Lawsuits resume against illegal file sharers


Suing people for illegal file sharing appears to have made a comeback, CNET reports—although now it’s smaller studios that are the plaintiffs. News that Voltage Pictures, producers of the Oscar-winning film “The Hurt Locker,” filed a federal copyright complaint last week against 5,000 alleged file sharers caught many in the file-sharing community off guard. Hadn’t the film and music industries dumped a litigation strategy in favor of a much more subtle approach, one that didn’t drag fans into court where they stood to lose thousands of dollars? It’s true, the trade groups for the major players in both these sectors, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, gave up suing file sharers. For the past couple years, they’ve tried to persuade internet service providers to suspend service to first-time copyright offenders—and though they don’t like talking about it much, the MPAA and RIAA would like chronic abusers to be permanently booted off the networks. None of this, however, would happen without the accused receiving plenty of warning. But the latest round of lawsuits isn’t being brought by gargantuan entertainment conglomerates, with their legions of lawyers and deep pools of cash. Instead, a dozen or so little-known film companies, with far fewer resources than the big studios, have mounted their own legal challenge to file sharing. And these guys appear to be playing by their own rules: In a few short months, they’ve filed lawsuits against a combined 50,000 people. The RIAA in five years filed complaints against fewer than 40,000…

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