Download The Hurt Locker? You Could be Sued

Many pirates who download movies, music, or really any form of copyrighted material understand the risks of doing so, but rarely believe that there is any chance the hammer could fall on them. After all, organizations such as the RIAA have sued thousands, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the millions who pirate materials on a very regular basis.

If you downloaded the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, though, you might have reason for concern. According to The Hollywood Reporter, filmmakers behind the film are preparing to launch a full-scale attack on, get this… tens of thousands of people who downloaded the movie. That may still be a drop in the bucket, but that’s still a rather high percentage compared to the norm.

To make matters even scarier, about 75% of the ISPs contacted have agreed to hand over customer information upon request. That means that if your IP happens to be one that downloaded the movie, and you’re on this list, then you can be expecting a call from someone in the future. If you were the one of many that downloaded this movie, now might be a good idea to sit back, twiddle your thumbs, and pretend nothing happened.

In the comments thread for the article at TorrentFreak, many are very vocal about how they feel about this action. Some believe it’s nothing more than a publicity stunt to make up for what is a bad movie (I’ve never seen it, but it won multiple Oscars this past winter), and some are already speculating as to how much the settlement will be. Whatever the reasons and settlements, this seems like a full-scale assault, and things are bound to get very interesting in the month ahead.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Hurt Locker team has signed up for the services of the U.S. Copyright Group, who will launch a mass lawsuit targeted at tens of thousands of Hurt Locker sharers. The lawsuit is expected to be filed this week and will ask U.S. ISPs to reveal the account owners linked to the IP-addresses that shared the movie on BitTorrent.