Last May the United States Copyright Group (USCG) filed a massive lawsuit against over 23,000 people, claiming that those users illegally downloaded the 2010 action movie The Expendables via BitTorrent sites. Now it looks like that case has in fact been dismissed by the USCG and Nu Image, the movie production company which funded the production of the Sylvester Stallone-Jason Statham retro 80s action flick.
According to Torrentfreak.com, the dismissal of the lawsuit was made voluntarily by both parties, but it wasn't exactly from the goodness of their hearts. Rather the companies were somewhat forced to change their strategy due to a court decision. In July, District Court Judge Robert Wilkins ruled that Nu Image could only file lawsuits against the IP owners who live in the District of Columbia. That naturally cut off nearly all of the other lawsuits filed in this case. Faced with that possibility the parties decided to cut their losses and dismiss the lawsuits, including those in the District of Columbia. However, as TechDirt points out, the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, which means that the USCG and Nu Image could refile the lawsuits.
The 23,332 lawsuits filed in The Expendables case was quickly overshadowed a few days later in May when a similar lawsuit was filed with 24,583 BitTorrent users who allegedly download the Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker. That case is still pending although its possible that the judge in that case could make a similar ruling that limits how many people the movie studio can actually sue.
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