New Lawsuits Target Illegal Movie Downloaders

Public Radio / Ars Technica story

[Robert Charlton]

New Lawsuits Target Illegal Movie Downloaders [onthemedia.org]
On The Media
June 25, 2010

On The Media's Bob Garfield interviews Ars Technica's senior editor Nate Anderson. Story, interview audio, and transcript online.

A company called The US Copyright Group have started targeting illegal movie downloading, picking up where the RIAA left off in 2008....

BOB GARFIELD: ...And guilty or innocent, I guess it feels like a shakedown.

NATE ANDERSON: Well, that's how many people feel. In the settlement letters that we have seen, the lawyers do promise that if they take these people to court that they will go after the most damages possible, 150,000 dollars per infringement. That was something that the recording industry was never willing to do....

Identification is made by IP addresses... "and then these cases are filed, 2,000, 4,000, in some cases even 5,000 anonymous users at a time."

Original Ars Technica story here...

The RIAA? Amateurs. Here's how you sue 14,000+ P2P users [arstechnica.com]

The sheer volume suggests that these cases aren't designed for prosecution - and they don't need to be. As the RIAA lawsuits showed us, most people will settle....

[outland88]

Very interesting, especially the second article, because for years I’ve speculated this would and should happen. There are literally billions of dollars to be made in an untapped market of copyright infringement on the Internet. A real pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so to speak. I imagine these fellows are even capable of targeting it down to the income level in a neighborhood to figure out who is willing to pay. Plus with this particular type film aficionado they might already fit into a high income bracket. With a whopping 60% of people willing to settle with the first notice the ROI seems very good for a dollar mail-out.

It’s a no-brainer to pay because most good lawyers building a case against you would likely be dealing in indisputable material evidence. In fact they might even give you a free taste of the evidence to shake you up even more. You could argue your 12 year old was the one doing it but would you waste $20,000+ defending yourself when you could settle for much less. Would you risk everything you own and your home at $150,000 per occurrence? Join the real world. People do plead guilty just to save money.

Once the infrastructure has been set up, this sort of system is simple to replicate, since it's built largely on sending out letters and collecting cash.

This is the future.