The aim of the copyright holders is never to take any of the cases to trial, but to get alleged infringers to pay a substantial cash settlement to make legal action go away. Some equal this scheme to extortion, but the copyright holders say they are merely protecting their work.

One of the first film studios to recognize the potential of these schemes was Nu Image. Last year they had the questionable honor of filing the largest P2P lawsuit in history by targeting 23,322 alleged downloaders of ‘The Expendables’.

While that case was dismissed a few months later, Nu Image isn’t leaving BitTorrent users alone.

Late last week the studio filed a brand new mass-BitTorrent lawsuit at the US District Court of Maryland for another well-known movie. The suit targets 2,165 alleged sharers of ‘Conan The Barbarian,’ a film that was downloaded on BitTorrent by millions of people in recent months.

The accused individuals had their IP-addresses exposed while downloading the film, and were ‘busted’ somewhere between December 1st 2011 and February 1st of this year as can be seen from the full list of “Doe defendants” below.

Other than the new film title, the paperwork is pretty much identical to previous lawsuits that were filed by the US Copyright Group (USCG). However, a closer look reveals that the lawyers did learn from ‘mistakes’ made in previous cases.

One of the most significant changes is that all defendants appear to reside in the right district, Maryland in this particular case. Previously judges have dismissed tens of thousands of defendants because they lived in other districts. This was also the main reason why Nu Image’s ‘The Expendables’ case died prematurely.

The judge in that case advised Nu Image to use one of the many IP-location databases to find out who they can go after in court, and the movie studio has done so for their most recent filing.

Another smart move from the movie studio is to include only IP-addresses allocated to Internet providers that were previously cooperative, such as Comcast and Sprint. Noticeably absent is Time Warner, who successfully fought the mass-production of IP-addresses in a related case.

While the above give Nu Image a better chance of reaching their desired goal, BitTorrent users aren’t sitting still either.

The mass-lawsuits and the upcoming copyright alert system motivated many BitTorrent users to routinely hide their IP-addresses through proxy and VPN services. But nevertheless, the scheme is profitable enough for studios like Nu Image to continue. Even if only half of the defendants pay up the total settlement earnings will be in the millions.

And so the cat and mouse game continues.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

According to papers just filed, USCG will again partner with The Expendables creator Nu Image to chase down yet more BitTorrent users, this time those who allegedly obtained and distributed the Jason Statham movie The Mechanic.

The filing lists 4,165 IP addresses that were allegedly making the movie available between July 1st and August 8th this year. The number of ISPs targeted is small – Charter, Comcast, Cox, RCN and Windstream. Absent are Verizon and Time Warner, ISPs that have previously put limits on their levels of cooperation in these cases.

In recent months USCG have suffered major setbacks when submitted IP addresses were found to be located in the wrong jurisdictions, but you wouldn’t guess it from confident statements in their most recent filing.

“Although the true identity of each Defendant is unknown to the Plaintiff at this time, on information and belief, each Defendant may be found in this District and/or a substantial part of the acts of infringement complained of herein occurred in this District,” it reads.

Yet, in tests carried out by TorrentFreak, we discovered that of 4,165 IP addresses filed, just 2% can be traced back to the correct jurisdiction, in this case Maryland. The biggest group, 13.1%, are IP addresses in California. Columbia represent just 0.4% of the total.

This problem over jurisdiction is nothing new. In August, USCG and Nu Image voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit targeting 23,322 U.S. Internet users who allegedly shared The Expendables.

The suit, at one time the biggest ever of its type, was crippled when District Court Judge Robert Wilkins decided that Nu Image could only go after those individuals who were reasonably likely to be living in the District of Columbia, the district where the suit was filed. In that case, 99% of the IP addresses filed were out of jurisdiction.

With Judge Wilkins ruling unfavorably, shortly after USCG also dumped their lawsuit filed on behalf of Cinetel Films, the makers of the horror flick “I Spit on Your Grave”, which listed 1,951 BitTorrent users as defendants. That too had been filed in Columbia.

USCG have now chosen the District of Maryland to file the papers for The Mechanic’s settlement shakedown. Time will tell what the presiding judge there will have to say on the issue of jurisdiction, but if he or she has had an eye on the cases in Columbia, our findings above – that 98% of IP addresses relate to the wrong district – should prove of great interest.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.