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Falsely Accused Movie Pirate Deserves $17K Compensation, Court Says (torrentfreak.com)
An Oregon District Court has sided with a wrongfully accused man who was sued for allegedly downloading a pirated copy of the Adam Sandler movie "The Cobbler." According to the court's recommendations, reports TorrentFreak, the man is entitled to more than $17,000 in compensation as the result of the filmmakers "overaggressive" and "unreasonable" tactics. From the article: The defendant in question, Thomas Gonzales, operates an adult foster care home where several people had access to the Internet. The filmmakers were aware of this and during a hearing their counsel admitted that any guest could have downloaded the film. [...] "The Court finds that once Plaintiff learned that the alleged infringement was taking place at an adult group care home at which Gonzales did not reside, Plaintiff's continued pursuit of Gonzales for copyright infringement was objectively unreasonable," Judge Beckerman ruled. "The Court shares Gonzales' concern that Plaintiff is motivated, at least in large part, by extracting large settlements from individual consumers prior to any meaningful litigation. "On balance, the Court has concerns about the motivation behind Plaintiff's overaggressive litigation of this case and other cases, and that factor weighs in favor of fee shifting."
Not really. Adam Sandler movies are basically massive scams where he makes huge profits by selling advertising into the movie, then writes up giant paychecks for himself and all his cronies. No matter how shitty his movies are, the Adam Sandler business is basically self-sustaining.
Breakfast served all day!
Doesn't sound sufficiently punitive to me.
I agree, I didn't see in the article what "large settlement" they were trying to extort from him. And since he obviously didn't pay the extortion they were doubtless suing for a ridiculous "Hollywood accounting" amount. The defendant's settlement should be at least three times that amount PLUS his attorney fees. There is plenty of precedent for this in law, passing a bad check makes you liable for three times the amount for example.