Man fined $1.5 million in damages for sharing 10 porn movies

[Kw3rLn]

A Virginia man, Kywan Fisher, who was accused of sharing 10 adult movies via BitTorrent is being asked by an Illinois Federal court to pony up a whopping $1,500,000 in damages. The stiff judgment is the largest amount ever awarded in a BitTorrent copyright case, reports Torrent Freak.



It's worth noting this lawsuit is a little bit different than your typical illegal file-sharing lawsuit, however. The two main differences -- the videos being watermarked and Fisher now showing up for trial -- made this a fairly open and shut case.

Watermarking is the practice of embedding something uniquely identifiable inside a product or other work. As it turns out, every Flava Works subscriber has a unique code assigned to them. When one of those subscribers downloads a video from the website, that unique code is injected into the file. If the user shares that file, the watermark and will continue to travel with the video. This process allowed Flava Works to identify the video's origin and, in this case, they knew the string "xvyynuxl" was linked to Fisher's account.

The second reason for the large settlement is the fact Fisher simply didn't show up to defend himself. After considering Flava Works' uncontested evidence and Fisher's apparent, willful infringement, Judge John Lee issued the $1.5 million judgment -- the largest amount ever awarded in a BitTorrent piracy case.

The 10 videos Fisher was accused of downloading were "infringed or downloaded" at least 3,449 times by others, according to Flava Works. When you take this into account and crunch the numbers, the decision weighs in at around $434.90 in damages per upload.

Kw3rLn Reviewed by Kw3rLn on 3rd Nov 2012. Man fined $1.5 million in damages for sharing 10 porn movies A Virginia man, Kywan Fisher, who was accused of sharing 10 adult movies via BitTorrent is being asked by an Illinois Federal court to pony up a whopping $1,500,000 in damages. The stiff judgment is the largest amount ever awarded in a BitTorrent copyright case, reports Torrent Freak. http://static.techspot.com/images/teaser/copyright_story.jpg It's worth noting this lawsuit is a little bit different than your typical illegal file-sharing lawsuit, however. The two main differences -- the Rating: 5

[avRo]

ahh..porn companies are so much creative now..wining cases one after another

[cvrle77]

I am sure that shooting and selling those 10 videos wasn't costing $1.5M.
Also $434.9 per download, while movie costs um, $20 to be purchased?
w0w. Making $200 worth property costing 1.5M is an art. And they still have that property.

[sniffdog]

Of course these amounts are based on the potential material and immaterial damages by the copyright holder, not by how much a movie costs to produce or how many people have downloaded it.

[Laz21]

btw, about watermarked thing. Once I bought a tune from audiojelly (it costed me around 3,40 usd). When I looked on the tags it was said it is watermarked, then I posted on forums.. My question is when you get some watermaked stuff you should stop sharing them, otherwise there are more chances to get into problems?

I bought tunes from beatport too, but there weren't watermaked.

[Smith]

You'll end up in jail for a longer period of time if you distribute warez on the internet rather than if you kill someone.

Retarded people, retarded law.

[Djlatino]

btw, about watermarked thing. Once I bought a tune from audiojelly (it costed me around 3,40 usd). When I looked on the tags it was said it is watermarked, then I posted on forums.. My question is when you get some watermaked stuff you should stop sharing them, otherwise there are more chances to get into problems?

I bought tunes from beatport too, but there weren't watermaked.

You have to try and flush the actual audio file. No there isn't a problem unless you're sharing excessive amounts.


I love how they go towards the people who share 5-10 videos versus the guys who share over 100 daily.

[DJboutit]

^^^ Feel the same way why go after a guy who only downloads or uploads 5gb what a waste of time this do not scare anybody. There are people on this forum clamming they have uploaded 10tb to 40tb of files now they a much bigger threat check out this thread
http://www.besthostingforums.com/102...g-you-use.html

If they really wanted to scare people to stop downloading upload just do a search on alexa for any ware forum torrent or blog site with 50k rank or under and bust them that would scare a lot of people off

[richardo]

You'll end up in jail for a longer period of time if you distribute warez on the internet rather than if you kill someone.

Retarded people, retarded law.

Where's it say anything about jail?