Hurt Locker director sues bittorent users

Thing is...

A possible landmark ruling in one of the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. may spell the end of the “pay-up-or-else-schemes” that have targeted over 100,000 Internet users in the last year. District Court Judge Harold Baker has denied a copyright holder the right to subpoena the ISPs of alleged copyright infringers, because an IP-address does not equal a person.

In the last year various copyright holders have sued well over 100,000 alleged file-sharers in the United States alone. The purpose of these lawsuits is to obtain the personal details of the alleged infringers, and use this information to negotiate a settlement offer ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

Lawyers, the public and consumer advocacy groups have compared these practices to extortion, but nonetheless new cases are still being filed every month. This week, however, an interesting ruling was handed down by District Court Judge Harold Baker that, if adopted by other judges, may become a major roadblock for similar mass-lawsuits.

In the case VPR Internationale v. Does 1-1017, the judge denied the Canadian adult film company access to subpoena ISPs for the personal information connected to the IP-addresses of their subscribers. The reason? IP-addresses do not equal persons, and especially in ‘adult entertainment’ cases this could obstruct a ‘fair’ legal process.

Among other things Judge Baker cited a recent child porn case where the U.S. authorities raided the wrong people, because the real offenders were piggybacking on their Wi-Fi connections. Using this example, the judge claims that several of the defendants in VPR’s case may have nothing to do with the alleged offense either.

“The infringer might be the subscriber, someone in the subscriber’s household, a visitor with her laptop, a neighbor, or someone parked on the street at any given moment,” Judge Baker writes.

Although the above logic applies to all BitTorrent lawsuits that are currently ongoing, the matter becomes especially delicate when the alleged offense is sharing rather explicit adult titles.

“Orin Kerr, a professor at George Washington University Law School, noted that whether you’re guilty or not, you look like a suspect. Could expedited discovery be used to wrest quick settlements, even from people who have done nothing wrong?” Judge Baker writes.

Judge Baker further notes that “the embarrassment of public exposure might be too great, the legal system too daunting and expensive, for some to ask whether the plaintiff VPR has competent evidence to prove its case.”

Baker concludes by saying that his Court is not supporting a “fishing expedition” for subscribers’ details if there is no evidence that it has jurisdiction over the defendants.

Although the ruling is definitely a setback for the copyright holders in mass-BitTorrent lawsuits, it has yet to be seen whether other judges will reach the same conclusion in future cases. If that happens, the end of this type of lawsuit in the U.S. may be near.

Texas lawyer Robert Cashman, who represents several defendants in similar lawsuits, agrees that the ruling can be a potential game changer.

“We may have just seen the order that may end all future John Doe lawsuits,” he commented in a response.
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Source: http://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-not-a-person-bittorrent-case-judge-says-110503/
 
Jokester said:
Problem is in the US the piraters can be charged for each and every download that they were responsible for, so there was a case where a woman thought the same and essentially told the IP owners to jog on. They then took her to court, won, and she ended up with a bill for something like $60,000 to pay off because she had been seeding it on torrent to thousands of users.

The $3k settlement may be a wise option.
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Source ?

I've seen reports to the contrary that they are on just as dodgy ground in the US as they are over here.
 
Jokester said:
Problem is in the US the piraters can be charged for each and every download that they were responsible for, so there was a case where a woman thought the same and essentially told the IP owners to jog on. They then took her to court, won, and she ended up with a bill for something like $60,000 to pay off because she had been seeding it on torrent to thousands of users.

The $3k settlement may be a wise option.
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With torrents, how could they tell how many downloads one particular person was responsible for?
 
NickM said:
With torrents, how could they tell how many downloads one particular person was responsible for?
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Maybe if they could get tracking data for total data uploaded, then divide that by the size of the file(s) as a lower estimate i guess? :confused:
 
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Alex74 said:
Maybe if they could get tracking data for total data uploaded, then divide that by the size of the file(s) as a lower estimate i guess? :confused:
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I wouldn't have thought that would work, since seeding a file isn't the same as being responsible for x number of downloads at all...
 
The film was released about half a year before anyone even started talking about it, it's only because of the pirates that there was ever any talk and hype about the film which resulted in an oscar and therefore loads more sales. In this instance piracy actually increased profits.
 
The film ranks as one of the worst I've seen. The first 10 minutes had promise and then the new guy comes along who doesn't follow rules and it goes down hill to a cliched film from there. The sniper scene is the one that sticks in my head because it was so unbelievable! Grunts jump on the sniper rifle and can instantly use it at long range. The guy before them has just been shot so the position is zeroed in by the enemy but the enemy doesn't fire again?!

That scene was anti-British and the whole film was american propaganda. Utter tosh!
 
Jokester said:
Problem is in the US the piraters can be charged for each and every download that they were responsible for, so there was a case where a woman thought the same and essentially told the IP owners to jog on. They then took her to court, won, and she ended up with a bill for something like $60,000 to pay off because she had been seeding it on torrent to thousands of users.

The $3k settlement may be a wise option.
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one big problem is the Us has punitive fines.

Ie here you can only be fined the cost of the game you've dl'd (assuming only a dl no upload) and reasonable costs.

in America you can be fined the cost of the game + an insanely large punitive fine.
 
Valentino said:
The film was released about half a year before anyone even started talking about it, it's only because of the pirates that there was ever any talk and hype about the film which resulted in an oscar and therefore loads more sales. In this instance piracy actually increased profits.
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Oh please. What an idiotic thing to say.:)
 
Great movie, asinine move! Don't think it had anything to do with the director though. Particularly asinine move considering how many torrents of leaked screeners there were online during awards season last year! If some of them weren't actually released by the producers themselves to generate buzz I'll eat my hat and crap out a hatstand!

Big Media are genuinely acting like organised crime gangs shaking down people for protection money these days, but the wheel will turn, mark my words. Anyone annoyed by this, support foundations like the EFF and ORG and let's pitch in to put a stop to this protection racket!
 
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