Los Angeles
– Voltage Pictures, which produced the Oscar-winning film "Hurt
Locker," has retained the services of U.S. Copyright Group and plans to
sue individuals who downloaded the movie on file-sharing services for copyright
infringement, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
They plan to use IP address
data culled from BitTorrent to subpoena the identities of suspected downloaders
of the film, and then send letters offering to settle for an unspecified amount
or else face litigation.
A screener copy of "The Hurt Locker" appeared
on file-sharing networks months before the film’s official release.
The movie
was downloaded around 7 million times before its Oscar win, and has racked up 3
million more downloads since, according to TorrentFreak, while generating
relatively meager U.S.
box office revenues of $16.4 million to date.
U.S. Copyright Group previously
used the same tactic to file copyright lawsuits against file-swappers over a
number of other films, including "Far Cry" and "Uncross the
Stars."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/w6k2o
(Hollywood Reporter)
http://snipurl.com/w6k1j
(TorrentFreak)
http://snipurl.com/w6kc8
(DMW previous coverage)
Guess the 16 million they made from it wasn’t enough