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Warner Bros Claims Agency Ran Its Own Pirate Movie Site (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the digging-your-own-grave dept.

Warner Bros Entertainment has sued talent agency Innovative Artists, claiming that the agency ran its own pirate site when it ripped DVD screeners and streamed them to associates via Google servers. TorrentFreak adds: In a lawsuit filed in a California federal court, Warner accuses the agency of effectively setting up its own pirate site, stocked with rips of DVD screeners that should have been kept secure. "Beginning in late 2015, Innovative Artists set up and operated an illegal digital distribution platform that copied movies and then distributed copies and streamed public performances of those movies to numerous people inside and outside of the agency," the complaint reads. "Innovative Artists stocked its platform with copies of Plaintiff's works, including copies that Innovative Artists made by ripping awards consideration 'screener' DVDs that Plaintiff sent to the agency to deliver to one of its clients." Given its position in the industry, Innovative Artists should have known better than to upload content, Warner's lawyers write.

24 comments

  1. Damn... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...did y'all run out of single moms to sue for $millions or something?

    That's getting pretty desperate for income when you're trying to screw over a vendor because they're too dumb to have a proper IT department...

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    1. Re:Damn... by PatientZero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Uh, they didn't screw up with IT and accidentally expose an unsecured file server. They purposely ripped and served up DVD screeners in direct violation of their agreements. Not some automatic shrink-wrap agreement or TOS but and actual specific, legal contract signed by both parties. I have no problem with companies enforcing their contractual agreements with each other.

      Of course, I didn't RTFS. Were the culprits just some innovative—er, I mean opportunistic—employees, or was there a larger internal conspiracy?

      --
      Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
      I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
    2. Re:Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed the point. Had they a proper IT department, these activities would have been detected and shut down internally, and the internal client educated. With no IT department, there will be no cat herding, cats everywhere, it's bound to cause problems like these.

    3. Re:Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What makes you think it wasn't the IT department doing this?

    4. Re:Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no comments from the peanut gallery even, seems pretty straight forward.

      " including copies that Innovative Artists made by ripping awards consideration 'screener' DVDs that Plaintiff sent to the agency to deliver to one of its clients"

      I would bet a lot that that comes in a package with rather obvious warnings AND not even theirs in the 1st place :O

      Altho, i am not sure why they needed a middleman to deliver a DVD. Hand delivered for 'safety' perhaps?

    5. Re:Damn... by bws111 · · Score: 1

      Probably the address they have for the person is 'c/o Innovative Artists'.

    6. Re:Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In mid 2008 after the indictment had been served, it was discovered that the main police investigator in the preliminary investigation had started working for one of the plaintiffs, Warner Brothers, before the date of the indictment.

      The Pirate Bay trial

      Warner isn't above blatantly buying the legal system in one of the highest profile copyright cases ever.
      They are pretty far beyond "desperate", they became organized crime a long time ago.

    7. Re:Damn... by yotamoteuchi · · Score: 1

      This just serves to remind everyone that this is how people think of copyrights, even those that benefit from them. Simple, intuitive actions will always win over artificial, constrained rules, even for the rule makers. Just take a moment to think about how many of Warner's own employees are probably doing the same?

    8. Re:Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Were the culprits just some innovative—er, I mean opportunistic—employees, or was there a larger internal conspiracy?

      I have it on good authority that it was not a company effort, but the work of underlings acting on their own.

      ac

  2. Themselves by deadwill69 · · Score: 2

    I came to this thinking they were hosting their own pirated video site. Silly me. It was just one of their partners.

  3. welcome to the 21st century by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    digital scarcity is not a viable business model

  4. Re:Respond by skr95062 · · Score: 1

    They should use the hillary defense. "We didn't intend to commit a crime."

    I tried that...
    The cop still gave me a ticket for speeding, after he stopped laughing.

  5. Re:Respond by TroII · · Score: 1

    Speeding is a statutory offense; intent is not required, and lack thereof is not a defense.

    --
    "If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
  6. Re:Respond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    same with hillary's mishandling of classified material. no intent required.

  7. Re:Respond by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    you just went over the real limit on some roads it can be 15mph or more over the posted one.

  8. Ultra Violet by Rockets84 · · Score: 0

    Perhaps instead of sending out SD quality DVD screeners, WB & Co should just issue unique Ultra Violet digital locker keys to each person who's the intended target of the screener.

    Oh wait, that wouldn't work because no one would watch the screeners because UV is such a dog turd of system.

  9. Something seems rotten here by swb · · Score: 1

    Isn't an "associate" by which I assume "business associate" of a talent agency watching a movie kind of something Warner wants to happen? Like they want industry visibility of their product, especially to talent agencies?

    Isn't it also fair to assume that among industry insiders "off the books" copies of films have been around forever and are widely circulated? I'd guess old timers have significant libraries of 35mm and 16mm prints which were never paid for and some of which may have been made in labs for nothing more than the cost of film and developing.

    Unless the talent agency was actively allowing people not associated with the agency to download these films, I'm kind of wondering what Warner is so wound up about. There's literally nothing happening here that hasn't gone on forever, especially since the VHS era.

    While I'm sure some finance guy at Warner feels like his numbers would work out better if he could somehow include revenue from every time a film biz insider looked at a Warner film, I'm also guessing that filmmakers making money off of people involved in the filmmaking business isn't exactly what you'd call a business model.

    1. Re:Something seems rotten here by bws111 · · Score: 1

      RTFA. They discovered this was happening because they were alerted that copies of the movies were appearing on file sharing sites. That is not 'industry insiders' getting access, it is everyone.

    2. Re:Something seems rotten here by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      for old timers they would need to be rich old timers because..

      well. "for nothing more than the cost of film and developing" was quite significant.

      basically what they did was rip screeners and put them on their google docs. probably a few of those ended up getting copied to wider net.

      why warner would care is that those screeners were never meant to be opened by or even watched by anyone else than the recipient personally.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Something seems rotten here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      basically what they did was rip screeners and put them on their google docs. probably a few of those ended up getting copied to wider net.

      Doesn't mean that Innovative Artists did the wider distribution.
      Google have access to everything on Google docs and if their EULA is anything like any other EULA they have probably reserved the right to do whatever they like with the data stored there.

    4. Re:Something seems rotten here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, Warner sends copy to IA.

      IA puts copy on Google docs, likely to get a copy to someone inside the company.

      Google says, mine gimme, puts it somewhere else, where someone else has access.

      That someone puts it into wide distribution.

      And IA is being sued for accidentally giving Google the permission to distribute the film?

      That sounds like a weird situation to me.

  10. Re: Respond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You forgot that only rich people can do that.

    And no, it doesn't matter what political alignment they believe in.

  11. Re:Respond by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    Since when do those laws require intent? I am sure that the Navy Sailor didn't intend to reveal classified information when he took a selfie in a sub's engine room:

    http://www.politico.com/story/...

    No intent is required in classified leakage issues, only the failure to report...which last I checked, Hillary didn't do.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?