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Voltage Pictures dismisses 90 percent of defendants in Hurt Locker file-sharing lawsuit
That record-breaking Hurt Locker lawsuit may not be so impressive after all, now that Voltage Pictures has slashed a major chunk of defendants from its file-sharing complaint. Last week, the company voluntarily dismissed about 90 percent of the 24,583 defendants originally named in the suit, according to documents filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The dismissals were made without prejudice, meaning they could theoretically be re-targeted in the future, though the number of those that reached settlements with Voltage remains unclear. The company also identified some of the alleged file-sharers by name, but acknowledged that 2,278 IP addresses remain anonymous. For more details, check out the coverage from TorrentFreak, where you'll find the full list of dismissed IP addresses, along with the recently-named defendants.
Hurt Locker lawsuit targets a record-breaking 24,583 IP addresses
It's been almost a year since the producers of The Hurt Locker filed a lawsuit against 5,000 alleged pirates suspected of distributing the film via BitTorrent. Now Voltage Pictures has updated its complaint, adding almost 20,000 IP addresses to the list of defendants. That makes it the largest file-sharing lawsuit of all time -- a crown previously held by the company behind The Expendables, according to Wired. The plaintiff has already reached agreements with Charter and Verizon to identify individual users, but no such deal with Comcast, who owns nearly half the supposedly infringing addresses. Linking those addresses with user accounts would let Voltage manage individual settlements -- probably somewhere between $1,000-$2,000 -- rather than continue legal action. All of this eerily echoes the Oscar-winning film's plot, about an adrenaline junkie who couldn't resist downloading just one more movie. Or defusing one more bomb. We're a little fuzzy on the details, but venture into TorrentFreak to scan for familiar IP addresses.
Hurt Locker producer brings the pain (and lawsuits) to 5,000 suspected pirates
We heard earlier this month that Hurt Locker producer Voltage Pictures had teamed with US Copyright Group in an effort to go after individual BitTorrent users who downloaded the film. Now, it looks like the lawsuits have been filed, and boy, is there a lot of paperwork to go around. The lawsuit is targeting 5,000 defendants, currently unidentified but might soon be unmasked via subpoenas issued to the related ISPs. And what might the damages be? The Hollywood Reporter, Esq. blog cites a previous suit over the film Far Cry, where the plaintiffs demanded a minimum of $1,500 from each defendant, up to $150,000 for cases that make it to trial -- and no, there isn't a body suit in the US Army EOD unit strong enough to make it go away.
