How embarrassing it must be for the 6500 people who’ve been sued for having illegally downloaded The Expendables. At least get caught downloading with merit, not that silly bit of nonsense. But yes, word on the street is that the same law firm (the “US Copyright Group”) that spearheaded the effort against people who illegally downloaded The Hurt Locker have now been retained to go after people who downloaded The Expendables. Hope you haven’t been downloading from BitTorrent lately!
The lawsuits target some 6500 unidentified individuals using the good ol’ John Doe method.
There’s a few reasons for the lawsuits. One, of course, is to try to obtain the personal details of the infringing IP address. Can’t really sue someone if you don’t know who they are. Two, and most sinisterly, it’s to get these people to cough up some money, perhaps to the tune of several thousand dollars per person. At this point you’re better off walking into a brick-and-mortar store, shoplifting the Blu-ray, getting caught, then paying the simple fine for shoplifting. It’s a wacky world we live in.
TorrentFreak notes that if 80 percent of defendants pay up (as opposed to actually trying to fight the lawsuit in court, being that justice is only available to the wealthy in this country) then the studio stands to earn some $10 million. Considering the movie made a cool $274 million at the box office, an extra $10 million may be able to pay for the inevitable sequel’s catering budget.
Advice? Stop using BitTorrent, people. It’s not 2004 anymore.