IP/Internet/New Media Blog

According to Rachel M. Zahorsky of the ABA  Journal Blog in the past five months, Virginia-based law firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver has filed suits against thousands of individuals accused of illegally downloading independent films—an operation that could yield the firm and its clients over $15 Million.

Under the operative the U.S. Copyright Group, the lawyers seek out indie filmmakers and offer to sue anonymous movie pirates for no charge. The firm then subpoenas Verizon, AT&T and other ISPs to identify each John Doe user, and threatens to sue each person for $150,000 unless they agree to a $1,500 to $2,500 settlement fee, according to Ars Technica’s Law & Disorder blog and Techdirt. Defendants can pony up the cash on a website set up to accept checks and credit cards.

To identify illegal file-sharing, the firm uses a program that captures IP addresses based on the time stamp that a download has occurred and then checks it against a spreadsheet to make sure the downloaded content is the copyright-protected film and not a misnamed film or trailer, according to the Hollywood Reporter’s THR, Esq. blog