14 DAY TRIAL // Things have taken a different turn in what's probably known as the biggest lawsuit action against torrent pirates. Voltage Pictures decided to “voluntarily dismiss without prejudice” most of the accused users, while asking the court for an extension period for serving the remaining more than 2000 unidentified defendants.
If at first the charges were filed only against 5000 users, in the meanwhile the numbers escalated to more than 24,000.
According to Torrent Freak, because of the fact that the members of the torrent community were voluntarily dismissed without having to pay any compensation they're not completely off the hook as they could be later charged again.
Other rumors say that some of them were freed from blame perhaps because they privately settled with the media organization.
The court document shows that ISPs were required to give up the names behind the IP addresses that downloaded the movie. Windstream, for instance was asked to resolve 727 addresses out of which it managed to supply only 184, the rest waiting to be delivered in the upcoming period.
Other implicated ISPs involved in the matter are Verizon, Sprint, Mediacom, Midcontinet and others, among which a few haven't made any progress in discovering the identities behind the numbers.
Considering the fact that some of the defendants began to fight back, it will probably be a while until the case is completely closed.
Furthermore, a few of those charged have been named and some of them have yet to file an answer. For now, Voltage Pictures requests “at least an additional 60 days in which to effectuate service on Defendants Bremer-Wirtig, Ditraglia, Madhavan, Sapaj, and Sein and to name and serve, or voluntarily dismiss without prejudice, the remaining Doe Defendants.”
The IPs of those dismissed along with their internet service provider's name can be found in a list issued by the plaintiff.