Friday 14 June 2013

No-One Is Safe From The Leeches!


64-Year-Old Teacher Accused of Pirating Movies

A former English teacher Emily Orlando was quite surprised to be accused of illegally downloading “Maximum Conviction”, a movie starring Steven Seagal. The same can be said by most of the other 370 defendants involved in the lawsuit.
Emily Orlando has repeatedly informed her students on the importance of copyright and the ethical issues it involves, so she was very surprised to receive a notice accusing her of unauthorized downloading “Maximum Conviction”. The English teacher was given a two-week-deadline to settle with $7.500 for Voltage Pictures or risk being find by $150.000.

In the meanwhile, the lawyer of Voltage Pictures refused to comment on the issue, but it became known that the magnitude of this lawsuit, involving over 371 people, is no uncharted territory for him, as he filed 9 other similar cases, rounding up to 1,000 defendants.

Speaking about the studio’s financial claims, the teacher expressed outrage, claiming that it is terrifying and nothing but a legal extortion. Even though she didn’t do anything, she now has to get a lawyer and fight the claims. As you know, quick settlements are the preferred method in such cases, normally by both parties, but it is not necessarily the best of choices.

In fact, the movie is worth $12.99 on Amazon, but the cases in question don’t seek that – actually, if all victims of commercial invoicing ultimately pay $2,000 or $3,000, the company will receive more than a million dollars in total.

Emily Orlando has talked with the rest of the defendants and encouraged them to not settle. Moreover, they may share the costs of the lawsuit. She found out that her ISP used dynamic IP addresses, which means that a subscriber can’t be linked to a specific/static IP address. Despite this fact, the ISP still gave away her personal details.

Of course, Emily Orlando had no idea of what BitTorrent network is until she received a letter. She admitted that she prefers films via Blockbuster or the TV. In the meantime, the lawyers admit that this is federal court and the average person will be intimidated by this and try to avoid any connections with the case.

The worst part is to know that your Internet service provider can sell you out faster than Judas, while such lawsuits’ projections on the US copyright law and the way it’s enforced are definitely flawed.

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