Local people sued for illegally downloading movies
BY Teresa Auch Schultz tauch@post-trib.com July 31, 2012 4:28PM
Updated: July 31, 2012 10:24PM
A California company is suing 11 people — including seven from Northwest Indiana — for illegally downloading what appear to be pornographic movies.
Malibu Media LLC, located in Malibu, Calif., filed a lawsuit against the 11 unnamed defendants Monday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond.
According to the lawsuit, Malibu Media owns the copyright to 16 movies such as “Jennifer Naughty Angel” and “Kristen Girl Next Door.”
The 11 defendants downloaded the movies as part of a “swarm that was distributing plaintiff’s copyrighted works,” the suit says.
The suit says Malibu Media tracked the defendants down by their IP addresses, which showed up in Crown Point, Griffith, Hammond, Valparaiso, LaPorte, Merrillville and Chesterton.
The other IP addresses were linked with South Bend, Elkhart, Warsaw and Mishawaka.
The defendants have not been specifically identified, however, and are referred to as John Does.
Most of the movies were downloaded in 2010, although some were downloaded in 2009.
Malibu Media is asking that the defendants be forced to delete the movies and to pay statutory damages of $150,000 for each movie they downloaded, meaning a defendant could face up to $2.4 million.
