One of the contenders is Dallas Buyers Club, which grossed over $30 million at the box office on a relatively small budget. Despite this success, the studio behind the movie fears that piracy may cannibalize future profits.

Last month we reported that its makers, Voltage Pictures, launched a series of lawsuits in the U.S. against dozens of people who downloaded an unauthorized copy of the film via BitTorrent. This is not the first time for the studio – it previously launched a similar campaign against downloaders of The Hurt Locker.

Voltage’s anti-piracy actions are not limited to the courts though. The company is also sending out DMCA takedown requests, one of which was directed at Google. While this isn’t something newsworthy per se, the takedown request does include some curious URLs which appear to be counterproductive.

The DMCA notice lists 388 URLs in total. As can be seen below, these links are not all pointing to copyright-infringing content. On the contrary, Voltage Pictures asks Google to censor a perfectly legal Dallas Buyers Club page on Comcast’s XFINITY on-demand service.

The notice also includes several other URLs which don’t link to pirated material, including an article on CNN and a page from Google’s own webmaster FAQ.

Dallas Buyers Club Takedown Notice

It appears that Google isn’t happy with the sloppy DMCA notice, as the search engine has decided to remove none of the links in the request. This means that the Pirate Bay links listed in the notice remain accessible through Google.

Also of note, is that this is the first and only DMCA request Voltage Pictures has ever sent to Google. This suggests that the company might not be too worried about appearing in search results. Instead, the takedown notice may have been a preemptive action related to the BitTorrent lawsuits we mentioned earlier.

With this DMCA notice Voltage can show the court that it took other anti-piracy efforts as well. Whether that is wise has yet to be seen though, since right now it mostly shows how weak the studio’s evidence gathering tools are.

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

One of Canipre’s partners is Voltage Pictures, the company that launched a huge campaign in the United States targeting thousands of alleged sharers of the movie The Hurt Locker. Voltage’s settlement project has now spread to Canada and the first unlucky targets are customers of the ISP TekSavvy.

Voltage Pictures are claiming that around 2,000 TekSavvy users have been monitored sharing around two dozen of their titles including Tucker & Dale vs Evil. They asked the ISP to hand over their personal details so they can be approached for settlement, TekSavvy refused and the whole thing went to court in Toronto Monday.

However, while TekSavvy have gone out of their way to keep their customers informed (leading observers to believe that they would end up fighting Voltage Pictures to defend their customers’ privacy) yesterday’s proceedings weren’t to go that way at all.

TekSavvy CEO Marc Gaudrault said that after spending a considerable amount of time the company had come to a decision that it would not to oppose the motion for discovery filed by Voltage.

“Everybody should know though that we have looked into all angles to determine what our position should be in this situation and after spending a significant amount of time and soliciting a considerable amount of advice from numerous respected sources, we found that we simply could not comment on the merits of the case,” Gaudrault explained.

The TekSavvy CEO says the company’s primary responsibility is to ensure that customers being targeted by Voltage Pictures get “adequate notice” but added that the best way for people not to become involved in the case “is to simply not engage in such [illegal file-sharing] activities.”

After learning there would be no fight, there was a backlash among some users which prompted a response from Gaudrault.

“If there was more I could do to protect your privacy, I would do it. I just don’t have a hook,” he said. “Whatever behavior our customers engage in is not for us to scrutinize. If we wade into that, we are essentially going against Net Neutrality principles that we fought for.”

Gaudrault said that new Canadian copyright laws had tied his hands. He said that the Copyright Modernization Act shelters ISPs from liability from infringement based on the fact that they are mere intermediaries and nothing more. Getting further involved in the merits of the case could jeopardize that.

“The law is the law. I can’t defend against the law. The laws are there to defend against bad things. If we defend against laws, that makes us bad. We don’t do that. We’ve never done that,” he said.

But already the ISP’s decision is coming under scrutiny.

Writing on the Excess Copyright blog, lawyer Howard Knopf says that despite the ISP’s openness, questions will arise as to why TekSavvy isn’t opposing the motion as ISPs Shaw and Telus did (with success) in a music industry lawsuit dating back to 2004.

“In this regard, it is interesting to compare Voltage’s material with the BMG et al material filed in 2004 that was rejected by the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal at that time as inadequate in a very comparable situation, as a result of which we now have clear and binding appellate case law,” Knopf wrote.

One success that did come out of the hearing is that the judge apparently took notice of a letter filed by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic which requested a delay in the court hearing Voltage’s motion for discovery.

CIPPIC argued that there had been insufficient time from the filing of the motion to yesterday’s hearing date for defendants to “learn of the motion, retain, be advised by and instruct legal counsel,” and insufficient time for “CIPPIC to prepare and file an application to intervene in the motion.”

Despite opposition from Voltage the hearing was adjourned until January 14, 2013. In the meantime TekSavvy could potentially change its mind on the decision not to oppose the motion but given Marc Gaudrault’s decisiveness since the weekend, that seems unlikely. Should that remain the case, any opposition will have to come from CIPPIC and the defendants.

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

As reported here in November, Canadian anti-piracy company Canipre has been working with righthsolders to monitor BitTorrent networks for alleged infringers. Together with NGN Prima Productions Inc., last month they filed their first lawsuit in the Federal Court in Montreal over the unauthorized sharing of the movie Recoil.

And now, just as promised, they are back again.

The latest case sees Canipre team up with Voltage Pictures, the company that brought misery to thousands in the United States with their anti-BitTorrent campaign targeting alleged sharers of the movie The Hurt Locker.

Last week Voltage sent a motion to the ISP TekSavvy for the personal details of customers associated with around 2,000 IP addresses allegedly logged by Canipre sharing two dozen Voltage titles including Tucker & Dale vs Evil.

TekSavvy did not hand over any information and will not do so without a court order, but Voltage have informed the ISP that they will be in a Toronto court next Monday 17 December seeking such an order which will force the ISP to comply.

The movie company says it will seek an injunction, statutory damages, “an accounting of all profits from the Defendants’ wrongful activities”, damages for “interference with economic relations and unjust enrichment”, “aggravated, exemplary and punitive damages in the amount of $10,000.00″, “special damages” (whatever they are) plus costs.

Unlike many ISPs who choose to leave their customers in the dark when they are targeted in this fashion, TekSavvy appear to be doing everything in their power to keep people informed. Yesterday the company sent out emails to the billing email addresses of those account holders likely to be affected by the action.

Additionally – and this is to be commended – TekSavvy have also produced a Copyright FAQ which should go a long way to explaining what the current action is all about.

In a statement TekSavvy CEO Marc Gaudrault says he is “puzzled” by the approach taken by Voltage.

“It seems contrary to the government’s intent with copyright reform, which was to discourage file sharing lawsuits against individuals, while still protecting copyright holders’ rights,” Gaudrault says.

“The manner and the timing of this action also seems unusual given that the government recently created a roadmap for addressing file sharing and copyright infringement within its legislation. Its starting point is a notification system to subscribers to discourage infringement without immediate threats of lawsuits or disclosure of their personal information. That system is not yet finalized though. In light of these factors, Voltage’s actions seem odd to us.”

While Gaudrault’s assessment is accurate, those familiar with Voltage’s actions in the United States will probably be less puzzled by this new action in Canada.

Voltage’s aim is simply. They want money – lots of it – and are hoping that their scary damages claims will terrify TekSavvy customers into quietly settling for a few thousand dollars instead of risking a very unlikely court appearance.

However, while statutory damages of US$150,000 help that process along nicely in the United States, the CAD$5,000 maximum in Canada should make people think twice before paying anything.

“From all that I’ve read, non-commercial infringement carries a damage award as low as $100 and as high as $5000 for all infringements. It also appears that the intent is to keep damage awards low in such cases,” Gaudrault explains.

The TekSavvy CEO says that the scale of the Voltage case is unprecedented so as a result the company has retained legal counsel to advise them through the process.

“Know that TekSavvy is not taking this lightly as it affects us too and as always, we believe that making your voice heard is a key component to a healthy internet in Canada. I will be monitoring this situation very closely,” Gaudrault concludes.

This is not the first time that Voltage has targeted Canadian BitTorrent users.

In September 2011 the company applied for an order from the Federal Court in Montreal which would’ve forced three Canadian ISPs – Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable Inc. and Videotron GP – to hand over the personal details of subscribers said to have unlawfully shared The Hurt Locker. However, without explanation Voltage Pictures dropped that lawsuit in March 2012.

Concerned TekSavvy users can find the Copyright FAQ here and further information on recent changes in Canadian Copyright Law here.

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

Movie studio Voltage Pictures was not only one of the first studios to sue BitTorrent downloaders in the US, it also secured the award for the biggest mass-BitTorrent lawsuit by listing 24,583 alleged infringers at once.

This case dragged on for nearly two years and after collecting an undisclosed number of settlements it was eventually closed last December. It remains unknown how profitable the lawsuit was for the movie studio, but since they haven’t given up on the scheme yet we assume that it wasn’t a financial debacle.

Last week the studio filed a brand new lawsuit in Florida against 2,514 John Doe defendants, who are all accused of downloading The Hurt Locker.

Through this lawsuit the studio wants to obtain a subpoena so they can order ISPs to reveal the identities of the alleged downloaders. These account holders will then receive a settlement offer that generally lies around $3,000, which means that the Hurt Locker makes can receive over 6 million dollars in damages.

While the complaint filed at a federal court in Florida is pretty standard, there are a few details that stand out when we look at the list of sued IP-addresses.

Firstly, all the defendants downloaded the film in 2010. This means that the movie studio has waited two years before filing a lawsuit against the alleged copyright infringers. On top of that, we see that all the 2,514 defendants are subscribers of the same Internet provider, Charter Communications.

It could be that the points above are related. For example, Voltage Pictures may know that Charter keeps IP-address records for more than two years while other ISPs don’t. Another reason for targeting Charter subscribers could be that the movie studio knows that the ISP is not going to object to handing over bulk subscriber details.

Whatever the case, this new lawsuit is worth keeping an eye on.

While The Hurt Locker is a prominent name, this mass-lawsuit is just one of many being filed every week. In total more than 250,000 alleged BitTorrent users have been targeted in the United States and this number continues to increase.

While most of the plaintiffs are adult film studios, more reputable brands such as the major book publisher Wiley & Sons have joined in as well. And last week the first game publisher filed a lawsuit as “Airbus X” makers Aerosoft GmbH targeted 50 downloaders.

Depending on the success of the current cases, the BitTorrent lawsuits may continue for years. Thus far there is no indication that the end is in sight.

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

Their most successful movie, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, attracted much of the attention when earlier this year it became the subject of a record-breaking lawsuit.

According to court documents filed this week, Voltage Pictures have voluntarily dismissed around 90% of the original 24,583 Doe Defendants from The Hurt Locker lawsuit. They were dismissed without prejudice, so in theory they could be filed again at a later date. A full list of the IP addresses dismissed from the case can be found embedded below.

In excess of 2,300 potential Does remain in the suit from a range of ISPs including Atlantic Broadband, Bresnan Communications, Charter, Comcast, Mediacom, Midcontinent Media, Qwest, RCN, Sprint, Verizon and Windstream.

Furthermore, according to the documents Voltage have homed in on a number of now-named defendants; Claudio Vazquez, Modern Classics Inc, Sergio Sapaj, Roy McLeese, Kelechi Lane, Shyam Madhavan, Susan Glass, Daniel Bremer-Wirtig, Michael Sein, Elena Ditraglia, .. and J Barry Harrelson.

Defendants Vazquez, McLeese, and … were dismissed, Glass was served and has filed an answer, Harrelson was served and is yet to file a response. Defendants Lane and Modern Classics have been served but have not responded – Voltage are going for a default judgments against these.

Voltage say they have been unable to serve some of the other named defendants above, and have not yet received identifying information for 2,278 IP addresses, mainly due to ISPs stalling due to “motions purportedly filed by the Doe Defendants.” For this reason they request extra time from the court.

“Plaintiff requests at least an additional 60 days in which to effectuate service on Defendants Bremer-Wirtig, Ditraglia, Madhavan, Sapaj, and Sein and to name and serve, or voluntarily dismiss without prejudice, the remaining Doe Defendants,” the court papers read.

How many of the original 24,583 defendants settled with Voltage Pictures for thousands of dollars remains unknown.

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

Some of the most high-profile customers of the law firm – who for the purposes of their settlement work are known as the U.S. Copyright Group – are Voltage Pictures, the makers of the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker.

Now it seems that the United States just isn’t a big enough market for settlements, so Voltage have taken their pay-up-or-else lawsuits north – and expanded into Canada.

Earlier, through law firm Goudreau Gage Dubuc LLP, Voltage Pictures applied for an order from the Federal Court in Montreal which would force three Canadian ISPs – Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable Inc. and Videotron GP – to hand over the personal details of subscribers said to have infringed its copyrights.

“Voltage Pictures LLC owns the copyright of the film ‘Hurt Locker’. The defendants have copied and distributed the film via the Internet without the permission of Voltage Pictures LLC,” says the order.

Voltage adds that although it has obtained IP addresses, without the help of Canadian ISPs the studio cannot convert them to real-life identities.

“Voltage Pictures LLC requests permission to interview internet service providers in advance in writing so that they disclose the names and addresses of customers who match the IP addresses already obtained,” says Voltage.

“Once it has identified these customers, Voltage Pictures LLC may send notices and, where appropriate, add these individuals as defendants in this action.”

On August 29th, the Federal Court in Montreal granted the order and gave the trio of ISPs just two weeks to hand over the names of subscribers. Since today is September 9th, and the weekend is almost upon us, one might assume that the details have already been handed over, or will be by Monday.

According to Canadian lawyer Michael Geist, there is no indication that the ISPs challenged the court order or that any public interests were given the opportunity to intervene.

“The prospect of thousands of Canadian peer-to-peer file sharing lawsuits – with potential liability of tens of thousands dollars per person for a single movie – highlights why the government was right in Bill C-32 to reform the statutory damages provision to distinguish between commercial and non-commercial infringement,” writes Geist.

“Non-commercial infringement was capped under the bill at $5000 for all infringements, though it can go far lower. This case confirms that mass lawsuits with the threat of thousands in liability is a real possibility in Canada and why changes to the law are needed.”

Canadian Internet users, with their relaxed attitude towards their culture of file-sharing, are likely to be outraged by the action taken by Voltage. Certainly one to watch.

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

The first batch of IP-addresses (copy below) has now been submitted to the Court, linked to customers of over a dozen US Internet providers. Besides the IP-address and the time when the alleged infringement was recorded the document reveals very little evidence. It is unclear from the current details what file was tracked and whether the evidence gathering techniques will stand up to scrutiny.

The D.C District Court will now have to decide whether or not the ISPs of the alleged infringers will be ordered to hand over the personal information of the users associated with the IP-addresses. If this happens, the customers who are identified will receive a settlement offer of $2,500. Through this scheme, the USCG and Hurt Lockers’ makers hope to collect millions of dollars in revenue, beating their box office earnings.

It’s interesting to note that none of the IP-addresses in this first batch are linked to Time Warner customers. The ISP in question is the only one that is standing up against the money grab, as it went to court hoping to prevent a subpoena that will force them to expose hundreds of customers to the USCG. Time Warner claims that this process would prove too time consuming.

A problem that has been overlooked by most of the press and expert comments is the fact that there will be dozens of wrongfully accused people. Through similar cases in the UK we’ve learned that the evidence provided by the copyright holders is very flaky to say the least. We suspect that the USCG, which appears to be a two man operation, is simply out to collect as much money as possible through settlements and will avoid taking individual cases to court.

Besides The Hurt Locker, USCG is working together with smaller film companies in similar campaigns, and they are looking for new clients to expand their profitable business. This success story has not gone unnoticed by their UK equivalent ACS:LAW who have announced they will also enter the US market. In the UK this scheme has been labeled a scam by politicians, while its lawyers are accused of “harassment, bullying and intrusion” and “legal blackmail”.

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