Two different companies claiming the intellectual-property rights of the same movie are now each suing the same 5,865 BitTorrent downloaders for purloining Nude Nuns with Big Guns, according to court documents.
Camelot Distribution Group of California filed the original suit in Los Angeles federal court in March. Incentive Capital of Utah lodged a near-identically worded suit Friday with the same judge, arguing that it is the true owner of the B-rated flick about "Sister Sarah," who is "abused, brainwashed and drugged into submission by the corrupt clergy."
The two suits underscore how lawyers and rights holders for small-budget films -- like porn and exploitation flicks -- are scrambling to embrace a courtroom-based business strategy that's targeted more than 130,000 suspected movie downloaders since it was first pioneered in the United States last year by a startup of copyright lawyers in Washington, D.C. The idea is to extract settlements ranging up to a few thousand dollars from each defendant.
But the dispute over Nude Nuns marks the first time that two companies are targeting the same downloaders who allegedly stole the same movie.
The battle over who owns the film is likely to give suspected downloaders a sigh of relief, albeit a brief one. That's because U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson has not decided whether to grant either company the power to subpoena internet service providers to enable the plaintiffs to obtain identifying information about whose internet accounts were used to download the movie.
The judge is not likely to consider that until the real owner is determined. The ownership battle is being litigated in another court, where each side is claiming the same rights to the flick.
The outcome could mean big bucks for the winner. The Copyright Act allows up to $150,000 in damages for each copyright violation.
Incentive Capital took ownership in February, according to its account. Two weeks after Incentive Capital foreclosed and assumed Camelot Distribution Group's titles because of an allegedly soured loan, Camelot filed the mass copyright lawsuit on behalf of Nude Nuns claiming it owned the rights.
For its part, Camelot claims the ownership switch was an "usurpation of its assets," according to court documents.
The flap concerns a $650,000 loan that Incentive provided to Camelot last year, which was used by Camelot to acquire the rights to Nude Nuns and other low-grade movies and a dozen other titles you've never heard of.
Incentive claims Camelot defaulted on the loan, so Incentive took title to the movies used as collateral.
See Also:
- Studio Suing BitTorrent Pirates Does Not Own the Movie
- Nude Nuns Judge Questions Mass BitTorrent Lawsuit
- Court to Consider Breaking Up Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits
- Torrent Search Engines Unlawful, U.S. Judge Says
- Time Warner Cable Resists Mass BitTorrent Lawsuit
- TorrentSpy Won't Pay $111 Million Court Order, Lawyer Says
- Indie Filmmakers Sue Thousands of BitTorrent Users
