AfterDawn: Tech news

Hotfile and 1000 Hotfile uploaders sued over infringement

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Jan 2011 11:44 User comments (10)

Hotfile and 1000 Hotfile uploaders sued over infringement Liberty Media has filed suit against cyberlocker Hotfile, as well as 1000 "John Doe" Hotfile uploaders.
Additionally, PayPal is named in the lawsuit, as Hotfile has an account with them.

Liberty is looking to have Hotfile's account frozen and their domain name seized.

The suit claims Hotfile is a Panamanian company that exists only in name and takes multiple steps to "obfuscate the facts of its location, address, and principals." The company is owned by Russian named Anton Titov, who is possibly a resident of Bulgaria. Hotfile allegedly has servers in Dallas, Texas and Florida.

The 1000 uploaders allegedly "jointly and severally, with actual or constructive knowledge of or with willful blindness, reproduced and distributed certain LIBERTY-owned works through www.Hotfile.com."

Liberty does conclude that Hotfile could have legitimate uses, but its main purpose is "to profit from the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials, many of which are the intellectual property of LIBERTY."



The company says it found over 2500 links to 800 of its titles, and the company is seeking $150,000 per infringement.

Previous Next  

10 user comments

119.1.2011 13:46

Liberty Media put out anything we might have heard of?


219.1.2011 13:50

Originally posted by dEwMe:
Liberty Media put out anything we might have heard of?


They own Starz :)

319.1.2011 14:36

Originally posted by DVDBack23:
Originally posted by dEwMe:
Liberty Media put out anything we might have heard of?


They own Starz :)
So that would be a no. But they rerun movies that already came out on dvd, netflix, and other places. Technically would it be a class action lawsuit seeing that multiple companies will be holding the rights to broadcast and sell those movies.If its their own original content. Yeah i got a case. But to say the site needs to be shut down. Because it affects your subscriber base. When there's no proof, because other sell, broadcast, and rent the same movies as well is going to be hard.

419.1.2011 19:10

lmfao $150,000 PER infringement lol. ok now common.. its not like the average JOE is gonna have that much lol.

ohwell thats what ya get.

519.1.2011 21:11

...cry me a fucking river this lawsuit will fail like the rest of these

620.1.2011 00:33

This suit is doomed. Precedent already exists; their lawyers apparently either never heard of the recent Megaupload verdict, or they're just sucking their client dry. Either way, unless the plaintiff company has a LOT better evidence than is implied here, the defense merely needs to bring up the previous case to win.

720.1.2011 12:15

I agree that Hotfile could escape on the basis of ignorance. File sharing sites themselves have many legitimate uses, so the argument that Hotfile is profiteering from copyrighted material (when it clearly has a copyright warning notice under the Upload link) is a non starter IMHO.

Individual users uploading however could be a different kettle of fish, although proving that they did so will be as hard as it has been with the likes of Limewire, Kazaa etc. They would have to get access to IP addresses and would also have to prove that server logs of said addresses are foolproof.

820.1.2011 13:03
lissenup2
Inactive

Yeah....right. Guy is Russian, lives in Bulgaria, servers in Panama. All reasons Titov will simply say GO F YOURSELF!! And rightfully so. Maybe, just maybe they'll hinder hotfile if they are able to track down the servers in the U.S. Otherwise......no chance to the filer.

921.1.2011 15:44

Liberty Media or Liberty Capital should have NEVER been allowed to grow so big in the first place as they are one of the biggest companies around. I'm curious as to what pirating they are referencing too, it could be Starz but it also could be other programming as well.

Here are some of the companies they own either directly or indirectly (only some of them!):

Time Warner
Starz
Atlanta Braves
Motorola
Viacom
MacNeil Lehrer Productions
Mobile Streams
Expedia Inc.
QVC
Pepsi
Sprint
Crown Media Holdings Inc.
Back Country
Pro Flowers
Current Communications
Body Building
Red Envelope
Century Link
True Position
Zoombak GPS
Borba
Cherry Moon Farms
Leisure Arts
Priceline
Gifts
WFRV-TV
Sirius XM Radio
Sharis Berries
Buy Seasons
Evite

1021.1.2011 16:40

Holy crap! Thanks for that info, Mr-Movies.

Comments have been disabled for this article.

News archive