No replies to this topic

[CA3LE6UY]

As we recently noted, a new company by the name of the US Copyright group (aka the law firm of Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver) is promising movie studios a new revenue stream. Using IP addresses collected by entertainment industry intelligence-gathering groups -- the company sends automated threat letters to subscribers in the hopes users will settle without a fight. Last year we noted that the producers of The Hurt Locker had signed up with the group, and quickly sued about 5,000 "John Doe" P2P users. Now the law firm is ramping up their plans to sue individuals in a number of additional states for sharing a number of different films:

DGW, which also operates under the name U.S. Copyright Group, has recruited lawyers from as many as 23 U.S. states to file lawsuits against thousands of suspected film pirates in local courts, according to Thomas Dunlap, the firm's co-founder and one of the participating attorneys. DGW represents about a dozen movie makers, including the producers of Oscar winning film, "The Hurt Locker."

Unfortunately, the courts haven't seen things DGW's way, and ISPs like Time Warner Cable are fighting efforts to hand over the names behind IP addresses en masse largely because they don't want the added administrative costs.