Hurt Locker Producers To Sue Thousands of Piraters | Hacker News Reader

Hurt Locker Producers To Sue Thousands of Piraters

thresq.hollywoodreporter.com

33 pointshuangm30 comments

It's their own fault for being idiots and not actually screening it in cinemas. People who download on bittorrent will almost never pay - they are not your customers. Ignore them.

Your customers will pay, but only if they can. It only screened in a few cities, so it's their own fault for making it impossible for people to pay them.

The movie business is doing really well right now. bittorrent has not had the slightest effect. If your are not making money on a movie it's your own fault - not bittorrent.

> It's their own fault for being idiots and not actually screening it in cinemas

Do you think they really just forgot to screen it?

Or could it instead just be that it's difficult to get broad distribution without a gigantic budget and/or sequel to a safe franchise? Somehow I imagine it was harder for them to get screenings than it was for Iron Man 2.

This film was talked about as a prime Oscar candidate for months before the Oscars.

They really can't get distribution for an Oscar film? I doubt that. I think they just miscalculated the timing.

Or they could have sold DVDs before the Oscars. People would have bought them once they won.

I understand your point and agree with you. There was a movie not long ago that had just came to video. I checked the xbox and I couldn't rent it, only buy the SD version. So I check netflix steaming, not available. I check netflix movies and it's on a wait to rent. I can see why people go to P2P networks after I tried many ways to get the movie legally.

I still haven't seen the movie since after all that I didn't feel like watching it then anyways.

And don't even get me started on the impossible to skip commercials!

By the same reasoning, it's my fault if I leave the door unlocked and my house gets burgled. Maybe so, but it doesn't make burglary OK, not in that case, nor in general.

Maybe they should distribute differently, maybe not. That doesn't excuse illicit downloading.

Missed my point.

The piracy is not their fault.

What is their fault is that they didn't make "enough" money, and now they need some extra from the pirates.

Whether their business decisions to date have been good, bad or indifferent has no bearing on whether it's right or wrong to now sue illicit downloaders.

Would it really be any different if they had made a fortune? I think not.

From the article:

"Locker" first leaked onto the web more than five months before its U.S. release and was a hot item in P2P circles after it won six Oscars in March. Despite the accolades, the film grossed only about $16 million in the U.S.

"Only $16 million" is their own fault, not the fault of the "P2P circles" as implied.

They were idiots and now they are trying to blame pirates for the lost business, when actually the pirates have no impact on profits.

It's not right or wrong to sue - it's stupid.

> If your are not making money on a movie it's your own fault - not bittorrent

Are you implying that theft is not wrong as long as you're still making a profit?

You cannot make a professional movie in your garage basement using a Mac.

I wonder if a movie shot in 7 days that has made $192 million and had a wide international release counts as "professional": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_Activity_(film)

Still, while I liked it very much, I wouldn't want every film to use that same style. It's pretty hard to work without a budget, and in the aggregate, quality will suffer.

I suspect if some weird law were passed that said movies could only be made for < $100,000 and had to be sold for $4.99 a pop on iTunes, some very clever and amazing movies would eventually dominate the scene (and our idea of what a "good movie" is would change). Formula 1 racing has sorta thrived on this constant budget and tech limitation process, and yet the cars keep getting faster :-)

I don't understand how the person who only happens to be paying the bill to the ISP can be held responsible for anyone using that IP address. If the neighbour's kids come over and hold a LAN gaming party and download a bunch of movies, who broke the law? The guy who let them use his Internet connection?

You're welcome to try that argument in court; if you're truly innocent it should work. The alternative sounds like a "get out of jail free" card for copyright infringement (or any other Internet-based crime).

I don't understand your "get out of jail free" comment. It's the equivalent of being charged for robbery if someone saw your license plate number on the getaway car. While it seems plausible you could get a search warrant on that basis, unless they have other evidence I don't see how a mere IP possibly could be "beyond reasonable doubt".

Not that I'm a lawyer but I believe this will be tried in civil court where the standard of proof is lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt".

Just in case anyone is wondering, you need a "preponderance of evidence" in order to win a civil suit.

Clearly the WORST news mentioned in this article is that Uwe Boll is still making movies. God help us.

http://www.cinemablend.com/features/Uwe-Boll-Money-For-Nothi...

I read a while ago that he's primarily funded by a group of moneyed Germans who need a reliable tax write off. Not sure if it's true or not, but it's entertaining enough to repeat.

Because it has worked so well for the music industry.

I'm confused. They're suing the people who downloaded it when it was leaked five months prior to its official release, or everybody? Tens of thousands is a lot of people to sue.

I hope I wont have to regret running a Tor relay for the past ~year and bridging for China.

I hope I wont have to regret running a Tor relay for the past ~year and bridging for China.

i was subpoenaed and deposed for a civil lawsuit that resulted from a forum post made through my tor exit node. i explained what tor was, that i had no idea who posted it, what was posted, or how to find out who they were. case closed.

The movie industry should spend less time on frivolous lawsuits and instead focus on creating a product that people will buy. Piracy is just a convenient scapegoat: it's easier to blame pirates than to admit you did something wrong.

In a lot of cases, people already value the product, the issue is with distribution and being able to get their hands on it in a convenient fashion.

There was a recent (albeit not conclusive) study done of 7000 pirates here in Australia which concluded that a majority of people would pay for content if it was made available.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/download-culture/internet-...

Assuming this legal action succeeds, what's to stop it becoming business as usual?

If it does become business as usual, it's highly unlikely that the makers of low-volume films - who seem to be the ones starting it all off - will be the major beneficiaries...

The biggest thing I took from this article was in reading the comments: the site auto-refreshes!!! People are typing in a comment and BAM the site reloads and they lose their comment. Talk about a shitty design decision....

I have a hard time seeing this being followed through with. Are they going to personally sue 10k people? I would guess that they just want a few hundred people to settle for a couple thousand dollars and call it a day.

If they get victory in a test case (IP address + BitTorrent tracker records + hurtlocker.zip = piracy), they can move for summary judgment against other infringers on the same basis.

Interesting.

Probably a huge percentage of them will settle. The RIAA sued 18,000 people via John Doe suits, and those turned into 7,000 suits against named individuals (so 11,000 either settled or the RIAA couldn't get a real name or just dropped the case). Of those 7000, pretty much all of them settled. Bottom line, of the 18,000 people they went after, they've had to actually fight like 100 in court, and there were only 3 or so trials.

So 10,000 suits might seem huge, but with 99% of them ending before the first two-party hearing, it's much more manageable.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/has-the-riaa...

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