Casual Pirate Insistently Targeted by American Filmmaker
Published on December 21, 2020
- A woman who lost her job for promoting pirate apps is now targeted by a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
- She is facing a compensation demand of up to $150,000, depending on what the court decides.
- The plaintiffs are again ‘Hunter Killer Productions,’ makers of a mediocre movie that came out a while back.
It appears that the makers of the 2018 film ‘Hunter Killer’ care to spend more time chasing internet users who illegally share their works online than in making new movies, as we now have a case that takes their pirate-targeting action to the highest end of the spectrum. After targeting a VICTRA store employee for promoting the use of pirate apps like Popcorn Time and Showbox to customers, they are now back with an additional lawsuit, claiming that the same person downloaded and shared copies of the particular movie.
Defendant Sabrina Boylan was fired from the VICTRA store where she worked following the first legal case, even after the court dismissed it, possibly because the two firms reached an extra-judicial settlement agreement. Losing her job wasn’t the end of her struggle, though, as she is now facing a brand new lawsuit.
'Hunter Killer Productions' is asking the court to permanently enjoin the cease of similar infringements, order the deletion of the copyrighted work, the torrent, and the BitTorrent client from all her computers, and award the plaintiff actual and statutory damages. Also, reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs are to be covered by Boylan. In total, the compensatory amount could reach up to $150,000.
The evidence of her copyright infringement comes from an IP address that’s registered under her name, linked to a Verizon cellular phone internet service. As smartphones are more personal devices than desktop PCs or laptops, they are less likely to be shared among various users. That said, the IP address has a higher incriminatory value than what it typically holds in courts, but this will depend on the judge's view on the matter.
The first action against the defendant was justified in the sense that due to her job position, she was promoting pirate software and illegal activities to a large number of people, incurring great damages to filmmakers. The second lawsuit, though, is somewhat vengeful, although still 100% valid and legitimate.
‘Hunter Killer’ has been used for hunting all levels of pirates, from casual to prolific infringers, and considering the film itself, it makes people’s troubles even more vexatious. It’s a movie that finished fifth at the box office during its first week in theaters and was bashed by film critics for being a “cliche-loaded” unoriginal and uninteresting mash of things we’ve seen multiple times before. Does this sound like something you’d want to risk your peace of mind for? Is watching a movie of this kind worth even your time, let alone tens of thousands of USD?
Of course, legal trouble is always plausible when downloading pirate movies, so we’d advise you against it no matter the title or the studio that funded its production. Piracy is illegal, and if you don’t have the money to access the content, you want legally, just skip it and enjoy life instead.
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