Yesterday, CNN wrote an excellent feature on the ongoing cases that some have described as extortion. Although the article itself provides a good overview, the title is a bit off.

“50,000 BitTorrent users sued for alleged illegal downloads,” the CNN article claims, but in reality it’s more than 130,000.

Below are some statistics for the U.S. cases that started last year.

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* The first case was filed January 8 2010 on behalf of Worldwide Film Entertainment and targeted 749 alleged downloaders of The Gray Man. This case was dismissed a few months later.

* 203 cases have been filed in total, most of them dealing with adult content.

* 164 cases are still active.

* 182,078 “Does” were targeted initially, and 133,701 are still at risk (133,242 BitTorrent and 459 ed2k).

* Anti-piracy lawyer John Steele is most active and has filed more than 60 cases.

* Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver (The U.S. Copyright Group) has sued most defendants, more than 90,000.

* The largest case is that of The Hurt Locker, with 24,583 defendants.

* The largest settlement paid to a copyright holder is $250,000.

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