 |
A publicity still for the movie 'The Hurt Locker.' (Credit: Voltage Pictures) |
Dunlap has begun to re-file lawsuits across the country against people accused last year of pirating movies via peer-to-peer networks. To do that, Dunlap established a network of lawyers who are licensed to operate in different federal districts.
Dunlap, which also works under the name U.S. Copyright Group, made headlines last year by suing thousands in a federal court in Washington D.C. on behalf of the makers of such films as "Far Cry" and "The Hurt Locker," last year's Oscar winner for Best Picture. The Washington court, however, appeared hostile to Dunlap's strategy of filing against thousands of people from outside that jurisdiction. That's when Dunlap changed strategy.
'Hurt Locker' sharers: Expect docs like this (photos)
"Filing in Florida in about ten minutes," Thomas Dunlap, one of the firm's founders, e-mailed today. "I am driving to courthouse now, should have cases already in Illinois. "We will file in California, Texas, Washington and Oregon in the next two weeks."
Dunlap has also begun filing lawsuits against named individuals. Records show that he filed suits in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia against Linaka Stein and Gina Morrison, residents of West Virginia and Richard Ball of Virginia.
Dunlap typically offers an accused person a chance to settle out of court for a sum between $1,500 and $3,000. Dunlap has always said he would file lawsuits against those who refused to settle. But there were those who had their doubts. Dunlap appeared to drag his feet about starting the potentially expensive and years-long process of winning a copyright judgment against someone.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota mother accused by the music industry of illegal file sharing, is an example of how hard a process it can be to pursue a copyright judgment. The Thomas-Rasset case has cost the major labels millions of dollars in legal fees and the case continues to drag on.
Dunlap doesn't appear to be bluffing anymore. The firm shows no signs of letting up.
A half-dozen people have contacted CNET since Tuesday about receiving notices from their Internet service providers informing them that Dunlap had subpoenaed their names and other information about them. Before filing a suit against someone, copyright owners must first acquire a person's identity from their ISP.
Dunlap's lawsuits gave rise to a wave of antipiracy litigation last year. Attorneys in West Virginia, Texas, and California began using Dunlap's legal strategy as a template. The porn sector was the most passionate in pursuing these cases. But the adult-filmmakers have run into trouble. A federal judge in Texas recently "severed" thousands of defendants from copyright suits filed by attorney Evan Stone on behalf of 11 copyright owners, most of them porn studios, according to a report in Ars Technica.
In 13 of Stone's 16 suits, only a single defendant remains.
The judge in the case ruled that there wasn't enough binding the defendants together to name them in one suit. Stone argues that the defendants "were improperly severed." He said that to use BitTorrent, people must work together to share files.
"This isn't over," Stone told CNET. "There are numerous other tools for obtaining the names and addresses of pirates and we're not going to stop until justice is served."
In West Virginia, a federal court came to a similar conclusion as the Texas judge. Attorney Ken Ford had filed against thousands of people on behalf of adult-film studios but most of the defendants were also severed from those suits. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has led the opposition against these suits say that they rob defendants of the ability to defend themselves? How can a individual tell their story when they're lumped together with so many people?
Source: Cnet News
No comments:
Post a Comment