The Lions Gate Film Inc. unit
of the Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE:LGF) filed a lawsuit against
BitTorrent protocol sites that leaked online an advance copy of “The
Expendables 3,” whose release is scheduled for Aug. 15. In a filing with the
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Lions Gate said it
learned of the leak July 24. The movie has already been downloaded more than a
million times since then, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The lawsuit names as defendants John Does 1-10, who are the
operators of billionuploads.com, dotsemper.com, hulkfile.eu, limetorrents.com,
played.to and swankshare.com.
“By downloading one of these ‘torrent’ files associated with the
Stolen Film from [one of the defendants], users join a ‘swarm’ where they
download parts of the Stolen Film from many different users and also upload to
other users parts of the Stolen Film they have already received, until
eventually they have reproduced the entire Stolen Film on their own hard drives
and in most cases have also uploaded all or a substantial part of the Stolen
Film to others,” the lawsuit states. The Hollywood Reporter is hosting a copy
of the filing on its site.
Lions Gate is requesting in its suit that “the Court enter a
temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction and a permanent
injunction ... prohibiting Defendants [and others] from ... hosting, linking
to, distributing, reproducing, performing, selling, offering for sale, making
available for download, streaming or making any other use of any copy or copies
of the Stolen Film or any portion thereof in any form.”
The
U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or
ICE, apparently began investigating the case after Lions Gate sought the aid of
law-enforcement agencies in locating the film’s pirates, Deadlinereported. It
quoted an ICE public-affairs officer as saying Friday, “It is our policy to
neither confirm or deny that an investigation is under way, unless or until it
results in some type of public enforcement action.”
The all-star cast of “The Expendables 3” includes Sylvester
Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford,
Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren and Antonio Banderas, among others.
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