'Hurt Locker' producers file piracy suit

The producers of "Hurt Locker" have filed a copyright infringement suit against as many as 5,000 Internet users for pirating copies of the movie.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, does not name any of the defendants but rather is a first step toward obtaining their names in a discovery process. In the suit, Voltage Pictures Inc., producers of "Hurt Locker," say they have obtained only the IP addresses assigned to each user by their Internet providers and the date and time the infringement took place.

The suit says that the movie was distributed among P2P networks users via a "BitTorrent protocol" that makes even "small computers with low bandwith capable of participating in large data transfers across a P2P network."

The distribution "of even one unlawful copy of a motion picture can result in the nearly instananeous worldwide distribution of that single copy to a limitless number of people."

The suit, filed by attorneys Thomas Dunlap and Nicholas Kurtz in Washington, seeks actual or statutory damages, plaintiff's and attorney's fees.

:source: Variety