SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the sudden-outbreak-of-common-sense dept.
A District Court judge in Seattle has taken a novel approach in a series of default judgments targeting alleged BitTorrent pirates. Since the defendants are accused of sharing files in the same swarm, they should also share the penalty among each other, the judge argues. According to the order, these cases are not intended to provide a windfall to filmmakers.
Many Hollywood insiders see online piracy as a major threat, but only very few are willing to target alleged file-sharers with lawsuits.
LHF Productions, one of the companies behind the blockbuster "London Has Fallen," has no problem crossing this line. Since the first pirated copies of the film appeared online last year, the company has been suing alleged downloaders in multiple courts.
[...] This week, Judge Ricardo Martinez ruled over a series of LHF cases at the Seattle District Court. The movie company requested default judgments against 28 defendants in five cases, demanding $2,500 from each defendant
[...] The filmmaker had argued that $2,500, and even more in attorney's fees and costs, is a rather modest request. However, in his order this week the Judge sees things differently
[...] Instead, the Judge places the damages amount at the statutory minimum, which is $750.
Even more interesting, and the first time we've seen this happening, is that the penalty will be split among the swarm members in each case. The filmmakers alleged that the defendants were part of the same swarm, so they are all liable for the same infringement, Judge Martinez argues.
[...] This means that in one of the cases, where there are eight defaulted defendants, each has to pay just over $93 in damages.
As for the lowered damages amount itself, the Judge clarifies that these type of cases are not intended to result in large profits. Especially not, when the rightsholders have made little effort to prove actual damage or to track down the original sharer.
Source:
Additional coverage on
fightcopyrighttrolls.com
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @06:17PM
... This was a default judgment entered. So unless this was a John Doe case, none of the defendants responded affirmatively. Ordinarily not responding would be a VERY stupid thing to do. Interesting that the judge denied fees given it was a default. But the kicker is that for any of the defendants involved, I'm sure they would have had a LOT more than $93 in costs to be represented there (even pro se.)
So is this a case where the little guy *should* just not worry and move along, akin to big business seeing regulatory violations as just a cost of business?