The same RIAA that makes examples out of ordinary folks by suing them for millions of dollars for file sharing? Turns out someone there’s been pirating full seasons of Dexter. Nine million dollars worth. Whoops!
That number — $150,000 for each of the 60 episodes illegally downloaded on the RIAA HQ ISP (OK?) — comes compliments of YouHaveDownloaded which logged the BitTorrent activity of some 50 million users and revealed that not only are the major movie studios pirating their own movies, but the RIAA is downloading pirated TV shows. Lots of ’em.
Again, this is the same RIAA that has been shaking down a Minnesota mother of four for $US1.5 million over 24 songs she shared on Kazaa. And it turns out, they’re being generous in that case! Since the statutory damages sited by its own guidelines are much higher:
… copyright holders can sue you for up to $US150,000 in statutory damages for each of their copyrighted works that you illegally copy or distribute.
So let’s see, $US150k per episode times 60 episodes comes out to roughly… $US9,000,000, checks payable to CBS.
Look, the RIAA’s method of “enforcing” copyright law by suing people to oblivion is unfair. But to layer hypocrisy on top of that unfairness is just gross. How about you get your own house in order before you target your next Minnesota mom? [TorrentFreak]