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Downloaded Dallas Buyers Club? The Piracy Lawsuits Are Coming


shamu726

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It's been Just over month since a near perfect copy of Dallas Buyers Club appeared online and already thousands of people have downloaded the critically acclaimed movie. In response, owner Voltage Pictures has just filed a lawsuit with the aim of punishing individuals who downloaded the leaked DVD screener copy of the Oscar-nominated movie.

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While the MPAA does indeed take action against sites and services and does more than its fair share of aggressive lobbying, the group has never gone down the controversial route of suing the general public. There are others that do, but somehow they tend to escape most of the criticism.

One such oufit is Voltage Pictures, a production company with plenty of lesser-known titles under its belt but one with a penchant for taking legal action over the ones that break into the mainstream. Voltage drew widespread criticism for suing tens of thousands of BitTorrent users who downloaded their movie The Hurt Locker so it should come as no surprise that at the start of 2014 they are back again.

Dallas Buyers Club, a movie about a man who smuggled unapproved drugs into the United States to help fellow HIV patients, was released in the U.S. in November 2013. According to Box Office Mojo it has already brought in nearly $23 million, not bad for a relatively modest $5m budget. However, it appears that Voltage has plans to boost up revenues by suing file-sharers who downloaded a leaked DVD screener copy of the movie during January.

In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Texas and unearthed by THR, Voltage retreads familiar copyright-troll territory.

“Plaintiff brings this action to stop Defendants from copying and distributing to others over the Internet unauthorized copies of Plaintiff’s copyrighted movie,” the complaint reads.

“Each time a Defendant unlawfully distributes a free copy of Plaintiff’s copyrighted movie to others over the Internet, each person who copies the movie then distributes the unlawful copy to others without any significant degradation in sound and picture quality. Thus, a Defendant’s distribution of even one unlawful copy of a motion picture can result in the nearly instantaneous worldwide distribution of that single copy to a limitless number of people.”

In common with all similar suits Voltage has no idea who its targets are, having identified them only by their IP addresses. Following a discovery process involving their ISPs, however, Voltage predicts it will unmask the defendants and take them to trial by jury. That being said, if past history is anything to go by not a single defendant will see the inside of a court room. Cash settlements are the aim here.

Aside from the unusually high profile of the movie (most U.S. based trolls target fairly obscure adult movies) there is another interesting aspect to the case.

In a break from their usual tactic of suing tens of thousands of BitTorrent users, in this case Voltage are currently going after just 31. Of course, if they can extract a few thousand dollars from each defendant they can easily turn a fat profit on the exercise, but clearly that amount would be much more with a few hundred – or few thousand – defendants.

Time will tell what strategy Voltage intends to employ, but considering Dallas Buyers Club was one of the world’s most-downloaded movies in the closing days of January, this could be just the beginning.

Source: TorrentFreak

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Its Definitely not Possible to locate and Prosecute everybody who downloaded this Movie from the Internet Worldwide ... No way <_< <_< <_< <_< .... Though it was a Very Nice Movie that received Rave reviews ... Even the Lead and Supporting Actor have already won Awards for the Roles in this Film .. Cheers for Sharing ..

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According to BoxOfficeMojo, it has already brought in nearly $23 million, not bad for a relatively modest $5m budget.

So they gonna piss away all the profit the movie made,

by hiring lawyers, and chasing after people who have no money to go and watch movies.

sound profit strategy if I ever heard one!

Just for that, I will never go to a movie theater ever again.

might get killed up in there anyways...

Edited by jackieo
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One of the very few benefits of living in India - You don't have to worry about piracy lawsuits LOL! At least till now. Hope I'm not speaking too soon. :s

2sam6mc.jpg

Over a hundred of these on different installations. These are mostly low bitrate 720p D/L's from either Yify, Shaanig, Pristine, Ganool, Sujaidr, Stylishsalh, etc. Some of the latest movies are of course screeners, that I'll replace with proper commercial BR/DVD rips as and when they become available. :showoff: :showoff: :showoff:

... I will never go to a movie theater ever again ... might get killed up in there anyways...


What, do you live in Denver? :think: :P

Edited by calguyhunk
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Thats why I get 100% of my pirated movies a @ an internet caffee...

45 min. to get my stuff

2 min.to reach my flat!

90 min.plus to enjoy!

Dallas B C was an amazing movie!!

But hey.."They did the movie in 29 days with 5.5.000.000. $ budget.

they reached the 25 Mio.$ mark...

McConaughey gave an interview in an geman morning TV show.

For me they made enough money..Im not that rich to enjoy all the nice movies @ cinema.

They are all to greedy!!

they would take the own daughter to court if theres a chance to get a nickle out of her..

Edited by Blackchildcx
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They can't police the globe yet... My country doesn't have the life standard of the USA, or Germany, but nobody gives a damn about piracy. xD

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also in Germany, not everyone has thick bags.

I do 2 jobs and Im fxxkin broke..(believe me) ;)

I spend money if I can and if the stuff is worth it.

And yes...Pirated stuff is fairtrade :P so all over the globe Pc owner can enjoy such things..

Edited by Blackchildcx
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