How a Virginia Law Firm Outpaces the MPAA at Suing Over Movie Downloads 237
Jamie points out this Ars Technica piece on a series of suits brought by the Virginia law firm of Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver against users they accuse of illegally downloading movies. The firm has an interesting business model in these suits; sue enough users in a DC Federal court to be worth splitting the sum of many small settlement offers (generally $1,500-2,500 apiece) with the filmmakers, rather than rely on winning after trial a small number of larger judgments. Most people settle, and Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver has so far named more than 14,000 "Does" — as in John Doe — including, as mentioned a few days ago, 5,000 who downloaded The Hurt Locker.
Yeah.... (Score:5, Funny)
In the case of The Hurt Locker, when you stand to make almost as much money suing 5,000 people for "stealing" your movie as it did at the box office, maybe you should have made a better movie.
S2S (Score:5, Funny)
What are the odds? (Score:1, Funny)
Bittorrent Users Sue Movie Studios (Score:5, Funny)
Film Industry Saved by IP Chasers! (Score:5, Funny)
Washington, D.C.-- Super Lawyers Duenlap, Grubb and Beaver declared today that they had been able to save the ailing film industry via a new, innovative IP-chasing strategy. "It's really simple," declared Duenlap. "You just put a really shitty film on the internet," said Grubb. "And then you wait for peoples' cousins dogs to come download five minutes from the honeypot, and SUE everyone in their zip code," said Ms. Beaver.
Due to this innovation, Hollywood stars will continue to be able to walk the red carpet with millions in diamonds and rubies, instead of being reduced to begging at soup kitchens, said Duenlap, Grubb and Beaver.
CNET news attempted to contact the IP addresses involved in this article but ping requests were not returned.
Re:Attorney Emails (Score:1, Funny)
Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?
Somebody apparently already did that. Just enter one of their email addresses in Google. Includes home address/phone and a few relatives' names. I wonder if those are the real deal.
Let's just hope nobody does something illegal to this despicable, blood-sucking, worthless scum ... 'cause that would be ... well ... you know ... illegal ... not necessarily immoral ... just illegal.
Re:This makes no sense... (Score:2, Funny)
Not only that, but in 2008 Barak Obama was elected president. I concede your point.
Re:Attorney Emails (Score:2, Funny)
Someone want to get home addresses, phone #s, list of first-born children?
Why? What's the point? To be a childish dick? To threaten and intimidate?
No thank you. We're adults.