Thousands of movie pirates slapped with lawsuits and R4,500 fines

[Jamie McKane]

Thousands of movie pirates slapped with lawsuits and R4,500 fines

Pirates who torrented the recent film release London Has Fallen received a nasty surprise.

[Graal]

They've been doing this for years and they rarely, if ever, accomplish anything. I'm surprised it's being reported on at all, considering it's just a lot of bluffing and scare tactics. It's not like they're going to take people to court globally, especially when their evidence is basically 'we spied on torrents and harvested IP addresses'. The only people who will suffer any consequences are those who are scared enough to actually pay the settlement. Everyone else will never hear from this again. This is all just about preying on the legally illiterate. Blackmail, basically. "Pay us or we sue you" and when the person refuses to pay they drop it and move on to the next sucker.

Many ISPs don't even forward these letters to their customers. I remember OpenWeb's CEO back in the day said he got them regularly and just deleted them.

[Avatar]

Everyone else will never hear from this again. This is all just about preying on the legally illiterate. Blackmail, basically. "Pay us or we sue you" and when the person refuses to pay they drop it and move on to the next sucker.

This. The laws of the US doesn't apply elsewhere, so it really does come down to blackmail. Sueing and being shouty isn't the solution to tackling movie piracy. Get better distribution models going, and piracy will falter.