Strike 3 Holdings has filed THOUSANDS of lawsuits across the United States in states like Illinois, Washington, California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and other states.

Typically, they are extracting settlements anywhere from $150 to $750 per movie allegedly infringed. This can add up. For example, if an adult downloads 100 movies and shares them via BitTorrent protocol via “the swarm” the so-called John Doe Defendant can be on the hook for a $20,000 to $50,000 settlement.

Many people who are sharing their movies online have no idea they are doing anything illegal. For example:

  1. Most do not see any copyright symbols on the movies;
  2. Most do not see any FBI WARNING SYMBOL as you see at the movies putting you on notice not to infringe copyrights
  3. Most have never had a business law class where POSSIBLY they would have been exposed to copyright law
  4. Most have never taken a copyright course in law school
  5. Most remember Napster, and many believe it is a legal technology

So, there are lots of reasons why people infringe on these movies, but most doing so have no idea they are doing anything wrong. However, under the copyright laws of the United States even “non-willful” infringement or “innocent infringement” is actionable.

I think its time for Congress to enact legislation requiring Strike 3 to put warning notices on their films and a copyright notice so that users will KNOW DEFINITIVELY that they are engaging in illegal conduct when they enter the BitTorrent realm and download, share, and distribute films.

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Steve Vondran

Steve Vondran is an intellectual property lawyer with offices in San Francisco, Newport Beach, San Diego and Santa Monica California and is the Founder and CEO of the Copyright Policy Institute (“CPi”).  He is a software and copyright infringement lawyer with a thriving…

Steve Vondran is an intellectual property lawyer with offices in San Francisco, Newport Beach, San Diego and Santa Monica California and is the Founder and CEO of the Copyright Policy Institute (“CPi”).  He is a software and copyright infringement lawyer with a thriving legal practice handling copyright infringement dealing with jewelry, films, videos, photographs, software, and other copyrighted content.