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Lionsgate Sues Limetorrents, Played.to, and Others Over Expendables 3 Leak

hypnosec writes Lionsgate, the film company in charge of distribution for Expendables 3, has filed a lawsuit against unknown individuals who shared a DVD-level copy of the movie and six file-sharing sites known to have the links through which copies of the movies are being downloaded illegally. An advance copy of Expendables 3 was leaked online in July, and it was downloaded as many as 180,000 times in just 24 hours. The movie, which is releasing on August 15, is said to have crossed two million downloads already. In addition to the lawsuit, the Dept. of Homeland Security is on the case.

20 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. The DHS Is On The Case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For a civil matter relating to a MOVIE? Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck, America?

    1. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It might sound stupid (and it is) but the DHS is the unholy amalgamation of just about every investigative and enforcement body in the United States government. So it's not that the DHS is investigating, but one of the agencies under the DHS.

    2. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by NoKaOi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So, the US government has pretty much taken the worst parts of the original idea of Fascism as described in the original Fascist Manifesto (corporatism) along with the worst parts of what Italian Fascism actually tried to be (totalitarianism, rule by elites).

    3. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by jklovanc · · Score: 5, Informative

      The reproduction and distribution of copyright material is a criminal as well as a civil matter. ICE is tasked with investigating copyright infringement in the US. The fact that they are now under the umbrella of the DHS is just sensationalism.

    4. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, the question is still, "WTF is a civil suit being investigated and prosecuted by the FEDERAL FUCKING GOVERNMENT!?!?!"

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    5. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by murdocj · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem with this sort of hysteria is that it makes people forget how horrible true fascism is. It conflates looking for illegal downloaders with rounding up and slaughtering millions of people. Can we save the rhetoric for when we need it?

    6. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by Loki_1929 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Theft of intellectual property should be a criminal matter.

      Copyright infringement should be a civil matter. Since This article is talking about a movie being copied and shared (copyright infringement), it should be strictly a civil matter. Of course, the government being the enforcement wing of large companies, the full weight and force of the Federal government will extend its infinite reach across the globe to annihilate anyone who so much as thinks about infringing on the absolute rights of the government's benevolent benefactors.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    7. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by Kalium70 · · Score: 5, Funny

      DHS: "we must protect the fatherland" -- er, homeland.

    8. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by popoutman · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Agreed!

      You can't steal intellectual property.
      You can copy and use intellectual property inappropriately, sure.
      But you sure as hell cannot steal it, and as such it should not be involving the DHS or Federal Government in any way. But these are the people you voted in, and the rest of us have to live with it unfortunately..

      --
      - This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
    9. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because monies.

    10. Re: The DHS Is On The Case by jargonburn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Can we save the rhetoric for when we need it?

      By the time we "need" it, it will be too late.

    11. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Dont joke, they have a Homeland Youth program in the school systems.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    12. Re:The DHS Is On The Case by popoutman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Of course it can be stolen.

      The simplest case: you have only one manuscript and no back ups, I steal it, it is gone.

      Then you've stolen a piece of physical property - not intellectual property...

      The complex case: I destroy your ability to market it, make money from it, use it as you feel fit. Your option to use your 'property' in a way you can use 'property' is gone, hence: it is stolen. And funnily it is worse than stolen, as I can not even give it back to you.

      What you describe is not theft - it's a form of obstruction. If it were actually property - it would be perfectly possible to return it - and by your own words it isn't. Again, copyright/trademark infringement is not theft, no matter how the *AA keep repeating it.

      It's a civil matter.

      --
      - This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
  2. Glad to Know by hduff · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm glad to know that DHS has solved all the critical security issues of our nation so that they can devote their resources to Expendables 3.

    I feel safe and secure now.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  3. Re:Problem solved! by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Their biggest loss will be the revenue lost from all the people that will get to see ahead of time what a turd this will be - BEFORE the Hollywood Bullshit Mega-Hype Machine has a chance to launch the hypnotic media assault that will try to trick the masses into thinking it's a good movie.

    --
    -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
  4. Re:Methinks the maiden protesteth too much by tigersha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or maybe someone should tell you that if they spend millions of dollars on something it is their right to sit on it as long as they want to. Since when is it your right to tell them what to do? Do you think you will be happy if Lionsgate takes your personal documents with the argument that you should not be sitting on it for so long?

    --
    The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
  5. Cool! I didn't know Expendables 3 was available. by jolyonr · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thank you slashdot!

    --


    Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
  6. Re:Yes! Copyright terrorism must be stopped! by denzacar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Imagine if you were an author who wrote a book... with said book being pirated before it even was released, only to be downloaded a couple million times. How would that make you feel?

    Assuming that by piracy you mean "shared for free" and not taking over of oil tankers off the coast of Somalia, I'd be laughing all the way to the bank because...

    a) a book downloaded million times even before it's out would also be sold in millions of copies because it is clearly a most wanted book;
    b) all those prizes for literature I'd rake in - again, cause it is such a fantastic book;
    c) future contracts for my other books based on being "one of the most sought after and most read authors of our time";
    d) FUCK YOU SHAKESPEARE!
    e) movie rights;
    f) merch;
    g) "More people read this book than the Bible - find out why" sells;

    Also, every single book by Stephen King is out there in a scanned and OCR-ed form, yet people still keep buying his books, old and new, while publishers keep paying him millions of dollars on a promise of writing a new book.
    And last I checked Metallica still keeps on making and selling albums despite Napster forcing them to sell both their kidneys, lungs, livers, testicles and feet to pay for piratizing costs they had to face.

    It's free publicity.
    http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  7. Re: Yes! Copyright terrorism must be stopped! by jeIIomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You obviously don't work on anything creative or else you might think differently.

    You claim to speak for all people who work on anything "creative"? And what does what he works on have to do with the validity of his arguments? It's always funny to me to see people say that the people directly involved in the situation are more right than anyone else. Have you ever heard of something called "bias"? Of course people who stand to gain from a policy are going to support it in most cases! They're not any more incorrect, either, because people's arguments stand on their own merits.

    Just because you don't want to pay for content does not mean you have the right to obtain it for free because the creator is not missing out on selling it to you.

    I do have a right to free speech and my own private property. People voluntarily send me data (free speech) using their own private property (private property rights); the person or people who originally organized the data are almost never involved in this process, and at most, they simply do not gain; that is not the same as losing something.

    Yet, some people think it's okay to have the 'right' to have government-enforced monopolies over ideas that infringe upon free speech and private property rights. I'd prefer to let the free market handle things; if you can't figure out a way to profit in the Age of Information, then you're going to fail, and that's really how it should be.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  8. The greater insult by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While this has probably lost them some money, I have always felt that one of the reasons that the movie industry hates torrents is that it gives people such a wide choice that crappy films don't end up being downloaded. How insulting must it be when your precious darling of a film is so undesired that people won't even take it for free.

    Not to mention that movies that aren't being "professionally" distributed suddenly have some traction.