Hurt Locker maker sues at least 2,500 BitTorrent users
updated 04:20 pm EDT, Mon April 23, 2012
New case started by Voltage Pictures in Florida
Voltage Pictures is back in a federal Florida court, last week naming at least 2,514 BitTorrent users in a new lawsuit. Last May, it sued about 10 times that number of alleged file sharers for the loss of income resulting from illegally sharing the studio's Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker blockbuster. Then, it listed nearly 25,000 alleged infringing users at once, the biggest such lawsuit in the US.
That case reached a number of settlements, though exactly how many isn't known. The case was closed in December, however. The new batch of downloaders isn't named, but the new case is aiming to get ISPs to reveal those names. If successful, it will issue a settlement offer in the region of $3,000 for each downloader. This would result in over $6m in damages.
All of the new defendants downloaded the movie in 2010, so the studio waited two years before it initiated the lawsuit. All of them are also customers of Charter Communications.
The case contributes to others, with a total of over 250,000 alleged BitTorrent users in similar cases. [via TorrentFreak]
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2006
How much is too much
$3000 for downloading a movie illegally?! How exactly do they reach that number? It would be one thing if they were sharing the movie, but just downloading the movie and watching it doesn't cost the studio $3000! Stealing a physical DVD doesn't bring that sort of fine. Why should downloading it?