Judge Prevents 23,322 Filesharing Does From Being Sued For Now

An anonymous reader writes "The Judge overseeing the US Copyright Group's lawsuit against 23,000 individuals sharing 'The Expendables' has shut the door on progress. In a ruling made yesterday, the judge has ordered the US Copyright Group to show cause as to how all 23,322 fall under his Court's jurisdiction. Considering the US Copyright Group's failure in the past to show cause on jurisdiction, this could be the beginning of the end."

Comments

I Can Has Subject Title?

[wintercolby]

Pardon my ignorance, but can anyone say what "23,322 Filesharing Does" are?

Re:I Can Has Subject Title?

[The MAZZTer]

"John Doe" is a generic term for an unidentified or unknown individual, in this case shortened to "Doe".

Re:I Can Has Subject Title?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doe, a deer, a female deer.

Deer are notorious for running file sharing software, it's actually what got Bambi killed.

Re:I Can Has Subject Title?

[Harold Halloway]

Downloaders on a deer-to-deer file-sharing network.

Re:I Can Has Subject Title?

[WiglyWorm]

I get enough pun threads on Reddit. I come to slashdot because there's usually some semblance of intelligence.

The real crime was...

[bennomatic]

The real crime was making that movie. It was terrible. Predictable, trite, and itself a stitched-together copy of all the "hottest" moments of dozens of other successful action films.

The studio should be prosecuted for making such a bad movie. The people sharing it only committed the crime of making people think it was worth sharing. If there were 22,000 people sharing it, that means millions watched it, and thus the equivalent of at least a handful of human lifetimes evaporated in a puff of wasted time. Poof.

The essential irony is that the title of the movie should be a dead give-away. The whole thing was expendable.

Re:What is the the Copyrights holders solution

[cbiltcliffe]

They can get past this step, if they do the legwork necessary.

The problem, as the judge sees, is that the rightsholders take every IP address, regardless of where it's located, and sue them all in one court, in order to get subscriber details from the ISPs involved. Well, the judge is basically saying, and rightfully, I would think, that someone who lives in North Carolina shouldn't be sued anonymously in California, just because the USCG has a buttload of lawsuits to file.

Basically, the USCG is trying to save money by filing all lawsuits together, rather than in the appropriate courts. The judge is saying they can't do this.

Crossley declaired bankrupt

[tttonyyy]

Pertinent to the story, just spotted this in the news:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/367885/acs-law-solicitor-is-bankrupt

Blackmailing filesharers didn't turn out to be the money-spinner he anticipated it to be...

Re:As if they want to stop file sharing?

[UnknowingFool]

They only make money by keeping costs down. To keep costs down, the USCG takes shortcuts like suing a whole group instead of individuals. The filing fees saved are potentially in the millions. Unfortunately for them, that is not always proper. You can't lump people in groups for your own convenience; now they have to show that at they very least, that all 20,000 John Does are in the Court's jurisdiction.

Re:What is the the Copyrights holders solution

[compro01]

The thing is, they can't.

Sure they can.

1. Run IPs through a geo-ip database.
2. File suits in the proper courts for each of the general locations indicated.
3. File subpoena for each case to the relevant ISP(s) for the accounts for each IP.

It's just work they don't want to do.