LionsGate Wants Pirate Sites To Pay For 'Expendables' 3 Leak (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader writes: During the summer of 2014, the movie studio LionsGate suffered a major setback when a high quality leak of the then-unreleased Expendables 3 film appeared online. Fearing a massive loss in revenue, the movie studio sued the operators of several websites that allegedly failed to remove the infringing files. Over the past year there has been little progress in the case as most of the accused site operators failed to respond to LionsGate's complaint. In a new filing at the California district court, LionsGate indicates a desire to move forward by asking for a default judgment against the operators of LimeTorrents and the (already defunct) Dotsemper and Swankshare sites. Previously LionsGate settled with the operator of video hosting service Played.to.

Comments

Good thing...

[GodelEscherBlecch]

I think theft of art is a serious crime. Good thing no such crime was committed here.

Re:Good thing...

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I think theft of art is a serious crime. Good thing no such crime was committed here.

No shit.

Q: How much would they have to pay me to watch that piece of drek?
A: A lot more than they're willing to.

Re:Good thing...

[hairyfeet]

THIS, this right here, is the problem with their entire argument. When you are dealing with a movie that is already getting bad buzz, which is gonna be assraped by most of the critics (PG-13? For a send up of 80s action tropes? DaFuq?) then you can safely bet the vast majority would never pay to see it and merely downloaded the torrent to see just how big a trainwreck it was.

Its like the first Wolverine or Trank's Fantastic Four, would I have ever paid a single cent to see either one? Oh fuck no, they are fucking garbage! But if I gave enough of a fuck I could see downloading it just to gawk at it like driving past a horrible wreck and conversely if a movie is really good having some rip ain't gonna affect it, IIRC there was a decent rip of the first Avengers and Winter Soldier a week or so after they hit theaters, didn't keep them from making mountains of cash did it?

So I don't see this affecting sales one bit, they had already screwed that pooch when they made a homage to 80s action a PG-13 to try to bring in the kiddies.

Re:Good thing...

[Crowd Computing]

Too bad movies don't come with a money-back guarantee. (No comma after bad)

They got it backwards

[pesho]

LionsGate Wants Pirate Sites To Pay For 'Expendables' 3 Leak (torrentfreak.com)

LionsGate should be paying anyone willing to make a copy or watch of this thing their weight in gold. This is a really bad movie, but it doesn't quite make it to the "so bad that it's actually funny" category.

Re:They got it backwards

[Krishnoid]

LionsGate should be paying anyone willing to make a copy or watch of this thing their weight in gold.

I suspect this would work out very unfavorably for them, financially speaking. To quote, "Worst 'Expendables' ever."

Absolute bullshit

[real gumby]

A "high quality leak" of any Expendables film is inconceivable.

Re:Absolute bullshit

[gstoddart]

Yeah, methinks the studio knew it would be a turd and released it so they could try to make money by suing people.

I mean, it's Expendables 3 for crying out loud ... who the hell even knew there was a 3?

According to IMDB, it cost $90 mil to make and grossed $38 mil which means nobody gave a damn. Which makes it even more shocking that there's apparently going to be a number 4.

You can't sue for damages if you can't prove people would have seen the movie. And I'm not so sure of that.

Re:Absolute bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't sue for damages if you can't prove people would have seen the movie. And I'm not so sure of that.

Sadly, in the US, this is not true.

Re:Absolute bullshit

[alvinrod]

You can't prove that they would have paid to see the movie, but if they've downloaded a copy of it from the internet, it's hard to argue that the person had no interest in seeing it at all.

Also if you look at the worldwide gross, it took in about $200 million, so it's probably one of those movies that's popular overseas more than it is in the U.S. Add in eventual television rights or video sales and it probably made a tidy sum of money for the studio.

Re:Absolute bullshit

[PopeRatzo]

Also if you look at the worldwide gross, it took in about $200 million

I think you're confusing it with Expandables 3, which was the movie about three middle aged women who battle food addiction and are secretly ex-Special Forces commandos who take down an international arms dealer and then learn to love and accept themselves for who they are.

I'm pretty sure Sylvester Stallone was in that one, too, playing the husband of one of the commandos. He develops botox poisoning and dies but not before having so much plastic surgery that his eyes point in two different directions and his skin looks like it's made from the Naugahyde recliner that's been in my basement since 1983.

Re:Absolute bullshit

[fahrbot-bot]

A "high quality leak" of any Expendables film is inconceivable.

I took a high quality leak at a showing of an Expendables movie once. Does that count?

Re:Absolute bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

A "high quality leak" of any Expendables film is inconceivable.

I took a high quality leak at a showing of an Expendables movie once. Does that count?

Only if you stood in front of the screen doing so.

Re:Absolute bullshit

[meerling]

From what I've heard, 'High Quality' is absolutely not relevant to Expendables 3 in any way, so obviously the claims are b.s., like most of mpaas claims.

Re: Absolute bullshit

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

How does the law actually work? May each view be considered lost revenue, regardless of whether the freshman rubs his engoatee'd pimpleroost and imagines he wouldn't actually pay to see it?

Re: Absolute bullshit

[gstoddart]

Well, the law was written by the people who wanted to have the law, which means it allows them to say that it's up to $250K per theoretical infringement ... usually leading to them making claims on the order of losing eleventy seven trillion dollars for which they need reparations because 1 billion people could have watched it.

PJ used to cover this shit so well.

The law doesn't actually work.

Essentially I think the law allows them to claim they lost more on Expendables 3 than the GDP of the free world, because piracy. When the reality is they didn't a 3rd installation of a cheesy film and not that many people cared.

A cinematic flop ... a $90 million third installation in a campy series in which, yes, we really are going to see a bunch of aging action hero actors being cast as ... wait for it ... a bunch of aging action heroes ... with a bunch more aging action hero stereotypes trying to cash in on that campy payday action with each sequel.

And the movie studio is going to try to claim to have lost an impossible amount of money for a movie so bad even the core demographic didn't give a damn.

Pay to watch what?

[linkchaos]

They should pay for peoples counseling after watching such a heinous waste of film.

"burner" websites

[turkeydance]

just like "burner" cellphones. take the money and run.

Was this a direct-to-dvd film?

[bmo]

1. I've never heard of Expendables 2
2. The first one sucked. Why would I expect improvement in a /sequel/?
3. Make better movies that people will actually go to, Lionsgate.

For fucks sake, the number of films from Hollywood that have been worth seeing in the past decade has been dismal.

>looks at list of movies from Lionsgate

Texas Chainsaw 3D? Really? Who the fuck at Lionsgate gave /that/ the green light?

--
BMO

Re:Was this a direct-to-dvd film?

[PopeRatzo]

1. I've never heard of Expendables 2

Expendables 2 was the one where Stallone and the team decide that violence really isn't the answer and form a non-profit to promote peace in the Third World. Also, about 2/3 of the way into the film Stallone takes it in the pants from Terry Crews and the rest is about how they seek acceptance as a mixed-race couple.

Re:Was this a direct-to-dvd film?

[aevan]

...I think the worst part is that with way things are, I'd actually have to search to find out if you're serious or not.

Re:Was this a direct-to-dvd film?

[tehcyder]

For fucks sake, the number of films from Hollywood that have been worth seeing in the past decade has been dismal.

Exactly, so why would you bother downloading them?

Expendables 3

[YrWrstNtmr]

You should pay us to watch that.

This leak really killed the film

[Anonymous Coward]

I just know it would have broken all manner of box office records if not for the fact that a few people were able to watch it on the small screen a couple of days before the theatrical release.

Seriously we were looking at some Avatar like numbers here, I'm sure.

Re:This leak really killed the film

[meerling]

Yeah, Avatar the last airbender numbers.

Not a bad idea

[MuleSkinnerOkie]

Its not a bad idea really. But I seriously doubt those companies have enough assets to reimburse all the viewers of that drek for what they went through. Still, LionsGate's shouldn't have to be the ones paying all those pain and suffering costs, because they weren't the ones who leaked it.

And of course nobody was stupid enough to pay for Expendables 3 in theaters, so LG is off the hook there.

Pirates, next time please be responsible.

Re:Maybe we should 'declare war' on piracy!

[Joe_Dragon]

and you can get less time by just shoplift movies vs downloading them.

Translation:

[wierd_w]

Our business model relies on our ability to DUPE theater goers into thinking the movie will be GREAT!! when in fact, it is actually shit on a screen!

Pre-release exposure of our product prevents us from selling shit on a screen as if it were GREAT!!, which impacts our bottom line!

We DEMAND restitution from these groups that leaked our shit product, revealing it for the shit that it is!

Re:Translation:

[meerling]

The ones who pirate the most, are also the ones to watch it 4 or 5 times in the theater if it's a good movie. Many of the rest of us get the word from them as to weather it's any good or not in the first week or so. If a movie only has the first two weeks of good numbers, it's because that's how long it took for word that it was total fecal matter to spread despite a ton of hype. And speaking of the hype, I had no idea they'd even made an Expendables 3, so they couldn't even use that to boost their initial ticket numbers.

Re:Translation:

[thegarbz]

Our business model relies on our ability to DUPE theater goers into thinking the movie will be GREAT!! when in fact, it is actually shit on a screen!

If that's what they're doing then they are doing it wrong. I went and saw it knowing full well what to expect and I did not leave disappointed. They should embrace the concept that is Expendables for what it is and not try to make it into something more.

Went to see testosterone powered explosions and people beat the shit out of each other while repeating the one liners from 80s era movies and was not disappointed. 4 out of 5 stars.

Re:Translation:

[tehcyder]

The ones who pirate the most, are also the ones to watch it 4 or 5 times in the theater if it's a good movie.

I have never seen a film more than once in a cinema. Maybe I'm unusual and most people go at least once a day and run out of new films to see.

Good luck proving lost revenue!

[Rick in China]

So they had projections and metrics on how many copies were downloaded and extrapolate how many people 'should' have bought it - then can calculate how much money they're owed, simple right?

Not quite. Great movies get great revenue numbers regardless of leaks, because people want to see it in droves - shit movies getting leaked of course does damage to their revenue, because people find out that the movie blows massively and avoid wasting their money on it at theatres. Make better movies LionsGate, and revenue will return, ffs.

Re:Good luck proving lost revenue!

[oic0]

The company doesn't care. This is just their legal department trying to earn some revenue and pull their weight.

Re:Good luck proving lost revenue!

[Rick in China]

That's absolutely truth.

They gave up

[Etherwalk]

But it doesn't matter. The studio said "hey, they owe us money," and nobody showed up to disagree. That's what default judgments are about--if someone doesn't show up to court, they tend to lose. There are some exceptions, mostly related to cases where the court doesn't have jurisdiction and somebody realizes that later.

I believe a lot of landlord-tenant cases are won this way. (The landlord shows up or pays someone to show up and the tenant doesn't bother, so regardless of whether the tenant has a legal reason why he should win, he loses.)

Re:They gave up

[Jane Q. Public]

This is also how cable companies have often gotten judgments against their customers. They'd set up a court date, pay a couple of lawyers (even though they're not allowed by state law to have legal representation for these low-$ civil cases) and schedule a whole group of customers to come in. The customers don't get to challenge the court date and time, because 100 cases are scheduled to be heard. And most of them default.

I had this pulled on me once because I had refused to pay a bill for 4 months of service I hadn't received. I had a witness and documentation. They had no witness and no documentation. Judge ruled against me anyway, because he said he "could not believe" the cable service people would simply fail to show up when they said they would.

It was my first brush with the corrupt practices of US cable companies.

Re:They gave up

[meerling]

"Judge ruled against me anyway, because he said he "could not believe" the cable service people would simply fail to show up when they said they would. "

I guess that judge has never gotten cable. (Hotels don't count.)

Re:They gave up

[Etherwalk]

Sounds like an elected judge paid for by the cable company. Follow the money on his campaign and publish the results.

Re:They gave up

[Jack Griffin]

So how does this work? You sue someone from another country, who of course is in no place to defend themselves, since who is going to take time off, travel overseas, hire foreign lawyers, build a defence case against some bullshit claim from someone they've never heard of etc etc.
It seems like easy money for lawsuit trolls...

Re:They gave up

[sudon't]

It was my first brush with the corrupt practices of [the] US justice system.

There, fixed that for you! Court is a great place to learn what your real status is in this society.

Re:They gave up

[Jane Q. Public]

It was a city court, not "the US justice system".

Well if we're talking wants...

[Noishkel]

... then I'd like to be king of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat. There's more chance of that happening than getting any real coin out of pirates.

Blech.

[jtownatpunk.net]

I hope they win and get awarded $1 in damages. Rounded up, of course.

Sooo they are not going after

[future assassin]

the person who leaked it?

Re:Sooo they are not going after

[dwywit]

That's what I'd like to know. If their production facilities are even halfway decent and documented, it shouldn't be difficult to pinpoint the person who did this.

I mean, DCPs are generated requiring a decryption key, so it must have been leaked before that stage.

Was it a review copy? Identification via steganography comes to mind. Forget visible or digital watermarks, they can be masked or removed. Each review copy could have a subtle modification that can't be removed or masked, even by re-encoding - there are hundreds of scene cuts in action films - if each review copy has one scene shortened or lengthened by 5 or 10 frames, it would serve to identify the copy that was leaked without being obvious. 5 frames is about one-fifth of a second - no-one could identify this without having another copy to compare it with.

Re:Sooo they are not going after

[meerling]

It was probably some unpaid intern that they treated like crap in the first place which is why it was leaked, but they know (s)he doesn't have any money, so they looked for another target.

Re:Sooo they are not going after

[dwywit]

If they let an unpaid intern anywhere near a high-def unencrypted copy of the film, they deserve what happened.

Seriously (all discussion of the quality of the film aside), if you'd invested tens of millions of dollars into a product that you hoped would make you a profit, and that relied on it NOT BEING LEAKED prior to cinema release, would you let an unpaid intern have access to it?

Wait, wait, what?

[Opportunist]

There is a high quality version of Expendables 3 in existence?

Where? More importantly, how is that possible altogether? Did the pirates reshoot the movie, maybe even with actors? And a script that's longer than a letter page?

Re:Wait, wait, what?

[jd2112]

There is a high quality version of Expendables 3 in existence?

Where? More importantly, how is that possible altogether? Did the pirates reshoot the movie, maybe even with actors? And a script that's longer than a letter page?

Not exactly outside the realm of possibility. I'm sure there was a teenager with a cellphone and video editing software who saw it and said, 'I can do better than that.'.
20 years from now he'll be accepting his Oscar and in his acceptance speech he'll thank everyone behind Expendables 3 for inspiring him.

Re:Wait, wait, what?

[Opportunist]

Is that the script of the Michael Bay biopic?

Seriously

[Dunbal]

Why should anyone but Lionsgate pay for their own shitty security policies? You don't vet your people and plan your stuff, you deserve to get fucked and nobody else. Welcome to the real world.

I don't get it

[93 Escort Wagon]

If there was a high quality version of Expendables 3 available, why didn't they release that one in the theaters instead of the crappy version?

I want my insurance company

[fred911]

..to pay me back for my 1980 Chevette in mint condition that was stolen from downtown. I filed a police report and my claim was denied because I left the keys in the ignition.

My insurance company said they don't insure for losses caused by the insured's lack of diligence to prevent the loss.

Possiby Lionsgate needs a few tigers at the gate?

that is great!!

[partsmetal]

that is great!!

High Quality?

[morgauxo]

How can there be a high-quality copy of an Expendables movie?