Pirates are asked to pay thousands of dollars for downloading the movie

Jun 19, 2014 12:00 GMT  ·  By

A few months back, reports were coming in that the people behind “Dallas Buyers Club,” a movie that was awarded with Oscars, were fighting against the pirates downloading illegal copies of the film. Now, it looks like they are demanding up to $5,000 (€3,670) per offense.

According to TorrentFreak, the filmmakers have already signed 66 lawsuits across the United States, targeting over a thousand alleged pirates. This isn’t exactly a new stance taken by movie studios in relation to online piracy, as hundreds of thousands of Internet subscribers have been sued in the US in the past few years.

Similarly to all these cases, however, the purpose of it all isn’t going through full trial, but rather getting the court to order the ISPs to reveal the pirates’ names and then pursue them individually, most likely trying to get a settlement.

Up until now, judges haven’t managed to find the right solution for this problem. Some have agreed to order ISPs to give out the names attached to the accounts, while others have taken a completely different stance, saying that anyone could have tapped into that particular IP address, which means it is an unreliable proof.

Several courts have agreed with the filmmakers and settlement letters have already reached people whose connections were used to download the film. Not everyone is getting the same treatment, however.

Some were asked to pay $3,500 (€2,570), while another saw $5,000 (€3,670) on the same type of letter. A man from Ohio was also threatened that the sum would rise to $7,000 (€5,140) if he didn’t pay in time. All these sums already seem quite high, but filmmakers try to make them sound like they’re being magnanimous.

“Considering the large expense it incurs to enforce its rights, and further that some cases have awarded as much as $22,500 (€16,500) per infringed work, Dallas Buyers Club, LLC feels that asking for Five Thousand Dollars to settle is very reasonable,” reads the letter.

The filmmakers behind the popular movie told letter recipients that they don’t want to make innocent people pay for others’ actions. Alas, their evidence is clear and it’s the owner’s fault for letting others access the account. Still, if they point the finger in the right direction and help them follow the real pirate, then everything will be ok.

If everyone pays up, the studio will have a few extra millions in its pockets and it will likely continue to go after the many more pirates out there.