Get ready for round two. This time, it's BitTorrent users facing off against the movie studios. Nearly 50,000 users of BitTorrent's peer-to-peer downloading software have been targeted in a sting over the past few months, accused of illegally downloading one of two movies. Voltage Pictures, the studio behind 2009's The Hurt Locker, is suing almost 25,000 BitTorrent users who allegedly illegally downloaded the flick. That came just weeks after 23,000 were sued for downloading The Expendables, produced by Nu Image.
Both of the lawsuits were filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Copyright Group, an outfit formed by Washington-based law firm Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver. The group filed its Expendables lawsuit in February, then followed with its Hurt Locker lawsuit in April. "They're copyright trolls," says Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization. "They take a dragnet approach to litigation." The USCG did not respond to multiple calls asking for comment.
A spokesman for Voltage Pictures, the Hurt Locker studio, defended the sweeping lawsuits. "The lawyers are just doing their jobs," he said. "Somebody stole our property and we are trying to get it back." The representative declined further comment. The new anti-piracy clampdown: Legal skirmishes over digital piracy happen constantly, and BitTorrent is often in the crosshairs.
The free software program lets users swap and download large media files. It's got plenty of legitimate uses -- online education pioneer Khan Academy recently made its free video catalog available through BitTorrent -- but is also heavily used to illegally trade movies, TV shows and other copyright-protected content. BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker said that his company merely provides the software, and it can't control what its customers do.
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