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Hurt Locker File-Sharing Subpoenas Begin
In May we discussed news that producers of the film The Hurt Locker filed a lawsuit against 5,000 John Does, known only by their IP addresses at the time, for sharing the movie over peer-to-peer sites. Now, reader suraj.sun notes that subpoenas for the lawsuit are finally going out.
"Qwest Communications on Monday notified a customer in Denver that the Internet service provider has received a subpoena from lawyers representing Voltage Pictures, the production company that made The Hurt Locker. ... In legal documents, Voltage Pictures has blamed the movie's relatively poor domestic performance on illegal file sharing. As of March 21, the movie had grossed $16 million domestically, but took in $40 million overall. According to reports, the film's production budget was $15 million. The film leaked to the Web five months before the movie's US debut. ... For allegedly downloading The Hurt Locker, DGW told the Qwest customer from Denver that settling the case early would cost $2,900, according to documents reviewed by CNET."
My Tor exit node is probably going to get DMCA takedown requests. I got one for "CSI: Miami Season 4" and CERT Malaysia said I was launching an attack against XXX.XXX.XXX but won't provide me an IP address or range to block. Silly DMCA folks!!!!
The Hurt Locker was an amazingly good movie.
Intense, interesting.
Well, this vet says it's crap.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/23/when-cin-ma-v-rit-isn-t.html
I'll go with the vet.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Well hopefully it will get broken up into separate actions. I mean, the alleged wrongdoing and the alleged proof may be similar, but the defenses will vary wildly from plain denial to family, tenants, guests, open wifi, trojans and so on. I don't see how one judge could possibly make the decision they're all guilty or not guilty, and so it doesn't fit as a class action the way I think of it. But I imagine for most it's about the fear and collecting settlements, if everyone simply said no and asked for their day in court this would stop. Even if you just showed up yourself and gave your layman "I have no idea what they're talking about" defense. If you just keep the spending at an absolute minimum and assume you'll lose, I doubt you'll be out more than $2500 anyway. The statutory minimum is $750, and if you don't piss off the judge or jury you'll likely to get that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They wont get 5000 trials... if you read the summary they are offering to settle for $2,900.
Assuming that 80% of the people choose to "settle" soon... they will have gained $11,600,000 ... assuming EVERYBODY settle, they would have recouped more than the cost of the film.
So I definitely think this is their new business model.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I was Army and when I watched it, I couldn't get past the fact it took place in 2004 and not only was someone playing an Xbox 360 on a 32" LCD TV, they were playing Gears of War (released 2007). That and the fact everybody was wearing the ACUs (Army Combat Uniform-the grey pixelly one) and not the DCUs (Desert Combat Uniform), which were not all that common until 2005. Didn't notice the cereal though!
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
There was some movie exec who talked about how the current model is unsustainable, mainly because it involves the film industry repeatedly lying to consumers by saying "This movie is gonna be good!" and having it be crap, and then doing it again and again and again. As a result, he said, people will stop trusting advertising and won't even go to see the good movies before they've been out for a while, which will kill sales. Honestly, I think the best thing for studies to do would be to have smaller budgets on films that don't need huge budgets, and if a film is going to suck, they should advertise it but portray it honestly (not "This movie sucks!" but more "Cheesy romantic comedy with subpar dialogue!").
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
I disagree. The price is an unlimited distribution license of the movie, not a copy of the movie or a trip to the movie. The damages should be about $5,000,000 for that license. Oh wait, an Oscar-winning, critically acclaimed film? $25,000,000. So $2,900 doesn't seem too bad really.
You know what you should do if you don't like copyright? You should create content and give it away for free and if you're right and copyright is a blight on society and only holds back the advancement of the arts and science, then you'll become very successful in your model. Then you might have a case for advocating for the elimination or major reform of existing copyright law. But as long as the people bitching about copyright are 99.99% non-creators, all anybody hears is "gimme gimme gimme... i want free shit..."
I happily obey a copyright term of 7 years in order to reward innovation, creativity, and production of things I enjoy. Anything older than that is fair game.