Don´t worry, just make a huge collective demand and benefits will come.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/biggest-bittorrent-case/
" At least 23,000 file sharers soon will likely get notified they are being sued for downloading the Expendables in what has become the single largest illegal-BitTorrent-downloading case in U.S. history.

A federal judge in the case has agreed to allow the U.S. Copyright Group to subpoena internet service providers to find out the identity of everybody who had illegally downloaded (.pdf) the 2010 Sylvester Stallone flick — meaning the number of defendants is likely to dramatically increase as new purloiners are discovered. Once an ISP gets the subpoena, it usually notifies the account holder that his or her subscriber information is being turned over to the Copyright Group, which last year pioneered the practice of suing BitTorrent downloaders in the United States."

This is hilarious
"Many lawyers are mimicking the Copyright Group’s legal strategy, which includes offering online settlement payments, in hopes of making quick cash. The litigation can be so lucrative — with settlements around $3,000 per infringement — that two companies are both claiming ownership to a low-budget movie called Nude Nuns with Big Guns, and both firms are suing the same downloaders."

Another point
"The U.S. Copyright Act allows damages of up to $150,000 per infringement, and the cases all demand the maximum."

Maybe it would be a great idea to make a B-rated movie and then demand all the guys who downloaded it :-) New way of business.

This will be thrown out, but I'm wagering that once they find out to whom these IPs correspond and start sending letters that at least a few of them will settle rather than fight it out in court.

The problem though is that the US Copyright Group doesn't actually have any evidence that any of those people actually infringed upon the copyright, as the seeder was authorized by the USCG to seed and any downloads by authorized parties cannot be counted as infringement.

Guide for downloading and not being an idiot at the same time:

1. Don't download from US based, user friendly sites with social networks parts and public trackers that even a small kid can track.
2. Download from file hosting websites or private trackers whose home sites are in some Eastern European language.
3. ?????
4. Profit.

I wanna know why our laws are capable of punishing individual people who make $0-50k a year $150,000, but the best penalty they can slam on a company making billions annually is like a $2 million fine?

Sounds like a deliberate bait.

What?

Poor guys... private trackers are always the way to go. Ha. Who wants to explain it? Is there a Wikipedia page or something?

Thanks

Question is how many kids d/l'ed that thinking it was porn?

As for the expendibles wasnt a bad movie, I just bought it when it came out from like some cheap jesrey store like zavvi, then sell it for more than I paid for it. Profitable and legal :)

The suit by the gay porn company just got thrown out for a mass subpoena just like this. I wouldn't worry too much about this, the movie industry has tried this before with some terrible war movie and I think it didn't yield much either. I think they just really want some headlines to maybe scare a few of the gullible folks off.

And Titanic and Spiderman both lost money, all movies do. They call it Hollywood Accounting for a reason.

I read that it was just recently established that you can't prove somebody did something based on their IP address anymore.

Know your Meme, indeed...

That meme does not originate with South Park.

That meme does not originate in the time of the Internet.

http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/gallery/math/math07.gif

That is the earliest origin of the meme that I am aware of, and I'm certain that isn't the first.

I don't know if it holds up in court, but I've heard you can say you were infected with a botnet that did it all, but you have since wiped it from your drives... but there are really tons of excuses you could give that they can't prove are false...

This is what I was referring to, but I was being too lazy to find it for my first post :P
http://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-not-a-person-bittorrent-case-judge-says-110503/