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Movies Piracy The Almighty Buck The Courts Entertainment

LionsGate Wants Pirate Sites To Pay For 'Expendables' 3 Leak (torrentfreak.com) 91

Posted by timothy from the that's-why-they-lost-the-academy-award dept.
An anonymous reader writes: During the summer of 2014, the movie studio LionsGate suffered a major setback when a high quality leak of the then-unreleased Expendables 3 film appeared online. Fearing a massive loss in revenue, the movie studio sued the operators of several websites that allegedly failed to remove the infringing files. Over the past year there has been little progress in the case as most of the accused site operators failed to respond to LionsGate's complaint. In a new filing at the California district court, LionsGate indicates a desire to move forward by asking for a default judgment against the operators of LimeTorrents and the (already defunct) Dotsemper and Swankshare sites. Previously LionsGate settled with the operator of video hosting service Played.to.
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LionsGate Wants Pirate Sites To Pay For 'Expendables' 3 Leak More

LionsGate Wants Pirate Sites To Pay For 'Expendables' 3 Leak

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  • Good thing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GodelEscherBlecch ( 4321991 ) on Friday December 11, 2015 @07:37PM (#51103299)
    I think theft of art is a serious crime. Good thing no such crime was committed here.

  • LionsGate Wants Pirate Sites To Pay For 'Expendables' 3 Leak (torrentfreak.com)

    LionsGate should be paying anyone willing to make a copy or watch of this thing their weight in gold. This is a really bad movie, but it doesn't quite make it to the "so bad that it's actually funny" category.

    • But it doesn't matter. The studio said "hey, they owe us money," and nobody showed up to disagree. That's what default judgments are about--if someone doesn't show up to court, they tend to lose. There are some exceptions, mostly related to cases where the court doesn't have jurisdiction and somebody realizes that later.

      I believe a lot of landlord-tenant cases are won this way. (The landlord shows up or pays someone to show up and the tenant doesn't bother, so regardless of whether the tenant has a lega

      • Re:They gave up (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Jane Q. Public ( 1010737 ) on Friday December 11, 2015 @10:01PM (#51103661)
        This is also how cable companies have often gotten judgments against their customers. They'd set up a court date, pay a couple of lawyers (even though they're not allowed by state law to have legal representation for these low-$ civil cases) and schedule a whole group of customers to come in. The customers don't get to challenge the court date and time, because 100 cases are scheduled to be heard. And most of them default.

        I had this pulled on me once because I had refused to pay a bill for 4 months of service I hadn't received. I had a witness and documentation. They had no witness and no documentation. Judge ruled against me anyway, because he said he "could not believe" the cable service people would simply fail to show up when they said they would.

        It was my first brush with the corrupt practices of US cable companies.
        • "Judge ruled against me anyway, because he said he "could not believe" the cable service people would simply fail to show up when they said they would. "

          I guess that judge has never gotten cable. (Hotels don't count.)

          • Sounds like an elected judge paid for by the cable company. Follow the money on his campaign and publish the results.

        • So how does this work? You sue someone from another country, who of course is in no place to defend themselves, since who is going to take time off, travel overseas, hire foreign lawyers, build a defence case against some bullshit claim from someone they've never heard of etc etc.
          It seems like easy money for lawsuit trolls...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sudon't ( 580652 )

          It was my first brush with the corrupt practices of [the] US justice system.

          There, fixed that for you! Court is a great place to learn what your real status is in this society.

    • LionsGate should be paying anyone willing to make a copy or watch of this thing their weight in gold.

      I suspect this would work out very unfavorably for them, financially speaking. To quote, "Worst 'Expendables' ever."

  • A "high quality leak" of any Expendables film is inconceivable.

    • Re:Absolute bullshit (Score:5, Funny)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Friday December 11, 2015 @07:59PM (#51103369) Homepage

      Yeah, methinks the studio knew it would be a turd and released it so they could try to make money by suing people.

      I mean, it's Expendables 3 for crying out loud ... who the hell even knew there was a 3?

      According to IMDB [imdb.com], it cost $90 mil to make and grossed $38 mil which means nobody gave a damn. Which makes it even more shocking that there's apparently going to be a number 4.

      You can't sue for damages if you can't prove people would have seen the movie. And I'm not so sure of that.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You can't sue for damages if you can't prove people would have seen the movie. And I'm not so sure of that.

        Sadly, in the US, this is not true.

      • You can't prove that they would have paid to see the movie, but if they've downloaded a copy of it from the internet, it's hard to argue that the person had no interest in seeing it at all.

        Also if you look at the worldwide gross, it took in about $200 million [imdb.com], so it's probably one of those movies that's popular overseas more than it is in the U.S. Add in eventual television rights or video sales and it probably made a tidy sum of money for the studio.

        • Re:Absolute bullshit (Score:5, Funny)

          by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday December 11, 2015 @08:49PM (#51103493) Journal

          Also if you look at the worldwide gross, it took in about $200 million

          I think you're confusing it with Expandables 3, which was the movie about three middle aged women who battle food addiction and are secretly ex-Special Forces commandos who take down an international arms dealer and then learn to love and accept themselves for who they are.

          I'm pretty sure Sylvester Stallone was in that one, too, playing the husband of one of the commandos. He develops botox poisoning and dies but not before having so much plastic surgery that his eyes point in two different directions and his skin looks like it's made from the Naugahyde recliner that's been in my basement since 1983.

    • A "high quality leak" of any Expendables film is inconceivable.

      I took a high quality leak at a showing of an Expendables movie once. Does that count?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        A "high quality leak" of any Expendables film is inconceivable.

        I took a high quality leak at a showing of an Expendables movie once. Does that count?

        Only if you stood in front of the screen doing so.

    • From what I've heard, 'High Quality' is absolutely not relevant to Expendables 3 in any way, so obviously the claims are b.s., like most of mpaas claims.
  • They should pay for peoples counseling after watching such a heinous waste of film.
  • just like "burner" cellphones. take the money and run.

  • 1. I've never heard of Expendables 2
    2. The first one sucked. Why would I expect improvement in a /sequel/?
    3. Make better movies that people will actually go to, Lionsgate.

    For fucks sake, the number of films from Hollywood that have been worth seeing in the past decade has been dismal.

    >looks at list of movies from Lionsgate

    Texas Chainsaw 3D? Really? Who the fuck at Lionsgate gave /that/ the green light?

    --
    BMO

    • 1. I've never heard of Expendables 2

      Expendables 2 was the one where Stallone and the team decide that violence really isn't the answer and form a non-profit to promote peace in the Third World. Also, about 2/3 of the way into the film Stallone takes it in the pants from Terry Crews and the rest is about how they seek acceptance as a mixed-race couple.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aevan ( 903814 )
        ...I think the worst part is that with way things are, I'd actually have to search to find out if you're serious or not.

    • For fucks sake, the number of films from Hollywood that have been worth seeing in the past decade has been dismal.

      Exactly, so why would you bother downloading them?

  • You should pay us to watch that.

  • This leak really killed the film (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I just know it would have broken all manner of box office records if not for the fact that a few people were able to watch it on the small screen a couple of days before the theatrical release.

    Seriously we were looking at some Avatar like numbers here, I'm sure.

  • Its not a bad idea really. But I seriously doubt those companies have enough assets to reimburse all the viewers of that drek for what they went through. Still, LionsGate's shouldn't have to be the ones paying all those pain and suffering costs, because they weren't the ones who leaked it.

    And of course nobody was stupid enough to pay for Expendables 3 in theaters, so LG is off the hook there.

    Pirates, next time please be responsible.

  • Translation: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Friday December 11, 2015 @08:37PM (#51103465)

    Our business model relies on our ability to DUPE theater goers into thinking the movie will be GREAT!! when in fact, it is actually shit on a screen!

    Pre-release exposure of our product prevents us from selling shit on a screen as if it were GREAT!!, which impacts our bottom line!

    We DEMAND restitution from these groups that leaked our shit product, revealing it for the shit that it is!

    • Our business model relies on our ability to DUPE theater goers into thinking the movie will be GREAT!! when in fact, it is actually shit on a screen!

      If that's what they're doing then they are doing it wrong. I went and saw it knowing full well what to expect and I did not leave disappointed. They should embrace the concept that is Expendables for what it is and not try to make it into something more.

      Went to see testosterone powered explosions and people beat the shit out of each other while repeating the one liners from 80s era movies and was not disappointed. 4 out of 5 stars.

  • Good luck proving lost revenue! (Score:3)

    by Rick in China ( 2934527 ) on Friday December 11, 2015 @08:44PM (#51103481)

    So they had projections and metrics on how many copies were downloaded and extrapolate how many people 'should' have bought it - then can calculate how much money they're owed, simple right?

    Not quite. Great movies get great revenue numbers regardless of leaks, because people want to see it in droves - shit movies getting leaked of course does damage to their revenue, because people find out that the movie blows massively and avoid wasting their money on it at theatres. Make better movies LionsGate, and revenue will return, ffs.

  • ... then I'd like to be king of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat. There's more chance of that happening than getting any real coin out of pirates.

  • I hope they win and get awarded $1 in damages. Rounded up, of course.

  • Sooo they are not going after (Score:3)

    by future assassin ( 639396 ) on Friday December 11, 2015 @09:28PM (#51103585)

    the person who leaked it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      That's what I'd like to know. If their production facilities are even halfway decent and documented, it shouldn't be difficult to pinpoint the person who did this.

      I mean, DCPs are generated requiring a decryption key, so it must have been leaked before that stage.

      Was it a review copy? Identification via steganography comes to mind. Forget visible or digital watermarks, they can be masked or removed. Each review copy could have a subtle modification that can't be removed or masked, even by re-encoding - ther

      • It was probably some unpaid intern that they treated like crap in the first place which is why it was leaked, but they know (s)he doesn't have any money, so they looked for another target.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          If they let an unpaid intern anywhere near a high-def unencrypted copy of the film, they deserve what happened.

          Seriously (all discussion of the quality of the film aside), if you'd invested tens of millions of dollars into a product that you hoped would make you a profit, and that relied on it NOT BEING LEAKED prior to cinema release, would you let an unpaid intern have access to it?

  • There is a high quality version of Expendables 3 in existence?

    Where? More importantly, how is that possible altogether? Did the pirates reshoot the movie, maybe even with actors? And a script that's longer than a letter page?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd2112 ( 1535857 )

      There is a high quality version of Expendables 3 in existence?

      Where? More importantly, how is that possible altogether? Did the pirates reshoot the movie, maybe even with actors? And a script that's longer than a letter page?

      Not exactly outside the realm of possibility. I'm sure there was a teenager with a cellphone and video editing software who saw it and said, 'I can do better than that.'.
      20 years from now he'll be accepting his Oscar and in his acceptance speech he'll thank everyone behind Expendables 3 for inspiring him.

  • Why should anyone but Lionsgate pay for their own shitty security policies? You don't vet your people and plan your stuff, you deserve to get fucked and nobody else. Welcome to the real world.

  • If there was a high quality version of Expendables 3 available, why didn't they release that one in the theaters instead of the crappy version?

  • ..to pay me back for my 1980 Chevette in mint condition that was stolen from downtown. I filed a police report and my claim was denied because I left the keys in the ignition.

    My insurance company said they don't insure for losses caused by the insured's lack of diligence to prevent the loss.

    Possiby Lionsgate needs a few tigers at the gate?

  • that is great!!

  • How can there be a high-quality copy of an Expendables movie?

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