Movie Studio Sues Individual Popcorn Time Users For Infringement

An anonymous reader writes with another story about Popcorn Time, after yesterday's report that two Danes were arrested for sharing information about how to use it. From the article at BGR: Often described as 'Netflix for pirates,' Popcorn Time users are now being targeted for infringement. The makers of a film called The Cobbler recently initiated a lawsuit against 11 Popcorn Time users in Oregon for copying and distributing the aforementioned film without authorization. The Cobbler, in case you're unfamiliar, stars Adam Sandler and was released in early 2015 to tepid reviews. "Tepid" is putting it nicely.

Comments

Always figured it was a honeypot

[Nyder]

I don't know about anyone else, but Popcorn Time seems like a trap to me. Make a program that using bit torrent to share the movies between it's users. Let it run for a few years. Start testing the waters will a small lawsuit against a few users. If that succeeds, then use the info you gathered over the last few years to bring a lot of lawsuits against a lot of people.

Fines should be like banks

[tekrat]

When a big Bank breaks the law, they are fined a tiny percentage of the money they made breaking the law. If a Bank makes $500 million illegally, their fine comes out to something like $20 million.

If corporations are people, it should work the other way as well. Therefore, if someone downloads a movie they would have otherwise paid $14 to see in a theater, the fine should be about 2 bucks.

The only reason fines are so huge for file sharers is because every company thinks that whatever crap it is that they "own" (i.e. "intellectual property") is always worth millions or billions, but it's not. Hell, CEOs probably take a dump in the executive crapper and think it's worth billions.

I recently had a fire, and lost plenty of property, both real and intellectual. Do you think the insurance company compensated me for millions or billions?

Why are things held to one standard for large corporations, while ignoring people? Why are rights several curtailed for actual people? Why is property move valuable than life?

Re:Fines should be like banks

[Theaetetus]

When a big Bank breaks the law, they are fined a tiny percentage of the money they made breaking the law. If a Bank makes $500 million illegally, their fine comes out to something like $20 million.

If corporations are people, it should work the other way as well. Therefore, if someone downloads a movie they would have otherwise paid $14 to see in a theater, the fine should be about 2 bucks.

That makes perfect sense. And by the same logic, if someone uploads or shares a movie that a distributor would have paid between $10-20 million for the rights to distribute, the fine should be about $50-150k.

It's important to remember that people aren't being sued for downloading, they're being sued for uploading. And distribution rights are expensive. Apple doesn't pay Warner Brothers $1, once, in exchange for being able to distribute some new song. AMC Theaters doesn't give New Line Cinemas a simple $14 for the rights to show Straight Outta Compton on a thousand screens for the next three months.

Remember back when Michael Jackson bought the distribution rights to the Beatles' catalog for several million? It worked out to around $20-30k per song... which happens to be right about the same amount Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum had to pay for their infringement.