A Florida Federal Judge has issued a default judgment for Filmmakers who filed a lawsuit against popular VPN Company LiquidVPN.
We want to know your thoughts in the comments below. What do you think of this lawsuit against LiquidVPN?
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As reported by TorrentFreak, the lawsuit alleged various copyright infringement actions including the “encouragement” of Popcorn Time.
Popcorn Time is a Streaming App that has garnered attention in the past for hosting content illegally and providing it to the public.
The lawsuit claims the VPN Provider, directly and indirectly, infringes on their copyright by promoting this service:
The LiquidVPN Defendants describe their VPN service as a tool to ‘Watch Popcorn Time without being detected by your ISP and P2P tracking software’ and promote it as a tool that can be used to pirate copyright protected content ‘without the risk of getting caught by your ISP or anyone else
Some of the infringed movies include popular titles such as Hellboy, Dallas Buyer’s Club, Angel Has Fallen, and Hunter Killer.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a VPN Company under legal pressure from Movie Companies.
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Most recently, VPN.ht was also accused of promoting the Popcorn Time application and ultimately ordered to block popular media sites.
What’s most notable, however, is that VPN.ht was ordered to log and store IP Addresses of customers connecting to a server in the US.
VPN.ht Reaches Agreement to Block Torrent Sites & Log User Data
LiquidVPN Court Order
Similar to VPN.ht, LiquidVPN also received a court order, this time in the form of a default judgment.
After the company failed to respond to the lawsuit, the prosecution asked the court to execute a default judgment on the case.
This was initially denied, however, Florida Judge Beth Bloom has since granted the default judgment for many of the demands requested.
This includes the maximum statutory damages amount of $150,000 per title which totals nearly $10 million.
LiquidVPN must also fork over nearly $5 million for violating the DMCA by altering copyright management information.
Judge Bloom stated in her permanent injunction:
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LiquidVPN Defendants have no safe harbor from liability because they fail to implement a policy for terminating repeat infringers and have not registered a DMCA agent with the Copyright office
You can read the entire default judgment below:
LiquidVPN Final Judgment & Permanent Injunction
In addition, the court granted the Hawaiian Law Firm 42 Ventures $250,000 in damages for trademark infringement.
42 Ventures owns the trademark for the Popcorn Time logo and successfully accused LiquidVPN of using the logo without consent.
What do you think of the court granting a default judgment against LiquidVPN?
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!
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First of all, this people Lawyers and others in this case are completely ignorant of the law.
A Florida judge as absolutely no jurisdiction out of Florida. A superior judge has and may have jurisdiction all over the USA but nor international.
The VPN company only needs to move out of US territory sand done, good luck enforcing any judgement but a Florida court, been know to be one of the most corrupt estates in the US on the first place. VPN offer service to all types of companies including the US government. This companies are lying and making up stupid stories on their lawsuit.
IF they move out of the US< good luck enforcing any judgement form any US court, takes long time and lots of money and even this production companies will at the end lose, as many countries no will not enforce any US judgement. Why because US makes it difficult for them to enforce any judgement in the US< so now EU countries and others will not tolerate this from the US, consequently they will not enforce any US court judgement. Good luck with this stupid companies and their judgements.
That is why I only now watch free TV and basic channels , I also have not gone to a movie in 10 years nor will go to a movie ever and less American movies.
Collecting the judgement is another thing. It’s just like crypto. If you want to protect something on the internet you need to figure out a way and encrypt the stream. This is all baloney.
Like everything else we go through there are lessons to be learned.As a tight knit community we learned or the VPN people should learn not to promote their VPN for illegal activity. When gun manufacturers develop a new hand gun they don’t say it’s great for robbing a bank. Then their promoting criminal activity. This may be an extreme example but you get the message.Lets hope they learn from this.The worst thing that can happen is that we become our own worst enemies.
Agree with ESS above. If you get sued, you have to show up in court and defend. Or else you lose big time.
BTG
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in quite a while, the vpn company is nowhere near responsible for that.
“After the company failed to respond to the lawsuit, the prosecution asked the court to execute a default judgment on the case.”
Dropped the ball there.
They left it a
one-sided conversation…
The VPN service doesn’t provide content. Were I to go out and purchase anything illegal would the people that built the roads I used to get there be held equally as responsible as buyer and seller? Just a rhetorical question.
Great point Joe G,
lawsuits like this are yet another point of contact so corrupt judges can do favor for fellow lawyers. The legal system is nothing but a mere replica of the U.S. Govt where good people fund insider corruption. We’re really just shut out unless honest judges sit on a case.
The other issue is judges aren’t knowledgeable on all things, they just want to have everyone think they are.
And finally, Americans especially must stop supporting movies and the liberal activist who make and star in them. If no one paid for movie tickets or drastically reduced paying for cable TV etc alternative forms of TV will have to come back. TV was free. The actors were ultimately paid from ads during commercials. There was nothing wrong with that model. Citizens didn’t get to vote on cable being laid under our streets. Corruption on the courts, Govt, Hollywood were responsible. So yeah this shit with the corrupt sue the road provider for allowing all traffic is wrong. More thumbscrews will be turned unless citizens grow a pair and revolt.
Quite right. No different than Big Tech/you know who they are/ allowed to block content for some users, but allow defamatory and/or disparaging content by others in their favor. So sad.