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

is there no mercy??

[nimbius]

stars Adam Sandler

You sadistic bastards...as if an Adam Sandler film isnt a punishment unto itself.

Re:is there no mercy??

[Fire_Wraith]

If anything, the movie studios should owe money to the viewers for having had to watch that.

The New Napster

[wiggles]

How is this Popcorn Time app any different than Napster? Easy and professional looking it may be - legal, it isn't, and right or wrong, the users are liable. The news here isn't that the users got busted, it's why it took so long.

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.

Defendants have a clear defense...

[sconeu]

Anyone who deliberately downloads an Adam Sandler movie is obviously insane.

Re:Defendants have a clear defense...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Not this one. It's had 5 figure box office take it's first weekend. Low 5 figures. I never even heard of the Cobbler other than the bad reviews and lack of ticket sales. I never heard of Men Women and Children til I googled this. Pixels radically underperformed. I'd rather see the Pixels short on youtube over and over than the Sandler movie.

Cobbler did inspire a great quote tho:

So I just saw 'The Cobbler' and all I can assume is that Adam Sandler got tired of everyone saying 'Little Nicky' was his worst movie.

— Stephen Whitty (@StephenWhitty) March 3, 2015

The New Business Model

[Hydrian]

1. Release shitty movie.
2.Somebody illegally downloads it to see how bad it is. (because no movie theater will show it)
3. Sue the downloader!
4. Profit!

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:Warning

[Cederic]

Allowing large-scale copyright infringement.

What's sane about current copyright laws?