$1,500,000 Fine For Sharing 10 Movies On BitTorrent

another random user writes with news that a Virginia man, Kywan Fisher, has been ordered to pay $1,500,000 to porn-maker Flava Works for sharing ten of the company's films over BitTorrent. "The huge total was reached through penalties of $150,000 per movie, the maximum possible statutory damages under U.S. copyright law." The man did not make any defense in federal court to Flava Works' copyright infringement claims, so the judge handed down a default judgement. "In 2011 Fisher and several other defendants were sued by adult entertainment company Flava Works. The case in question differs from the so-called 'John Doe' lawsuits as the copyright holder had detailed information on the defendants who had paid accounts on the company’s movie portal. For Fisher the trouble started when instead of just viewing the films for personal entertainment, he allegedly went on to share copies on BitTorrent. These illicit copies were traced directly back to his account through a code embedded in the videos. ... The verdict will be welcomed by Flava and the many other copyright holders involved in BitTorrent lawsuits in the United States. DieTrollDie, a close follower and critic of these cases, points out that it will be widely cited in settlement letters to other defendants, but that the case itself is notably different. 'This was not the normal Copyright Troll case – there was some actual evidence beyond a public IP address. Not a smoking gun by far, but certainly enough to show a preponderance of evidence,' DTD writes.

Re:embedded code?

[michelcolman]

Yeah, we just watch them for the hidden codes, it's what turns us on.

$1,500,000 for porn

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

That REALLY sucks...

Evidence.

[slackware 3.6]

So did the judge watch all of the evidence?

Re:WTF...

[Anonymous Coward]

i blame tcp/ip. hacker protocol.

Re:Live by the porn...

[0100010001010011]

We mainly just put them in jail and punish them for the addiction.

Because unlike all those commie socialist countries in Europe, that actually works. (Or so my Republican candidate for senate tells me).

Re:He *paid* for porn, he deserves to pay more

[jasper160]

He must be able to afford it if he had the time to watch and run out of free porn. I don't know, maybe the paid stuff has a better sound track.

Re:Yeah, because that makes sense

[FreonTrip]

Forgive my cynicism, but I'm pretty sure There's a Black Man in My Wife's Ass [imdb.com] didn't cost more to make than Forrest Gump, or even something like They Live [imdb.com].

Re:$1,500,000 for porn

[Norwell Bob]

You know, like, when somebody makes a subtle joke, and then somebody else kind of gets that joke, but doesn't know it was a joke, and then makes the obvious joke based on the subtle joke that they didn't know was the joke and ruins both jokes? And then everybody else just gets a little uncomfortable, and says something like "hm... yeah..."

Yeah, it was kind of like that.

Re:WTF...

[volxdragon]

Interesting notions but you assume that the lawmakers actually care about common sense.

They don't. They care about keeping their palms greased.

WRONG metaphor to use with this story, now it will take a few strong drinks to get that mental image out of my head...