Almost 100,000 US torrent users sued in the last 12 months

Emil

Posts: 152   +0
Staff

In the last 12 months, copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States, mainly against torrent users (and a few hundred ed2k users), have targeted 99,924 defendants. The profitable pay-up-or-else scheme has been embraced by many. Of the 80 cases that were filed originally, 68 are still active, with 70,914 defendants still being targeted.

The data was put together by an unknown party that spent months compiling a complete overview of all the mass P2P lawsuits filed in the US since the beginning of 2010. "I am hoping that having the data available will stimulate discussion and that it could be of value to people actively resisting/fighting the suits," the anonymous person told TorrentFreak. "Even if that is overly optimistic, public access to the information that shows the scope of this bullshit is, in and of itself, a good thing."

If you want to check out the data, which includes all the relevant case documents and people involved between January 8, 2010 and January 21, 2011, head over to this public Google Docs link. The information regarding these mass P2P cases will be regularly updated.

Mass P2P lawsuits are a new revenue stream for the adult entertainment and movie studio industries. Copyright holders try to obtain the personal details of users who are allegedly sharing their material online, and once they do, they offer the defendant the opportunity to settle the case for somewhere between a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars. The victims are told this will allow them to avoid a full trial and potentially even bigger financial penalties.

Permalink to story.

 
hitech0101 said:
But still everything is on torrents no effect of suing as western laws don't apply in east.

Basically, yes. Although some cases might actually be relevant anyway as the defendant is from the west.

I'm actually glad to see that some kind of torrent-capture system actually works. Over at where I'm staying, Sweden, the government is funding enormous sums into torrent-capture systems like IPRED and so on. Still, they don't catch ****. If I recall correctly, about 3 people were arrested last month. Even though Sweden has PirateBay and so on... yikes.
 
I wonder if there might be some of these figures for the UK?...I'de be interested to read those.
 
My, my ... the scam artists are going to thrive on this. Au revoir chain letters asking donations for fake health bills; au revoir pyramid schemes. Just send out thousands of emails to people accusing them of illegally downloading music content and some will bite!
 
PYGMUS said:
My, my ... the scam artists are going to thrive on this. Au revoir chain letters asking donations for fake health bills; au revoir pyramid schemes. Just send out thousands of emails to people accusing them of illegally downloading music content and some will bite!
hmmmm .... never thought of it like that..........off to send some emails
 
The copyright attorneys are benefiting from the DMCA, in that it's civil entity, thus no extradition is necessary. The "art photography" houses, which are mostly based in Russia, have token offices in the US, in part, to artificially extend the reach of their legal recourse. The primary function is of course, to apply for US copyright on the imported materials.

Most of the models are of Russian descent, sometimes with nicknames like, "Indiana". So, I suppose the identity of the the target audience is pretty much a slam dunk.

That's what I've always "lusted" to be when I grew up, a copyright lawyer for the pornography industry. It would have made my mother so proud...:rolleyes:
 
I hope that every pirate that engages in illegal trade of copyrighted material has the full weight of the law come down on them. I don't care whether you think games, movies, and music are overpriced; the fact of the matter is that stealing is not ok. Piracy hurts industries that produce products that I enjoy, and if piracy is left unchecked those products will not be produced any longer there by eliminating my ability to enjoy them. Get off of your high horses and grow up. Stealing is stealing.
 
But what do you say to the people whose mindset is that of "I wasn't going buy it either way, so I may as well pirate it"?
 
Guest said:
I hope that every pirate that engages in illegal trade of copyrighted material has the full weight of the law come down on them. I don't care whether you think games, movies, and music are overpriced; the fact of the matter is that stealing is not ok. Piracy hurts industries that produce products that I enjoy, and if piracy is left unchecked those products will not be produced any longer there by eliminating my ability to enjoy them. Get off of your high horses and grow up. Stealing is stealing.
If you honestly think that pirating is going to completely stop the products that you enjoy, then your a fricking *****. There is allot of non-pirating people in the world who pay legitimately and will continue to pay legitimately, to ever prevent this absolute worst case scenario from happening. How about you get off your high horse and come back down to reality.
 
Back