DRM News

UPDATE : It seems the President of the film’s production company is a bit touchy when someone disagrees with their method of suing alleged downloaders.

One of the readers of the site Boing Boing sent the President of Voltage Pictures, Nicolas Chartier, a note stating (quoted from DailyTech) :

“I wish to register my disagreement with these tactics, and would like you to know that as a result of these actions I am boycotting your films. The majority of the people you are suing were not seeking to make money from their downloads,” explained the reader. “While it is completely understandable that Voltage Pictures wishes to defend its intellectual property, this is an inhumane way of doing so.”

Apparently Chartier felt the need to respond, and did so in such a reasonable manner…

Hi Nicholas, please feel free to leave your house open every time you go out and please tell your family to do so, please invite people in the streets to come in and take things from you, not to make money out of it by reselling it but just to use it for themselves and help themselves. If you think it’s normal they take my work for free, I’m sure you will give away all your furniture and possessions and your family will do the same. I can also send you my bank account information since apparently you work for free and your family too so since you have so much money you should give it away… I actually like to pay my employees, my family, my bank for their work and like to get paid for my work. I’m glad you’re a moron who believes stealing is right. I hope your family and your kids end up in jail one day for stealing so maybe they can be taught the difference. Until then, keep being stupid, you’re doing that very well. And please do not download, rent, or pay for my movies, I actually like smart and more important HONEST people to watch my films.

Yeah. Way to keep things from spinning out of control, Nick. It’s good to know that the head of a movie studio involved in a massive lawsuit isn’t letting his emotions cloud his judgment. And this will DEFINITELY play well when it comes to trying to convince people that you aren’t an elitist looking down upon the common folk and proclaiming “Let them eat cake…”

EARLIER STORY : As has previously been seen, Hollywood is getting serious about following the RIAA model of suing groups of downloaders. And now we see the next step in that new model.

The Hurt Locker won the award for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. While it had been relatively popular on torrent sites prior to the win, it became a bittorrent juggernaut after taking home the big prize. At the same time, it wasn’t a commercial smash at the box office.

So, in an effort to make back some revenue, the producers of The Hurt Locker are preparing a massive lawsuit. From The Hollywood Reporter :

According to Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer at the firm, the multi-million dollar copyright infringement lawsuit should be filed this week. He declines to say exactly how many individuals will be targeted, but expect the number to be in the tens of thousands, if not more. “Locker” first leaked onto the web more than five months before its U.S. release and was a hot item in P2P circles after it won six Oscars in March. Despite the accolades, the film grossed only about $16 million in the U.S.

The U.S. Copyright Group has already filed lawsuits over about 10 other films, including Uwe Boll’s “Far Cry,” “Call of the Wild 3D” and “Uncross the Stars.” Reports of those suits raised alarms in some circles, whereas others joked that the movie industry was merely suing those with poor taste.

“You can guess that relative to the films we’ve pursued already, the order of magnitude is much higher” with “Hurt Locker,” says Dunlap, adding that the lawsuit will also cover other Voltage pictures such as “Personal Effects,” starring Ashton Kutcher.

The process involves a lawsuit being filed, then the plaintiffs petitioning the ISPs for user records to attempt to match the user IP addresses in those records of those customers with the IP addresses recorded as downloading the movie. After that, the U.S. Copyright Group sends settlement offers to those named in the suits.

So, a group of movie studios tries to act as judge, jury and executioner, strong arming people out of money with scare tactics before the case even reaches trial. Nice. Good thing it’s been such a successful model for the music industry, otherwise this might seem stupid…

Oh.