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Over the years, hundreds of thousands of people have been accused of sharing pirated movies through BitTorrent. Quite often, these cases end up in private and undisclosed settlements.<\/p>\nOver the years, hundreds of thousands of people have been accused of sharing pirated movies through BitTorrent. Quite often, these cases end up in private and undisclosed settlements.<\/p>\n
This was also the plan when Kerry Culpepper reached out to Mrs. Parks, a woman in Arizona whose email address was linked to downloading pirated copies of the films \u201cLost Child\u201d and \u201cSaving Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The movie companies were able to make this connection with help from the user database of popular torrent site YTS. This information was shared as part of an earlier settlement and is used by attorney Kerry Culpepper to negotiate settlements in and out of court. <\/p>\n
Mrs. Parks, who allegedly downloaded the film \u201cLost Child,\u201d was given the chance to resolve her case for $1,000 in four separate payments. If the first three payments arrived on time, the final $250 would be waived.<\/p>\n
This same tactic is being used on dozens if not hundreds of alleged YTS users. It\u2019s not clear how many people settle, but Mrs. Parks and her husband Mr. Dabney initially seemed willing to take the deal, which was confirmed over the phone and via email on June 8.<\/p>\n
After this initial agreement, communications between both sides went downhill. No payments were made and the husband made it very clear that the movie companies shouldn\u2019t expect to be compensated anytime soon, accusing their lawyer of being \u201ca fraud and a scam\u201d while adding all sorts of profanities. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/center><\/p>\nThe movie companies and their lawyer didn\u2019t seem impressed. Instead of backing off, they went to court<\/a>, accusing the Arizona couple of copyright infringement and requesting damages. <\/p>\n The husband and wife received the legal paperwork but that didn\u2019t change their tone. While they failed to respond in court, a person who identified himself as Dabney did leave a voicemail message at the attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n \u201cHey this is case number you can suck my f*cking d*ck. Richard Dabney out in Arizona. I just got your papers. I don\u2019t care if you sue me again for this. I don\u2019t care if you call the cops. You\u2019re gonna lose. I\u2019m gonna win. Either way you slice it, Mrs. Kerry S. Culpepper is going down,\u201d the message warned.<\/p>\n Without a proper defense in court, the movie companies went ahead and requested a default judgment earlier this month. They asked the court for $15,000 in statutory copyright infringement damages for each movie. In addition, they requested another $5,000 for the use of altered copyright management information. <\/p>\n The second request isn\u2019t something we have seen very often. It refers to section 1202 of the DMCA<\/a> which prohibits people from using false or altered copyright management information. In this case, that refers to the \u201cYTS\u201d tag that was added.<\/p>\n This week, US District Judge Susan Bolton granted the default judgment. This means that the couple will have to pay a total of $35,000 in damages. This includes the claim for the altered copyright information.<\/p>\n \u201cDefendants have willfully directly infringed and contributed to infringement of the Plaintiffs\u2019 copyright protected motion pictures Saving Christmas and Lost Child,\u201d the order reads.<\/p>\n \u201cDefendants knowingly and with the intent to induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal infringement of the copyright protected Works distributed copyright management information (\u2018CMI\u2019) that falsely included the wording \u2018YTS\u2019,\u201d Judge Bolton adds.<\/p>\n In addition to the damages, the defendants will also have to pay over $5,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees and costs. <\/p>\n The default judgment further includes a permanent injunction which states that all software used to \u201cexchange unlicensed media content\u201d should be removed. This also includes the torrent software that was used.<\/p>\n Culpepper informs TorrentFreak that his clients are happy with the outcome. However, they would have preferred to settle it out of court.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough we are pleased with the Court\u2019s decision, it\u2019s unfortunate that the Defendants threw away an opportunity to resolve this matter privately and save everyone time and money. My clients just want people to purchase their movies legally,\u201d Culpepper says.<\/p>\n Whether his clients will indeed get the money has yet to be seen.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n A copy of US District Judge Susan Bolton\u2019s order granting the default judgment is available here (pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\nDefault Judgment<\/h2>\n
More Than Damages Alone<\/h2>\n