless of their innocence.

Re:Seriously...

[hedwards]

Admittedly, this doesn't apply to this, but here under state law the plaintiff has to demonstrate damages to collect anything. Which means that they'd have to prove that they're entitled to the money in order to win. So the most that you'd be out would be court costs, attorneys fees plus whatever the cost of the actual damages was. Because the cost of the damages is unlikely to exceed the threshold, they'd be more or less stuck arguing things in small claims court. Which also means no attorneys either.

Which is the way that it should be, but by the same token, that's state rather than federal. Sort of ironic that it's far more appropriate for handling these sorts of things rather than the Federal courts which seem to have been high jacked by corporatist misanthropes looking to more or less convict whenever possible.

Re:Seriously...

[Shakrai]

Because our justice system is wholly subservient to business interests. It's not that hard to understand.

No, our justice system is wholly subservient to lawyers. It's just as common for individuals to exploit the system in the manner described by the GP as it is for businesses. The fact that it costs less to settle than to fight a lawsuit is leveraged by all manner of legal practices that have nothing to do with "business interests". In fact, some of them are directly opposed to "business interests", like the ambulance chaser that my insurance company settled with even though the accident was not my fault.

Re:Seriously...

[Hatta]

Yeah, and who hires the lawyers? The bigger the business, the more lawyers you can afford, and the more you can pervert the justice system.

Re:Seriously...

[jeffmeden]

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how they are being allowed to get away with this shit.

Because our justice system is wholly subservient to business interests. It's not that hard to understand.

In a sane, logical world, somebody (the feds, the bar, whomever) would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Sadly, I don't think we live in a sane world any more...

Is this really what tipped you off? Were the hundreds of thousands of pot smokers in jail not enough?

And here we are, at the real reason none of this will move forward. Instead of making substantive claims why this activity is illegal or unconstitutional, it gets dragged toward another, completely unrelated debate where it is sure to die a slow death. Good job! Next time, if you want to actually make a point instead of rubbing salt in the wound, leave the pot alone!

Re:Seriously...

[thijsh]

How is this different from any other revolutionary business model success stories??? It always involves the consumers getting raped in some questionable way. Everyone always wonders why the hell it is possible that the business method is even legally possible, until the law is changed to account for this new method, and they see it as a challenge to stretch that law to the limits. Rinse and repeat.

The fact that the government does not protect it's citizens in this case (even after some years of exploiting this 'business model') only tells us something about the lobby (or in layman terms: big fucking bribes) of the media industry. Don't trust your government to protect you automagically, it will only happen if you demand it, and the only way to put some leverage behind your demands is with your vote (and votes of others around you). Please educate people of the possibility of voting a party who is looking out for the consumers and the artists alike (like the well known Pirate Party).

Re:Seriously...

[Shakrai]

You need to climb off your horse and realize that not every ill in this country can be blamed on business.

I got sued by someone who rear-ended me at a stop light. There is no conceivable way that accident can be attributed to my negligence. My insurance company settled with the asshole for $12,000 and then raised my rates. Their reason? It's cheaper to settle than to fight the lawsuit. The person who sued me was an individual who perverted the justice system. It had nothing to do with business.

Re:Seriously...

[Pastis]

Can't the people sued make a class action suit ?

Re:Seriously...

[Hatta]

I don't think it is completely unrelated. Marijuana prohibition began at the behest of the paper industry, and continues today because of the alcohol, pharmaceutical, and prison industries. If we're talking about the perversion of the justice system by business interests, it's worth pointing out that copyright abuses are the tip of the iceberg. As Americans we have to understand that we have an extremely serious problem with corruption that goes back for decades, if not centuries.

Re:Seriously...

[_EternaL_]

I don't know... this may be a novel concept, but... I'm guessing that if you don't break the law... you wont get taken to court. I mean, I'm not trying to judge anyone here myself. I'm not going to say I've never downloaded anything that might be questionable. What I am saying, is that when you take a risk, there are consequences. Is what they are doing, exploitation? Sure. How and why can they get away with it? Because you broke the law. It's really simple. If you don't agree with the law, get it changed. See if you can get the law to justify certain forms of theft. Or convince movie studios to charge less and put out better movies. Of course, the only way to do that is to hit them in the pocketbook which means not BUYING their movies, and downloading them for free instead. Catch 22 really. Just stop making it someone else's problem when you are being extorted because you've broken the law. It's called "Personal Responsibility".

That being said, I think I am going to go download the hurt locker now. Along with a couple other movies. And some porn. I hope I don't get sued!

Re:Seriously...

[jeffmeden]

As Americans we have to understand that we have an extremely serious problem with corruption that goes back for decades, if not centuries.

Nail, meet head. Can you really call it corruption if it's been going on *the whole time*???

You can't "correct" something that has always been the way it is. You need an approach other than "it should have always been legal" because no one attaches to that, even if they may agree with you. Slow and steady change that can't be refuted is the way to go. Look at gambling. Once a completely taboo business in any but two of the 50 states, it's now got a brick and mortar presence in half of the states in the US. How? Nice, slow change marked by appealing to the common good while mitigating the downsides. State lotteries, Horse and dog racing, Video poker. Before you know it, the problems have been solved (with respect to getting citizens to buy off on it) and it's open season.

How not to get your issue pushed forward?

"Pot should be legal 'cause, like, 'legalize it!' man. peace."

The same thing goes for these copyright cases. If the argument is self referential, you won't win; plain and simple.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's OK because kevinNCSU assumes everyone is guilty?

Re:Seriously...

[cdrguru]

The problem is that most people under 30 or so do not see "copyright infringement" as any sort of law worth paying attention to. In first grade the teacher was downloading software without paying for it and pretty much every day in school the same lesson was reinforced, day after day.

Sure, it is illegal and you can be sued. You can also get a ticket for speeding but this has no effect whatsoever on half (or more) of the drivers on the road today. There is no respect for the content owners, whoever they are - it is assumed that it some fat old white guy with plenty of money that doesn't really need the extra profit of one more sale.

Re:Seriously...

[PRMan]

You've changed insurance companies, right? I do know that 21st Century fights rather than pays. So that's who I picked after a similar thing happened to me.

Re:Seriously...

[Hatta]

If you need to be convinced that marijuana prohibition is wrong, or that this type of copyright barratry is wrong, then I wasn't really addressing you. I wasn't trying to argue that these things are wrong, I was trying to address why these evils occur in our society. At this point, with this audience, I don't really need to argue that this is wrong. There are only a few people here who would disagree, and they're too far gone to reason with. I've had that discussion often enough.

Re:Seriously...

[cgenman]

If you get caught stealing a DVD from a store in Los Angeles, you'll be hit with up to a $400 fine. If you are a repeat offender, you may get up to 6 months in jail.

If you get caught downloading a DVD in Los Angeles, you'll be hit with $150,000 damages, an additional $100,000 fine, and legal fees (let's say 50k). Oh, and up to 1 year in jail, if pursued.

$400 for stealing a DVD, or $300,000 dollars for copying it. I think right there you have your problem.

Re:Seriously...

[camperdave]

You're forgetting about that pesky "innocent until proven guilty" clause. It is up to the accuser to prove the defendant guilty. The defendant can just sit there with his feet on the table and a dumb look on his face.

Re:Seriously...

[Shakrai]

That was with Esurance and I bailed on them a long time ago for this and other reasons. One of my favorite stunts they pulled was to change their billing date from 15 days before the policy renewed to 45 days prior without telling me. They sucked $800 out of my checking account on the basis of this change and my rent check bounced as a result. They refused to make it right until I got the NYS Insurance Department involved.

Now I'm with a smaller company. Not sure how they would have handled the lawsuit but I do know they didn't surcharge me because of the not-at-fault accident. They were also $100/yr cheaper than Esurance for four times as much liability coverage ($250,000/$500,000 split limit vs $1,000,000 combined single limit)

Re:Seriously...

[Hatta]

If the lawyers are in charge, why don't we pass a law requiring insurance companies to fight it out in court? Certainly that would benefit the lawyers by making more work for them fighting the original offense *and* make more work for them suing companies that fail in their duty to protect their customers. Such a law should be easy to pass, since lawyers control the legal system, and this law would *never* be blocked by lawmakers who finance their campaigns with donations from the industries that would be burdened under such a system. Right?

Re:Seriously...

[Kjella]

Seriously, when is something going to be done about these guys? Their business model is built on "it costs more in legal fees for people to fight these accusations than to settle with us out of court so they'll just pay up" which, really, amounts to extortion.

So if you feel for good reason you have been wronged for $x, but a full trial would cost $y where $y >> $x, what would you do:
a) Eat the loss because it'd be extortion to pursue it in court
b) Offer to settle for what you think you might get in court
c) Insist on a trial even though the only ones winning are the lawyers

Imagine the neighbor's kids kicked a ball through your living room window, pure accident and all civil liability. Only by the most absurd logic would you not demand that he pay because if he decides to fight in court then the cost of fighting the accusations costs more than replacing the window. You could of course sue and refuse to settle it out of court, but what sense would that make? And least sense of all would just paying it yourself and let the neighborhood kids know they can break as many windows as they like be.

Re:Seriously...

[Shakrai]

There's just no getting through to you, is there?

Re:Seriously...

[Hatta]

I feel the same way about you.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, when is something going to be done about these guys?
When there's a revolution of some sort, in which people start murdering the execs or lawyers of these companies.

Thus, it'll never happen in today's complacant society. We're expendable commodities, and companies have discovered it's faster and more certain to get money from us by suing us, than blindly hoping we'll buy their crap.

Re:Seriously...

[91degrees]

The degree of proof is a lot lower in civil cases though. You just need to show that it's more likely than not that the defendant did infringe. An IP address that was allocated to that person was sharing that particular file, and that person's computer had a copy of the movie on it.

Re:Seriously...

[Shakrai]

We've had our share of disagreements but I've never regarded you as a fool until now. You claim that our justice system is wholly subservient to "business interests" but ignore the numerous cases of the justice system being wielded in a manner that's hostile to those same interests.

Re:Seriously...

[BoberFett]

If they sue enough people, they'll eventually sue someone who's not right in the head, and this person will take care of the problem permanently. We can hope anyway.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

I often wonder what the, "zomg businesses is teh EVIL" crowd makes of the many, many cases of individuals suing companies, large and small, often for no reason. I frequently witness these people winning or settling out of court for ridiculously huge sums of money. I guess it's too abstract, so nobody cries for a business that goes under because they had to settle with some asshat that sprained their ankle... or considers the absurd sums of money a business has to spend on insurance to protect themselves from crap like that.

Re:Seriously...

[Jedi Alec]

For the love of all that is holy, just how fucking hard is this to understand?

CIVIL suit. No innocent, no guilty, no presumption of either. There is no threshold of reasonable doubt in a US civil lawsuit.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

My insurance company settled with the asshole for $12,000

So, your insurance company decided it was a better business decision to pay the asshole rather than protect your interests. And from that, you conclude that it has nothing to do with business?

Re:Seriously...

[Shakrai]

I conclude that business does not have a monopoly on perverting the justice system, as falsely claimed by Hatta.

Next time learn to read before opening your mouth.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Cowpat]

then you offer to settle for what you think you might get in court (i.e the cost of a window). The equivalent here would be to offer to settle for $2500, and if you don't get it, to sue for $2500. But they'll likely sue for millions, or at least 100s of thousands. Of course, if you sued for $2500 for a $100 window, you wouldn't get $2500 either.

Re:Seriously...

[ImABanker]

IANAL, but couldn't each of these individuals file a discovery motion that would be easy to put together but a complete pain for the lawyers to comply with? Surely each individual could find a way to generate 10-20 hours worth of work for those attorneys, at ~$350 per hour? That approach might make it uneconomical to pursue this behavior.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

because your insurance company is a business that got right down off it's high horse and fucked you in the ass. Your logic is flawed. You want to blame it on the person who rear-ended you (as you are right to), but the business also failed.

Re:Seriously...

[pcfixup4ua]

A funny thing is, that if when our "Justice" system decides to pursue criminal actions against down loaders, It will fill up the prisons more effectively than the war on drugs did.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

And get this... it turns out that lawyers are genuinely surprised to hear they're generally considered the vampires of society.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

SO? The BUSINESS settled instead of holding out for justice. It was in the BUSINESSES best interests to settle.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if they don't want to have the option of settling....

And even then: do you REALLY want to be a part of a class action suit against a large law firm? When it opens you up to a countersuit that could be quite punitive?

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to climb off your horse and realize that not every ill in this country can be blamed on business.

I got sued by someone who rear-ended me at a stop light. There is no conceivable way that accident can be attributed to my negligence. My insurance company settled with the asshole for $12,000 and then raised my rates. Their reason? It's cheaper to settle than to fight the lawsuit. The person who sued me was an individual who perverted the justice system. It had nothing to do with business.

Some of us are fortunate to live in countries were the Law as written puts the responsibility of rear end collisions entirely on the car at the rear, no exemptions.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is that easy, sue your insurance company over this and get a settlement too.

They need to feel that settling at their customers expense (loss of good name, higher rates) is just as expensive, preferably even more expensive, than standing up for their customer.

Re:Seriously...

[Mad Leper]

No one has ever been forced to pay those damages for downloading, only for distributing.

Steal a DVD and pay a $400 fine, duplicate a DVD illegaly and give it away for free outside the store and yeah, your going to pay damages big time.

Download a DVD without uploading, no harm no foul.

Re:Seriously...

[kevinNCSU]

I think your probably just trolling but I'll bite. No, I'm saying it's OK because if the company truly doesn't have the evidence to win the cases then they are taking the risk of being actually taken to court, losing and being countered sued for court costs and filing frivolous lawsuits the punishments for which could range from monetary payments to disbarment.

I am also making the claim that I personally believe most people, or so far the IP Addresses, in this case probably did in fact commit the act they are being accused of and that is why we likely won't see this happen.

Re:Seriously...

[Hatta]

Fair enough, not every business can afford to buy protection from the government. What I don't understand how you can claim that it's the lawyers that are running the system, when deregulation has been the driving political force for at least 30 years. Obviously more regulation leads to more demand for lawyers to write the regulations, to vet the legality of an action before doing it, and to prosecute and defend when the regulations are broken. Not every evil can be blamed on businesses, but I see a lot more evil being done by out of control businesses than out of control lawyers.

Re:Seriously...

[illumin8]

At this point, I think I'm just holding out hope that a competing law firm will think things through and decide they can make money by suing these vulture law firms for harassment and whatever else they can drum up.

I'm actually hoping some class action attorneys get in on this and start representing the 5,000 people sued as a class. I'd like to also see them add in additional damages - emotional pain and suffering inflicted on the people being extorted.

When two law firms fight each other, everybody wins!

Re:Seriously...

[mcgrew]

In a sane, logical world

This is Earth. As far as we know, a sane, logical world doesn't exist.

Re:Seriously...

[mcgrew]

You should have hired your own lawyer, and you should get a new insurance company.

Unless your brake lights weren't working, or if your lights weren't on when they should have been, or if you were in neutral (stick shift) without your foot on the brake, or you were intoxicated. In any of those cases it WAS your fault.

Of course every ill of the country can't be blamed on business; business isn't responsible when someone burglarizes your house. But it is responsible for a great many of society's ills, including most litigation.

Re:Seriously...

[nanoakron]

Uhhh....how is being rear-ended EVER the fault of the person in front? Here in the UK we have a clear law of 'driving without due care and attention' - surely the US must have the same?

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of the BSA? Their entire business model is suing companies and keeping the money for themselves, they don't even pay a portion of the collected money to the software companies that were infringed upon!!!

Re:Seriously...

[Idiomatick]

Politicians also grabbed onto it to get votes from racist white folks. Saying that black people + pot = rape and a bunch of other nonsense. At that point not banning pot would be like being 'soft on crime'.

Re:Seriously...

[cgenman]

IANAL, but I believe that's Canada you're thinking of. And the "downloading is fine" claim seems to have been elevated to myth. Like Myth, I'd love to see something factual to back it up.

In the US, you have both reproduction and distribution rights. If you download a DVD, you're infringing reproduction rights. If you make a DVD available to other people (even if no actual infringement can be shown to occur) it has been argued that infringes distribution rights. Considering that filesharing can't happen without sharing, that seems like a moot point. How is this example, then. Giving a friend a mix tape of 24 songs is actually not punishable in the US, but filesharing 24 songs has resulted in an actual final ruling of 54,000 dollars, which was reduced from 1.9 million. In that last case, there was no evidence that anyone actually downloaded songs from her.

Either way, my point still stands: what makes this sort of atrocious ambulance-chasing possible is the ridiculously disproportionate penalties associated with copyright infringement. Make the penalties in line with the actual crime, and the enforcement will (as it should) fall back towards punative rather than profitable ends.

Re:Seriously...

[quadrox]

slavery was around forever, before it got stoppeed. Are you seriously trying to say that bad things that have been going on forever should not be stopped because they have been around forever?

Or are you just saying that you wouldn't call it corruption, but that it still should be fought?

If the former, you're crazy, if the latter, you kinda missed the point and started arguing semantics.

Re:Seriously...

[drinkypoo]

Seriously, when is something going to be done about these guys?

Stop consuming their media. That's "something". I agree that the penalties for copyright infringement are ridiculous. I do not agree that the solution is to continue consuming the media, thus increasing its cachet even when you are not paying for the right. This is the only thing that can be done to challenge the hold of big media, short of taking up arms.

In a sane, logical world, somebody (the feds, the bar, whomever) would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Sadly, I don't think we live in a sane world any more...

In a sane, logical world, people would be citizens rather than passive consumers. The masses like the abuse, and are paying for more.

After all, if those firms can make money just suing at random, surely another law firm can also make money counter-suing, right? Well, where is our white knight law firm who's eager to make a name for themselves? If the feds won't put a stop to it, maybe a last-to-sue war between legal firms can put a stop to it.

In theory, anybody can prosecute anybody for anything. In practice, without the blessing of the courts, you are not going to succeed. Our legal system hates competition even when it's helpful. Just TRY prosecuting a case yourself. Or see how executing a citizen's arrest goes for you, if you're not at least an on-duty security guard. The courts have repeatedly been shown to be under the influence of numerous organizations with fat stacks of cash. It's the golden rule all over again.

Re:Seriously...

[mcgrew]

Yes, in almost all cases the car that gets rear ended is not at fault, which is why I suggested that he get his own lawyer and a different insurance company. But in Illinois at least, if you commit any legal infraction you're "at fault" even when you're clearly not truly at fault.

Re:Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa whoa whoa. The litigant has a list of IP addresses. That's all we know. They claim that people who used those addresses at one time, downloaded the movie. That's it.

If a number you frequently use happens to be on that list, you're fucked, and it doesn't matter whether or not you ever actually downloaded the movie. If you didn't do it, then your statement of "the defendants .. know they committed an illegal act," just doesn't apply, and yet the defendant is every bit just as fucked.

So the law here -- the law that people disagree with -- isn't copyright law. It's that extortion itself is legalized. Copyright law is a whole other subject.

S2S

[retardpicnic]

It seems as though they have found that splitting the file, whoops, lawsuit up into many pieces that can be individually downloaded, whoops dealt with in no particular order is a more efficient protocol, whoops, business model. What will they think of next?!

Re:S2S

[denis-The-menace]

AKA the Sue-torrent business model:
Sue a bunch of people for small amounts w/o courts to collect a total higher than they would get by suing ONE person for large amounts in courts.

Reminds me of a scam were crooks were fake sending invoices to small companies for printer/copier toner cartridges that were never sent and demand payment. The scam worked because it was cheaper to pay the invoice(s) than paying a lawyer to go after them.

Re:S2S

[hedwards]

I do wonder if this sort of reverse class action suit is even legal. I don't think that a law firm ought to be able to bundle that many defendants together without having to at least demonstrate that there's a link between them other than allegedly infringing upon the same material.

Re:S2S

[langelgjm]

Reminds me of a scam were crooks were fake sending invoices to small companies for printer/copier toner cartridges that were never sent and demand payment. The scam worked because it was cheaper to pay the invoice(s) than paying a lawyer to go after them.

Why would you bother to do either? If it's truly a scam, are the crooks really going to hire a collection agency to harass you? They're not going to be able to put a black mark on your credit report, either.

I had a disaster of a DSL installation by AT&T about two years ago. Apparently the salesperson shouldn't have even offered my service in my area, but they did. Three technician visits and about three weeks later, I had had functioning service for a total of about 72 hours. I called and canceled, and sent my modem back in a prepaid box that it had come with.

A few weeks later, I got a bill for an entire month's service, plus a bill for the modem - they claimed I had never returned it. It ended up being something like $90. I called them up, essentially told them to go screw themselves, that I would pay for three days of prorated service since that was what I had used, and that they should send me a new bill with the correct total. I never heard from them again, and I certainly never paid them the $90 they falsely claimed I owed them.

Re:S2S

[Carthag]

That's not how the scam works. They just work under the assumption that once a business reaches a certain size, the board/owners/whoever doesn't sign off on every single thing anymore. So some invoice for 100 dollars or whatever, a secretary or somebody is authorized to pay it. And if it looks legit enough it might get paid without a second thought. So if you send out small invoices to thousands of companies and say 200 end up paying, that's a pretty decent ROI.

Usually it's about something like being listed on some webpage or in some pamphlet so they can say they actually provided a service, though.

Re:S2S

[tompaulco]

Reminds me of a scam were crooks were fake sending invoices to small companies for printer/copier toner cartridges that were never sent and demand payment. The scam worked because it was cheaper to pay the invoice(s) than paying a lawyer to go after them.
I had a company actually send me some supplies unsolicited and then demand payment. We had just gotten a new credit card machine at our business, and I guess this fly-by-night company bought a list of people who had bought the credit card machine, and they called our business and talked to our receptionist. They asked if we had such-and-such model credit card machine, and she said yes. They said they were going to send out some supplies. Since we had just bought it, she assumed that it was the company we bought it from giving us some freebies. They did not mention any cost. The box showed up, and then an invoice for about 4 times the market cost of the supplies. I called them up and they said our receptionist "OKed" it. I told them that I was sending it back at their expense since I didn't want to deal with crooked companies. I sent it back using their account number, but Fedex didn't reverse the shipping, so the box just came right back to us. By then, I decided that I had put enough effort in and just used the supplies. I never paid the invoice, and we had a four year supply of ink and printer that we didn't have to go buy.
That said, a number of questionable companies will happily tell you something is a one time deal and then go ahead and send more stuff and demand payment. I have had Amex stop payment on Richard Simmons and Home Shopping Network for just such reasons.

Re:S2S

[Anonymous Cowpat]

I don't think that it was a reverse class-action was it? (not that I've RTFA, of course). Our old friends at the RIAA got told to stop joining unrelated defendants some years ago (not that they stopped). But in any case, you shouldn't be able to show up at the courthouse one day with 5000 lawsuits naming unidentified people as defendants. Quite how such a rule would be defined would be tricky. Perhaps some sort of regulation on the template of the UK's 'vexatious litigant' rules would work, but it may need to apply to law firms as well, and include some sort of direct sanction.

Re:S2S

[Kalriath]

In New Zealand where I live, the law is that if someone sends you something unsolicited (mistakes excluded) then the object is considered a gift and you own it. The sender cannot invoice you after the fact or demand the object's return.

What are the odds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets say I have a friend who downloaded this movie early this year through bit torrent, using Comcast. What do you suppose are the odds he'll get nailed with a lawsuit?

tell em what you think

[merockstar]

if you want.

http://www.dglegal.com/contact

Hmm ?!

[Anonymous Coward]

hurt locker for download? they got caught torrenting? I don't even know how to Use the Net to download films...

What can be done against these slimebags

[halfdan the black]

It seems like their "evidence" is pretty weak, just basically their word that they saw your IP address download a file.

Re:What can be done against these slimebags

[Mad Leper]

According to the article, only P2P users are being targeted. So this is still about file "sharing" or distribution without permission and not downloading.

Stop using P2P and the lawsuits will stop.

I've been wondering when this would happen

[TheSpoom]

RIAA and MPAA were limiting themselves so that they wouldn't have the publicity generated by suing over a thousand defendants at once. They must have known that that looked just a bit like extortion.

Anyway, I'm glad they did this, now the country can decide whether they want to spend their time on federal lawsuits of importance, like civil rights, or on this bullshit.

Unfortunately I'm also convinced that the answer is the latter.

Re:I've been wondering when this would happen

[VocationalZero]

Anyway, I'm glad they did this, now the country can decide whether they want to spend their time on federal lawsuits of importance, like civil rights, or on this bullshit.

The country != /. Turns out most people still don't know or don't care.

I've got it!

[Flea of Pain]

1) Reference Google's list of open wifi networks
2) Sniff traffic for Torrents
3) Send out letters...
4) ??????????
5) Profit!!!!

Re:I've got it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoy it when the ??? step is added when not necessary at all. It makes me read the list and then insert random mumbo-jumbo for the questionable step...

1) Reference Google's list of open wifi networks
2) Sniff traffic for Torrents
3) Send out letters...
4) Parade around downtown NYC in a suit and top hat made of the tears of innocent families
5) Profit!!!!

Bittorrent Users Sue Movie Studios

[spidercoz]

In other news today, a group of 14,000 bittorrent users who have downloaded movies are suing the studios who produced those movies. The downloaders say the movies were deceptively marketed as being good, and that they were duped into wasting their time and bandwidth by downloading and watching them. The downloaders are asking for a collective total of 38 years wasted time and 448 terabits of wasted bandwidth, plus an unspecified amount for mental and emotional damages.

Re:Bittorrent Users Sue Movie Studios

[thestudio_bob]

Don't forget that the movie studios spent millions in marketing to make you WANT the movie. Really, is this any different than what the tobacco companies did many years ago? Movies are the new addiction. They really should put warning labels on the movie trailers, fast food tie-ins, Halloween customs, etc.

Re:Bittorrent Users Sue Movie Studios

[Jaysyn]

Movies are the new addiction.

That's one of the dumbest things I've ever read.

5000 people downloaded the hurt locker

[retardpicnic]

WTF?! This means members of the tea party are learning to use the interwebs. All are base will belong to them!

Attorney Emails

[theNAM666]

* Dunlap, Thomas M - tdunlap@dglegal.com vcard
        * Dureska, Geoffrey M. - gdureska@dglegal.com
        * Grubb, Daniel L. - dgrubb@dglegal.com
        * Ludwig, David - dludwig@dglegal.comvcard
        * Kurtz, Nicholas A. - nkurtz@dglegal.com
        * Novel, Sur - snovel@dglegal.com
        * Policasti, Eugene - epolicasti@dglegal.com
        * Tate, Christopher F. - ctate@dglegal.com
        * Weaver, Jeffrey William - jweaver@dglegal.com
        * Whitticar, Michael C. - mwhitticar@dglegal.com
        * Gurganous, Tom - tgurganous@dglegal.com

Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

* Dunlap, Thomas M - tdunlap@dglegal.com vcard

        * Dureska, Geoffrey M. - gdureska@dglegal.com

        * Grubb, Daniel L. - dgrubb@dglegal.com

        * Ludwig, David - dludwig@dglegal.comvcard

        * Kurtz, Nicholas A. - nkurtz@dglegal.com

        * Novel, Sur - snovel@dglegal.com

        * Policasti, Eugene - epolicasti@dglegal.com

        * Tate, Christopher F. - ctate@dglegal.com

        * Weaver, Jeffrey William - jweaver@dglegal.com

        * Whitticar, Michael C. - mwhitticar@dglegal.com

        * Gurganous, Tom - tgurganous@dglegal.com

Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?

* Dunlap, Thomas M - tdunlap@dglegal.com vcard

        * Dureska, Geoffrey M. - gdureska@dglegal.com

        * Grubb, Daniel L. - dgrubb@dglegal.com

        * Ludwig, David - dludwig@dglegal.comvcard

        * Kurtz, Nicholas A. - nkurtz@dglegal.com

        * Novel, Sur - snovel@dglegal.com

        * Policasti, Eugene - epolicasti@dglegal.com

        * Tate, Christopher F. - ctate@dglegal.com

        * Weaver, Jeffrey William - jweaver@dglegal.com

        * Whitticar, Michael C. - mwhitticar@dglegal.com

        * Gurganous, Tom - tgurganous@dglegal.com

Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?

Spam filter to max.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?

Somebody apparently already did that. Just enter one of their email addresses in Google. Includes home address/phone and a few relatives' names. I wonder if those are the real deal.

Let's just hope nobody does something illegal to this despicable, blood-sucking, worthless scum ... 'cause that would be ... well ... you know ... illegal ... not necessarily immoral ... just illegal.

Re:Attorney Emails

[tsstahl]

Maybe a licensed PI in their state could snoop on the net habits of their households. I'm betting there is an even chance that at least 2 of those folks have illegal downloading going on...

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

ip address for blocklist maybe?

Re:Attorney Emails

[CTalkobt]

* Dunlap, Thomas M - tdunlap@dglegal.com vcard * Dureska, Geoffrey M. - gdureska@dglegal.com
[ ... snip ... ]
Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?

Individuals at the company may be scum, they may not be - however attacking an individual's personal life for what he does in public I find offensive. The lawyers, are, at the moment within their legal grounds to perform this service for the MPAA and their ilk, as much as it leaves a bad flavor in my mouth.
If you want to change the world, stop attacking people and start attacking the issue. Fuss at your congressman to change silly lawsuits that are extortion schemes.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Not their children. Keep it classy /. No one should be punished for the sins of their parents.

Re:Attorney Emails

[coaxial]

Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?

Why? What's the point? To be a childish dick? To threaten and intimidate?

No thank you. We're adults.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? These guys are engaging in what amounts to legal extortion. Its legality in no way makes it moral. They are immoral folks and if someone wants to "fight fire with fire" go for it, attack their personal lives, expose their mistresses and their wayward children. Hire a PI and have them followed (it's legal after all!), publish whatever you get anonymously via wikileaks. There ya go.

I do value my privacy, dirtbags like this do even more, because they are dirtbags, expose them.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Your congressman doesn't listen because people who benefit from the status quo pay him good money not to. Just because this filth can buy laws doesn't mean they are acceptable and that you should take the punishment lying down.

The people at this law firm ruin lives for monetary gain. They chose to do it on their own free will. They aren't doing this because they have to. They do it because they WANT to. For that they are as guilty as the corrupt politician who took the bribe. Even more so, because they are the ones pulling the trigger.

They may know how to legally abuse the law and destroy lives of people who cannot defend themselves, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Not by a long shot.

These lawyers - as individuals, personally - are scum.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they are just as guilty. People need to be held accountable for their own actions, instead of hiding behind a company mask. Who the hell is going to make this law firm change it's actions? Yup, that's right, either legal repercussions, or the employees making noise about it and refusing to do stuff they believe immoral.

Get off your high horse, ass hole.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

dludwig@dglegal.com

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

how long do you have to spend in jail/prison before you can no longer be a member of the bar? Far more fun to have PI follow them around gathering evidence of the numerous criminal offences that they inadvertently commit every single day, and hand it over to the DA.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

We're all glad to know that you're offended when people who are 'publicly' attacking other individuals are in turn attacked as individuals themselves.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

They are cowards. One, for not standing up for what is ethically right and leaving the firm, and secondly for their "it doesn't matter if you are guilty or not you are still gonna burn". Think about how easily they can destroy a working class person's life simply by mailing a letter and the same group of people can do nothing back. Lawyers such as these are hiding behind their silver shield of legislation and money. The class system is still in full effect so pardon me if the only reasonable way to enact the slightest bit of vengeance isn't entirely morally sound in theory. Turnabout is always fair play. Nice guys only finish last when they refuse to reciprocate negativity.

Re:Attorney Emails

[j00r0m4nc3r]

attacking an individual's personal life for what he does in public I find offensive

I do not find it offensive in the least. You don't get to do whatever you want and hide behind the "It's just business, nothing personal" excuse. You are responsible personally for any business you conduct whether it be private, public, business, or personal. You are complicit in everything you do. I don't want to hear about how the lawyers are just doing it to put food on their family's table. You really think the guy who owns the law firm is just barely scraping by? These guys are just greedy fuckwads, plain and simple. And they are supporting an entire industry of greed and abuse. It doesn't matter if it's legal or not. There are plenty of things that are technically legal that are not ethical. Just because it's legal doesn't mean you should do it. I say fuck them and their personal lives.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Go ahead and talk to your congressman about this, I'll wait.....

Did anything change? No?!? Oh, I see...you got a form letter response thanking you for your interest in donating to your congressman's re-election fund. Hmmm, I don't know what to tell you then.

Hard truth is that they aren't listening. You don't have enough money for them to care what you have to say. I bet that even if you sent a beautifully written letter to any one of these lawyers they'd never actually read it. That is the cold hard truth of the country we're living in now. Sad part is that we're the morons that let it happen to us by not storming the streets long ago. If the system was just, this sort of thing would have never been legal in the first place.

By the way, it's just plain foolish to assume that all laws are just.

[ Posting AC because I just don't need yet another login for another website ]

P.S. Feel free to rant about my post all you'd like, I don't intend to revisit the thread :)

Oh! almost forgot to mod myself +5 Flaimbait :)

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Individuals at the company may be scum, they may not be - however attacking an individual's personal life for what he does in public I find offensive. The lawyers, are, at the moment within their legal grounds to perform this service for the MPAA and their ilk, as much as it leaves a bad flavor in my mouth.

Its the people that are directly responsible for their own actions. Do we Really have to have a law for every single thing some asshole can come up with to screw the people around them?

I already can't count the number of laws that have been passed and neither can anyone else. If sending a few emails, aka diplomacy, directly to the people involved telling them to stop being such jerks can work without writing up yet another law....

Nevermind, assholes only care about what they can take.

Re:Attorney Emails

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! I think i know one of those names..

*checks* Yeah! I saw it awhile ago in the database! Is it really the same guy? *double checks*

Holy crap it is!

*click click* Looks like we just 'lost' his mortgage payment... what a shame.

(this needs to happen alot more often to scumbags like these)

Re:Attorney Emails

[Seraphim_72]

Do you think that they know less about the 5000? I am sure they do. If there was one worth extorting for more they would go for the throat.

Re:Attorney Emails

[CTalkobt]

I don't know how well the guy in the law firm is doing - if he's scraping by or if he's raking it in.

I do know, however, that to impose my beliefs that the lawyers are scum on them in a legal manner and make judgement based on that is not something I would want others doing to me.

Different jobs involve varying degrees of moral direction - some would consider repossessing cars to be evil, vile and dispicable - while others see the necessary need for loaners to recoup their outlay.

Do I not like what these lawyers are doing? Sure

Do I think these lawyers are performing what their job requires them to do? In all probablity, yes

Is an individual going to stay on moral high-grounds when his job is on the line? Rarely, and I can't fault them for it - especially not in this case.

Re:Attorney Emails

[CTalkobt]

We're all glad to know that you're offended when people who are 'publicly' attacking other individuals are in turn attacked as individuals themselves.

I'm glad you're glad.

Re:Attorney Emails

[PMBjornerud]

Do I think these lawyers are performing what their job requires them to do? In all probablity, yes

Would I quit my job if I was required to perform work I consider detrimental to society? Absolutely.

If a job forces you to behave like scum, you either quit the job, or you are scum.

I respect lavatory cleaning staff far above copyright lawyers.

Re:Attorney Emails

[CTalkobt]

I respect lavatory cleaning staff far above copyright lawyers.

Yet lawyers serve a purpose. Just because, in this case, their purpose is opposed to your interests does not make them scum.

The root issue we're disagreeing on is, I believe, rather a person is scum based upon the job they choose to perform. One person's scum is another person's necessity.

If this was not the MPAA or the RIAA but instead, an author of a self-published book that went viral on the internet (who knows - people might start reading again) .. would you still be so adamant that the Lawyers are scum?

Re:Attorney Emails

[coaxial]

How does any of that justify harassment, intimidation, and other anti-social behavior?

Re:Attorney Emails

[Seraphim_72]

It doesn't. I made a leap of logic from one sentence to the next. Mea Culpa.

Re:Attorney Emails

[CTalkobt]

Gah - before the spelling Nazi's get me... Let me correct it...

>> .. I believe, whether a person is scum ...

Rather versus Whether vs. Weather... The joys of English.

Rate the movies down

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to make your voices heard? There's enough people here to go to imdb, netflix, etc and lower the ratings on all these movies. They are small studios and will start to notice very, very quickly.

Is downloading illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is downloading illegal? I thought I had read that the illegal part was the uploading a copyrighted work.
Certainly the damages would be a lot less for downloading vs uploading....

Concise List

[adeft]

I'm glad they post the movies and directors effecting these lawsuits. Makes it easier to avoid them now and in the future. Any friend of Uwe Boll is an enemy of mine.

This makes no sense...

[hellfire]

I know you are just being overly sarcastic and trying to get karma or something, but it just doesn't apply here. Why are you getting modded up for an unfunny, non-insightful comment that is flat out wrong? The Hurt Locker won the academy award this past year. I personally feel it rightfully deserved it, it was a fantastic movie! Light years better than Avatar, which had huge sales, and probably huge downloads as well.

Perhaps more people downloaded The Hurt Locker because they heard about it from the academy awards but it wasn't in most mainstream movie theaters? Perhaps the RIAA distribution model favors huge Avatar style blockbusters that appeal to the masses rather than well crafted intelligent works of art? Perhaps Hurt Locker didn't have the huge media blitz and the money to promote it that Avatar did?

Re:This makes no sense...

[Pastis]

perhaps the people who want to see the hurt locker, prefer to see it at home than at the theater ?

Re:This makes no sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hurt Locker was a decent movie up until the ending, which was among the worst I've ever seen.

It certainly wasn't worthy of Best Picture, when you have films like Burma VJ that actually capture real human suffering and struggle, and some of the people who filmed it were likely imprisoned or killed.

Re:This makes no sense...

[Pojut]

In 1990, New Kids on the Block had a number 1 hit on the Billboard charts. I'll say that again: New Kids on the Block had a number 1 hit.

First doesn't always mean best.

Re:This makes no sense...

[thijsh]

Don't be a smartass without looking up the numbers:
- Hurt locker box office: $ 16,4 million domestic (box office numbers)
- Hurt locker extortion: $ 12,5 million (2500 × 5000 and counting...)

I'd say that's a fairly significant amount of money, and should not be discarded as motive for this scam. If they are true artists they would not participate in this witch-hunt-for-pay against their own biggest fans.

Re:This makes no sense...

[somersault]

I doubt the makers of the film have anything to do with it. It's far more likely to be the publishers/distributors.

Re:This makes no sense...

[za7ch]

Perhaps you're right. I know if I was an actor in the film or one of the makers I'd do *everything* to distance myself from whomever is responsible for this extortion. That said, I've not read anything like that and that's a damn shame.

Re:This makes no sense...

[PIBM]

well crafted intelligent works of art?

I`m not sure we saw the same movie..

Re:This makes no sense...

[ArsonSmith]

Not only that, but in 2008 Barak Obama was elected president. I concede your point.

Re:This makes no sense...

[p1ckk]

the main reason hurt locker did poorly at the box office was that they only initially released it in four theatres and they didn't make nearly enough copies of the film. the lawsuit is them trying to make up for their own stupidity

Re:This makes no sense...

[impaledsunset]

The Hurt Locker for me was just a bunch of well-scripted, well-acted and well-directed tense sequences. The first half hour or so was really promising and absorbing, but it was all downhill from there. The story line wasn't that interesting, and the absurdity of the events was getting more and more (it was a hilariously unrealistic depiction of the US army). I enjoyed every single moment of it, but this is not enough to make a fantastic movie. It wasn't memorable, it didn't engage my mind during its whole duration, it didn't make me disconnect from reality and feel part of it, it didn't show me anything to awe me, it didn't do anything to make me consider it more than a normal good movie.

I don't think it deserves its award, given that fantastic movies were in the nominated, and even better ones weren't even nominated. Moon, Up in the Air, Inglorious Basterds, and even Up were miles ahead of it. And Avatar, with its bad script and acting, did much more to me than The Hurt Locker - I was completely submerged into it it when I saw it and the bad parts just flew past me. I don't know how a work of art could be "intelligent", but I'd rather call Avatar that way than The Hurt Locker. On all accounts, but mostly because it was a work of art.

Re:This makes no sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the same thing --- sounds like a new business model.

Especially for some of the less popular movies, why make $5 each (or whatever it might be) off of 100,000 DVDs or legal download sales, when you can sue 1000 people for $1500 each?

 

Re:This makes no sense...

[mcgrew]

I know you are just being overly sarcastic and trying to get karma or something

"Funny" gains no karma. Just the FAQs, ma'am. His +5 isn't helping his karma a bit.

Re:This makes no sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Let me start with that. These are the same people who can not bother to figure out how to pay the man who played darth freeking vader... Or the man who WROTE Forest Gump. By 'claiming' that these movies are financial failures.

These dudes are scam artists. It is not surprising that they have decided on a new scam to make money.

Re:This makes no sense...

[DinDaddy]

Perhaps more people go see movies that they think they will enjoy, rather than movies they may respect.

Film Industry Saved by IP Chasers!

[theNAM666]

Washington, D.C.-- Super Lawyers Duenlap, Grubb and Beaver declared today that they had been able to save the ailing film industry via a new, innovative IP-chasing strategy. "It's really simple," declared Duenlap. "You just put a really shitty film on the internet," said Grubb. "And then you wait for peoples' cousins dogs to come download five minutes from the honeypot, and SUE everyone in their zip code," said Ms. Beaver.
Due to this innovation, Hollywood stars will continue to be able to walk the red carpet with millions in diamonds and rubies, instead of being reduced to begging at soup kitchens, said Duenlap, Grubb and Beaver.
CNET news attempted to contact the IP addresses involved in this article but ping requests were not returned.

Re:Film Industry Saved by IP Chasers!

[droopus]

Even the law firm's name sounds like a Tom Wolfe invention. I loved the name he came up with in A Man In Full:

Clockett, Paddit, Skinnum and Glote.

ROFL.

Re:Film Industry Saved by IP Chasers!

[theNAM666]

Super Lawyers Duenlap, Grubb and Beaver have now announced that they have acquired the firm of Goendoenin, Groen and Eaton, and are soliciting suggestions for the name of their new firm...

Lawsuit abuse, flimsy evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

How can this not meet the definition of "frivolous" abuse of the courts?

The only "evidence" is a list of IP addresses that anyone with a word processor can create.

Re:Lawsuit abuse, flimsy evidence

[halfdan the black]

Exactly!

It is strictly their word (slimebag lawyers) that they saw these IP address download a file. How can this hold up in any court??
Please, someone tell me how this can hold up in court.

Re:Lawsuit abuse, flimsy evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps an enterprising slashdotter should just generate a list of IP addresses that "downloaded" their copyrighted software.

Since every case would be tried separately (if they got to trial), it's likely that no one would find it suspicious that every IP on the list belonged to lawyers for the MPAA and RIAA, recording company executives, and movie studio executives.

So don't settle. Got it.

[mounthood]

So don't settle -- their model depends on collecting smaller amounts from lot's of victims, so they'll ignore you for not paying up, or they'll loose money in an individual lawsuit. Bonus: if enough people stick together and refuse to settle their "business model" won't work at all.

Re:So don't settle. Got it.

[ConceptJunkie]

The problem with that is that the average person would have to sell his house (assuming he has one) to defend against such a lawsuit. As much as it would pain me, I couldn't do that, could you?

Re:So don't settle. Got it.

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, but i have already have no assets. $2,500 and $2,500,000 are pretty much the same to me.

So which is it?

[nathan s]

Two Thousand Five Dollars (US $2,005) or Two Thousand Five Hundred Dollars (US $2,500)?

Nice that the settlement form is not even clear...

Re:Seriously... - no... seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

downloading is NOT illegal.

providing for downloading is NOT illegal.

if you provide for download and somebody downloads, then you are in effect trafficking in stolen goods - then that's illegal.

Being Threatened?

[CapnStank]

This site is directed mostly at UK people being attacked by a very similar business model. Although not 100% relevant I'm sure it has plenty of information on there for anyone who's received a letter or simply wants to read some legal rights they may (or may not) have.

Movie revenue

[cdrguru]

Today, without major restructuring of the Internet at large, it can be assumed that within a few days of release of a DVD that the movie content will be ripped and made available online.

If an Internet user has the knowledge to access these "available" movies, they can be downloaded and viewed with little or no risk to the downloader. This may require some fancy work to prevent the content from being redistributed and if you do not know how to do this you are certainly exposing yourself to redistribution and the legal penalties that come from that.

If someone does not have this knowledge, they have to buy their content. Because of this we are rapidly approaching a two-class environment: some people know how to get content for free while others have to pay for it. Right now, the division between these classes is also enforced by lack of broadband capacity - if your connection is dial-up or a weak DSL link you can't download free content no matter what you know.

Today it is possible for content providers to still make money from the 2nd class "payers", but this is going to change rapidly. I don't see any possibility for stopping this movement, no matter how many lawsuits are filed. The penalty is just too remote a possibility and too far removed from the act of redistribution. You get a notice in the mail six months after doing something and you are supposed to remember doing it? Worse, there is a trial over something that occurred two years before. It is like getting a speeding ticket from a state you used to live in and six months after you sold the car. There just isn't any connection between the act and the penalty for it to seem real and not arbitrary.

I'd say the content providers are going to see their revenue shrink rapidly as more and more of the "payers" die off and are replaced by well-educated (in the Internet black arts) younger people with better Internet connections. They might be able to replace the direct sales revenue (which retailers share in) with some kind of ad-supported content in the future - but retailers will not be sharing in that at all. This puts WalMart as a content retailer out of the business entirely, as it does with Amazon and anyone else that would consider themselves a "retailer".

Oh well. I think it plain to say "Piracy Rules!" If your business model depends on people paying for digital content, someone out there is going to ruin your day.

Re:PIrating==Theft==Crime==True

[Anonymous Coward]

Plain and simple folks, those who illegally download a copy of the Hurtlocker or any other copyrighted materials has committed a crime. If you don't like the cost, don't see the movie or whatever the item is. But it's against the law to steal. These movie studios have a right to protect their property. Just because copyrighted materials are on the internet does not mean obtaining a copy without paying for it is ok. Period.

If all the pirating people would stop stealing then maybe, just maybe, the cost of ticket prices or DVDs won't be raised to offset the theft.

You really have no idea how the market forces work within digital entertainment industry, do you?

Re:PIrating==Theft==Crime==True

[Anonymous Coward]

If all the pirating people would stop stealing then maybe, just maybe, the cost of ticket prices or DVDs won't be raised to offset the theft.

You naive moron.

Re:PIrating==Theft==Crime==True

[Anonymous Coward]

You also have a very poor grasp of how the == operator works

Prove it was me.

[droopus]

Here's an interesting one. In my recent federal criminal action, the Government presented multiple Usenet postings they claimed I wrote. They blathered on about "since my name was on it, it was clearly my work." My lawyers (ptui!) hadn't a clue so I asked to address the Court.

I asked the AUSA how he knew they were my writing, and his answer was "well, your name is on it." I then gave a short soliloquy about Usenet propagation, headers and nntp, just until I saw the glaze staring to form on the judge's eyes. I asked the Government to produce headers, and even if they did, to prove that it was actually me using the IP in question, neither of which they could do.

The evidence was disallowed, as it should have been.

With this in mind, how could this law firm prove that it was me that actually downloaded the movie? What with wifi and all them nasty stealers of bandwidth, exactly how could you prove to even a preponderance standard (the civil standard) that it was me who did the deed?

After my recent experience with the federal courts, I might actually opt to fight pro se if they came after me. Let's see what a thoroughly confused jury might come up with, hm?

  I HATE fucking lawyers.

Re:Prove it was me.

[keithpreston]

When they get a search warrant, make a copy of your hard drive and find the movie still on there. There are some people that are smart and can cover their tracks, but when piracy is mainstream, even the idiots do it. That is the real problem, it is no longer hackers that steal movies, but the average joe.

Even if they can't prove it was you the media company will just lobby for a law that declares copyright infringement from an IP address is the responsibility of the person owning the ISP account then you will be screwed.

Re:Prove it was me.

[coaxial]

With this in mind, how could this law firm prove that it was me that actually downloaded the movie? What with wifi and all them nasty stealers of bandwidth, exactly how could you prove to even a preponderance standard (the civil standard) that it was me who did the deed?

Same way they always prove it, by filing a discovery motion to have all mass storage devices (e.g. computer hard drives, external hard drives, flash drives, tapes, etc.) turned over to a third party for expert examination. If the files are there, you did it. If the files were deleted, but still on drive, you did it.

FYI: You don't have have to overwrite data 7 times or even 30 times to erase on today's drives. Once is enough. The original recommendations were based on 1980s technology with large magnetic domains and inaccurate servos. At today's densities, the slop you were trying to overwrite just doesn't happen.

(And yes, I did get this information from an known expert in computer forensics.)

Re:Prove it was me.

[ADRA]

"I HATE fucking lawyers."

Sounds like it =>

PS: If, I had an ISP contract that said I was responsible for the content that was being downloaded, couldn't 'suing party' just sue the name associated with the ISP account? I imagine most if not all common carrier ISP's have such a clause either through service agreement the someone signed, or through law. I'd be shocked if this black hole of 'responsibility of infringement' has been sealed up somewhere. Now if you don't have your name on such an agreement then I guess you're free and clear without direct evidence.

Snippet from Comcast's TOS for example:

What obligations do I have under this Policy?

In addition to being responsible for your own compliance with this Policy, you are also responsible for any use or misuse of the Service that violates this Policy, even if it was committed by a friend, family member, or guest with access to your Service account. Therefore, you must take steps to ensure that others do not use your account to gain unauthorized access to the Service by, for example, strictly maintaining the confidentiality of your Service login and password. In all cases, you are solely responsible for the security of any device you choose to connect to the Service, including any data stored or shared on that device....

Re:Prove it was me.

[Fnord666]

With this in mind, how could this law firm prove that it was me that actually downloaded the movie? What with wifi and all them nasty stealers of bandwidth, exactly how could you prove to even a preponderance standard (the civil standard) that it was me who did the deed?

If necessary, they will do it the same way they did it with red light cameras. They will (through their duly purchased governmental representatives) make the owner of the connection that was used legally responsible for any content that passes through that connection.

Re:Prove it was me.

[Sparx139]

Sounds more like Comcast washing their hands of any involvement. Yes, TOS are considered legally binding documents, but do you really think that it would hold in court?

How do you stop a lawyer from drowning?

[droopus]

Take your foot off his head.

I HATE lawyers.

That's original. Period.

[Fantastic Lad]

Gee! Wow! I've never heard THAT line of argument before.

Maybe if you and the other drones repeat it a million more times it'll magically become true!

If you honestly can't understand why that argument is broken, then you need to hold your breath for, oh, ten minutes ought to do it. Make Darwin proud!

Stop typing now. It's wasting bandwidth. And it makes the drool splash in an unsightly manner.

-FL

What is the jurisdiction???

[halfdan the black]

This was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

So, who can they go after? Can they go after someone in California, Texas????

Yet Another Perversion of our Legal System

[Anonymous Coward]

Boycott the studios this bottom-feeder law firm represents. Most Indie movies really suck anyway, so it's amazing people torrent them to begin with.

Sounds a lot like DirectTV to me

[Anonymous Coward]

You bought a card reader from X, since it could be used for DirectTV (or many other legal uses) and since you also own a DirectTV receiver (even if you paid for service) then you must be in the wrong pay us $3,000 to go away and admit you were wrong. Yet there was nothing to say you were in the wrong, but hell many people paid. Sounds like the same thing all over again to me.

ERIC

But I thought HDMI took care of this ?

[speedlaw]

I don't know how anyone gets content. All of my consumer electronics are full of buggy-ass DRM schemes, where it takes two minutes for some Blu Rays to load, and a good 15 seconds for my amplifier to recognize the TV and input device. You mean that even with all of this lockdown in my consumer electronics, someone manages to rip the film free of DRM ? I don't believe this for a second. Know where I can get that DRM free version ? Sounds less buggy than the legal netflix version.

Most people settle

[nurb432]

And right there is the problem. Its how the entire legal system gets away with crap like this and attorneys get richer and richer, without even going to court and proving their case.

Re:PIrating==Theft==Crime==True

[McDozer]

If I had mod points I'd mod you out of flamebait status...I've tried to say something similar to this on slashdot before and got railed for it. However dirty and underhanded the tactics of the lawyers may be..pirating is theft slashdotters just have a hard time accepting that.

I don't get it

[MobyDisk]

Would everyone here be complaining so hard if the authors of sued everyone who downloaded it?

Ever done something just cause it was illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded the Hurt Locker, just based on this article... Thanks Slashdot!! (Not really, the movie wasn't that great, but it sure felt good to stick it to the man!- or woman in this case I guess)

Lawyers:

[Anonymous Coward]

Attorneys behind the US copyright group, who are hiding behind the name US Copyright group:

Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver

Washington, D.C. Office
1200 G Street, NW, Suite 800
Washington, D.C. 20005
Tel: (202) 316-8558
Fax: (202) 318-0242

Bennett, Ellis L. - ebennett@dglegal.com
Chang, Phillip - pchang@dglegal.com
Dunlap, Thomas M - tdunlap@dglegal.com
Dureska, Geoffrey M. - gdureska@dglegal.com
Grubb, Daniel L. - dgrubb@dglegal.com
Ludwig, David - dludwig@dglegal.com
Moore, Mike - mmoore@dglegal.com
Kurtz, Nicholas A. - nkurtz@dglegal.com
Novel, Sur - snovel@dglegal.com
Policasti, Eugene - epolicasti@dglegal.com
Tate, Christopher F. - ctate@dglegal.com
Weaver, Jeffrey William - jweaver@dglegal.com
Whitticar, Michael C. - mwhitticar@dglegal.com
Gurganous, Tom - tgurganous@dglegal.com

Downloaded (not torrent) it watched it So...So...

[Anonymous Coward]

They sue. Gets me interested. downloaded it. Watched it.
The movie is OK but not worth paying for..

I have downloaded Avatar, watched it and when the STUPID Movie company wants to put out the complete version I will buy it on bluray... not before...

I am not stupid anymore....

Re:PIrating==Theft==Crime==True

[AK Marc]

If all the pirating people would stop stealing then maybe, just maybe, the cost of ticket prices or DVDs won't be raised to offset the theft.

I stopped stealing for a week, and the prices didn't drop.

downloading?

[countach]

Were 5000 people extorted for downloading Hurt Locker or for being bittorrent uploaders of Hurt Locker? I didn't think you could be got for downloading. After all, if I download something I see on the net called "Hurt Locker", how can I know if it is a copyrighted work or not? There could be other songs, video clips etc of the same name that are public domain.

Re:downloading?

[Shagg]

You are correct. Almost all of the news stories about this sort of thing get the downloading/uploading terminology wrong. This type of lawsuit is almost always against uploaders.

My Lai

[Seraphim_72]

"I was just following orders"

Re:My Lai

[CTalkobt]

"Just following orders" never works for doing illegal stuff. For these lawyers, however - what they're doing is, unfortunately, legal.

( Wonders : Does bringing up My Lai in this context bring in an Asian Godwin's law? )

Brilliant :-)

[moz25]

Dear AC: that is a brilliant observation.

everything-you-need-to-refute-a-file-sharing-legal

[permaculture]

I'll leave this here in case it's useful for anyone. http://torrentfreak.com/everything-you-need-to-refute-a-file-sharing-legal-threat-100114/

Why prove it was you?

[Sloppy]

In my recent federal criminal action ..

With this in mind, how could this law firm prove that it was me..

TFA is about civil court.

Who gets a speeding ticket anymore? Robocop sends you a civil citation in the mail a few weeks after the incident. No proof needed. No trial. No cumbersome confrontation out in the field.

Movie makers ought to ditch the the "FBI Warning" at the beginning of their movies, because no one is afraid of the FBI. Replace the warning with "We sue various people. We don't always win, but they always lose. If you're worried that you share an IP block with other people, then start policing your neighbors."

Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet the scum that is Thomas Dunlap of the Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver law firm (aka US Copyright Group): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/30/ashley-biden-cocaine-tape_n_180703.html http://jonathanturley.org/2009/03/30/sellers-remorse-lawyer-reportedly-first-tries-to-sell-tape-of-ashley-b iden-allegedly-snorting-cocaine-and-then-withdraws/

Re:PIrating==Theft==Crime==True

[McDozer]

Ooooo....modded flamebait what a suprise. That is ok I got karma to burn.