Judge Rules BitTorrent Cases Must Be Tried Separately

PhrostyMcByte writes: "TorrentFreak reports that Federal Judge Stephanie Rose recently put a thorn in the plans of copyright holders hoping to file cheap mass-lawsuits against alleged pirates. Rejecting all but one Doe for such a lawsuit, Rose's order mentions that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate the five Does in the case were a part of the same 'transaction' needed to be tried together, with an uncommon understanding of BitTorrent showing that '... even in all five cases where Doe defendants allegedly have "hit dates" on the same day and close in time, there is no showing that the earlier defendants were still connected to the Internet and actively distributing data through the BitTorrent client at the same time as the later defendants.'"

Comments

Well thats a first

[MCROnline]

All we need now is prosecutions based on real losses and not imaginary figures pulled out the air by lawyers.

Re:Well thats a first

[Infiniti2000]

If only they pulled them out of the air. They actually pull them out of their asses.

Looking at this another way...

[StripedCow]

This judge just assured himself and his lawyer friends of income for the rest of their lives...

Re:Might not be the best way forward

[Jason Levine]

That $140,000 is per instance of copyright infringement. Even though they are lumping the cases together, they are still claiming that each John Doe engaged in at least one instance of copyright infringement.

What this does do is increase the costs of the person suing for copyright infringement. Before they needed to file one case against 100 John Does, argue their case, collect the 100 names, and then send the "settle or else" threat letters. If this ruling gets applied to all cases, they will need to file 100 different cases - each against 1 John Doe. In each case, they will need to present evidence to get the name and then send their settlement letters. The costs involved just skyrocketed to the point that suing people for non-commercial file sharing (as opposed to, say, selling movies to people online when you don't have the permission to) will be a money-losing proposition.