Director sues almost 5000 alleged file sharers

The infamous director Uwe Boll, who has specialised in creating movies on the basis of video games, has enlisted the help of the law firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver as he claims to have lost substantial income to piracy after the release of his latest movie, Far Cry.

This firm, states Ars Technica, has built a business on p2p settlements. Rights holders can bring cases at no cost. The proceeds of the settlements are subsequently shared between the firm and the rights owners.

In total letters have been sent to 4577 people who allegedly shared Far Cry. The addressee is invited to settle for 1500 dollars. When he or she chooses not to cooperate, the letter warns, the case will be brought to court with a claim for 150.000 dollar in damages. This is the maximum amount that rights holders can claim in damages for a single infringement, according to American law.

This story closely resembles earlier actions from British law firm ACS:Law that last November announced to plan suing close to 15.000 file sharers. Here, too, the accused was offered a settlement and here, too, the story received media attention as the letters were sometimes sent to people who never heard of the movie nor of p2p file sharing and caused much anguish there.

31 May 2010