As previously reported, US film distributor Lightning Entertainment has been approaching Australian ISPs in an attempt to obtain the identities of individuals they say illegal shared the movie “Kill The Irishman”.
Of course, it’s the same old story. Threaten to sue individuals but get them to hand over cash settlements instead.
The front company carrying out this work are called Movie Rights Group but until this week the identities of the people behind this group were unknown. An article in The Age has just completely unmasked them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, especially considering the industry’s efforts around Europe and the United States with similar schemes, the people behind Movie Rights Group (MRG) are rich pornographers.
New Zealand-born brothers Matthew Wade Clapham and Richard Dean Clapham are the directors of MRG. They and Lightning Entertainment are also connected to a “vast international web of pornographic websites.”
The company behind those sites called New Frontier Media, a company which in 2010 turned over $50m, three quarters of it via PPV and subscription pornography.
The feeling now is that once they have tested the piracy settlement waters with a ‘normal’ film such as Kill The Irishman, the porn lawsuits will follow.
