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June 28th, 2010
EFF Argues Against Mass Copyright Infringement Lawsuits in Wednesday Hearing
Washington, D.C. - On Wednesday, June 30, at 2:15 p.m., a federal court in Washington, D.C., will hear oral argument from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) about dividing up the mass copyright infringement lawsuits that improperly and unfairly target thousands of BitTorrent users.
A Washington, D.C., law firm calling itself the "U.S. Copyright Group" (USCG) has filed "John Doe" lawsuits on behalf of seven filmmakers that implicate well over 14,000 anonymous individuals in alleged unauthorized downloading of independent films, including "Far Cry" and "The Hurt Locker." EFF and co-amici Public Citizen and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation contend that these suits improperly lump thousands of defendants together, a shortcut that deprives the defendants of fair access to individual justice. In court on Wednesday, EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry will argue that USCG has not offered enough evidence of a relationship between the defendants to justify suing them together.
The stakes are high for anyone identified in USCG's slipshod cases. USCG's strategy appears to be to threaten a judgment of up to $150,000 per downloaded movie -- the maximum penalty allowable by law in copyright suits and a very unlikely judgment in cases arising from a single, noncommercial ...