Posts Tagged ‘The Hurt Locker’

More news on Hurt Locker lawsuits – settlement offers and legal defence options

Hollywood takes the next step against alleged pirates...improvised explosive devices.

The legal process has begun churning forward as the suit against as many as 50,000 alleged downloaders of The Hurt Locker begins moving.

This week, thousands of people received settlement offers from Dunlap Grubb & Weaver, the legal firm working on behalf of Voltage Pictures in bringing this litigation forward. Dunlap Grubb & Weaver is offering to settle out of court with any and all individuals at once for $1,500 apiece, $2,500 if they wait.

With many people confused about what this means or what their rights are, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has offered their help in getting legal aid to those who need it. As well, an Arizona law firm called White Berberian has indicated on their web site that they are interested in defending those accused of file sharing as well. From their site :

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Producers of The Hurt Locker prepare to sue alleged downloaders UPDATE : May 19th

Hurt Locker

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 : (more…)

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