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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.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Jan 2011 11:44

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• 10 comments

• dEwMe

  Liberty Media put out anything we might have heard of?
  
  
  

  Just my $0.02,
  
  dEwMe

  19.1.2011 13:46 #1

• DVDBack23

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

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  19.1.2011 13:50 #2

• bigfamei

  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.

  19.1.2011 14:36 #3

• 1nsan3

  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.
  

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  19.1.2011 19:10 #4

• Tristan_2

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

  19.1.2011 21:11 #5

• Bozobub

  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.

  20.1.2011 00:33 #6

• simpsim

  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.

  20.1.2011 12:15 #7

• lissenup2

  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.

  20.1.2011 13:03 #8

• Mr-Movies

  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
  
  

  21.1.2011 15:44 #9

• Bozobub

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

  21.1.2011 16:40 #10