One of the emerging trends in copyright litigation is to sue thousands of people at once, in order to maximize damages and minimize costs. But one law firm charting that path has suffered a setback, and has had to seriously downsize two of its lawsuits against a total of more than 6,000 defendants. If similar limits are placed in other venues, it could reduce the chances that the mass-copyright suits that have taken off this year can be turned into a big moneymaker.
In two lawsuits brought by Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver over movie copyrights, the group attempted to sue more than 6,000 anonymous “John Doe” defendants: 1,653 defendants in a lawsuit against file-sharers who allegedly downloaded The Steam Experiment , an obscure movie about a mad scientist who locks six people in a room because he’s upset about global warming, and a separate suit against 4,577 who were accused of downloading Far Cry, a European film based on a first-person shooter game. (Note to readers: You should not download these movies– and not just because you might get sued: One Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) review about Far Cry says: “This is an absolute disaster — I’ve had more fun going to the DMV or dealing with a hemorrhoid.”)
But last month, the judge in the case limited the amount of time the lawyers have to turn their huge list of IP addresses into names. By filing much smaller-scale complaints this week, Dunlap has conceded he’ll have to reduce the number of people he is targeting, at least in his local court. The Far Cry lawsuit is now proceeding against only 139 defendants, while The Steam Experiment case is going forward against 726 John Does. Those lists will likely be narrowed further as time goes on.
That means close to 90 percent of the defendants sued by the DGW law firm in those suits are off the hook, for now. Because the suits were dismissed without prejudice, they could be refiled, but they’ll have to be re-filed in venues closer to where the defendants live. That’s because U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer, who is overseeing those two suits, has questioned whether her court is the proper venue to sue faraway defendants. The law firm will still have extra time to get the names of the D.C.-area defendants, whom it will be allowed to sue.
Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), the broadband provider that is doing most of the D.C-area IP lookups for these lawsuits, has only committed to providing Dunlap and his colleagues with 28 IP lookups per month. The company has argued that Dunlap’s desire to get large numbers of addresses interferes with the cable company’s work assisting law enforcement with more pressing issues.
In response to the decision, Thomas Dunlap, the lawyer leading the legal charge, told CNET News that he and his colleagues will work with other firms to prosecute cases in various venues around the country.
But overall, Judge Collyer’s ruling has forced Dunlap’s law firm to abandon its “shotgun” approach in at least two cases. That means the DGW law firm and other lawyers who have begun pursuing mass-copyright suits could be forced to litigate much harder for a smaller return, since they won’t be able to compel hundreds or thousands of downloaders into shelling out money for quick settlements. Earlier in the decade, the RIAA lost huge amounts of money attacking individual downloaders — because the costs greatly outstripped the proceeds — and if the lawyers behind the mass-copyright suits hope to make a profitable business out of their tactic, they have to hope that rulings like Judge Collyer’s don’t continue.
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