ELI is a bit late to the party on the P2P Lawsuits & BitTorrent Lawsuits controversy. However, in light of the near-death of the Righthaven Lawsuits controversy, the P2P & BitTorrent Lawsuits controversy has attracted more of our attention.
It appears this is much larger than anything we have ever seen. According to U.S. News & World Report, since mid-2010 more than 220,000 people have been accused of illegally downloading movies. Ironically, that is about when Righthaven ramped up its operations.
The extortion letters being sent out are heavy-handed and takes it a step further to include movie titles that are meant to embarrass the alleged infringer.
Our main fight has been against the stock photo companies with their heavy-handed ways. But we feel with our experience in fighting the stock photo companies, we have something to offer to assist those caught up in the P2P & BitTorrent scandal.
As always, we do not condone copyright infringement or digital piracy but what these content producers are doing is simply extortionistic and outrageous.
I would like to give credit to FightCopyrightTrolls.com and DieTrollsDie.com for having done so much work on that forefront. I consider them the leaders on this copyright troll niche and I am opening up the ELI community as a resource to serve the greater good. Likewise, the ELI Community would be well-served to learn the lessons coming from the P2P & BitTorrent Lawsuits Controversy.