US Families Sued For Free Movie Downloads – Talk with your children, Avoid being sued

For many years now, my law firm has defended internet users targeted in lawsuits filed by movie companies. Time and time again, these copyright infringement lawsuits targeted the internet subscriber as the defendant. But, even when the movie was in fact illegally downloaded, the culprit was often the son or daughter of the internet subscriber. And Mom or Dad was then the legal target, facing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit. My hope is to raise awareness of the problem to stop parents from being sued for the children’s and friends internet activities.

In 2014 and 2015, we represented hundreds of people targeted in lawsuits filed by Dallas Buyers Club LLC. Dallas Buyers Club LLC is the owner of the copyright for the movie of the same name. The movie company alleged that the client’s internet account was used to illegally obtain the movie for free. Each time, the lawsuits alleged, a software “protocol” called BitTorrent was used to obtain the movie file. I enjoyed watching Dallas Buyers Club, and did so more than once. I’m pretty sure I used Redbox and/or Netflix to watch it.

In the case of Dallas Buyers Club, as well as the over 50 movie company lawsuits we have dealt with since we started representing people in “free movie download” lawsuits, only in a small percentage of the cases did the internet accountholder targeted admit to doing the download. Too often, it turned out to be the children of the account holder, unbeknownst to the parent. Most decided to settle and not litigate the defenses including that the parents could not be held liable for the internet activities of their children. Who would turn in their son or daughter?

In addition, in a lot of the cases we were involved with (nearly 2,000 nationwide thus far), the internet account holder simply had no idea why they were being targeted in a federal copyright infringement lawsuit. Perhaps a neighbor used their wi-fi to download the movie. Or maybe some sophisticated computer user sitting anywhere else in the world was using a fake IP address to conceal their true identity, only that fake IP address traced back to a real person in the United States. And then that person was getting sued.

More recently, we are hearing that children are using various website and apps to “stream” the movies for free. One such app or website is called Popcorn Time. This is a problem because, in part, on the back end the app or website is quietly using the BitTorrent protocol to download the movie in order to view it, and hence creating legal trouble. And again, parents are getting sued.

So here is the list of movies people are currently being sued for illegally downloading them from the internet. Please talk to your children about using BitTorrent or so-called free movie apps like Popcorn Time. An ounce of prevention is worth thousands of dollars of cure.

List of Movies US Parents Are Being Sued For Internet Downloading

Share this list with your teenage or older children and talk with them about streaming or downloading movies “for free”.

  • Mechanic: Resurrection starring Jason Statham and Jessica Alba (ME2 Productions)
  • Boyka: Undisputed starring Scott Adkins and Teodora Duhovnikova (UN4 Productions)
  • Mr. Church starring Eddie Murphy and Britt Robertson (Cook Productions)
  • Vengeance: A Love Story starring Nicolas Cage and Anna Hutchinson (Justice Everywhere Productions)
  • London Has Fallen starring Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart (LHF Productions)
  • Criminal starring Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Costner, and Gary Oldman (Criminal Productions)
  • Eliminators starring Scott Adkins, Stu Bennett, and Daniel Caltagirone (WWE Studios Finance Corporation)
  • A Family Man starring Gerard Butler and Alison Brie (Headhunter LLC)
  • I.T starring Pierce Brosnan, James Frecheville and Anna Friel (I.T. Productions)
  • Various movies of the adult variety (Malibu Media LLC)