"When 73-year-old Tom Brown*, a retired police officer from Seattle, received a letter from Comcast, he might have mistaken it for a broadband bill. Instead, it was a subpoena. He had been sued in federal court for illegally downloading 80 movies. Some of the titles sounded cryptic Do Not Worry, We Are Only Friends or banal, like International Relations Part 2."
"Others were less subtle: He Loved My Big Ass, He Loved My Big Butt, and My Big Booty Loves Anal. Brown, who had spent decades investigating sex crimes, claimed he had never watched any of them. His years dealing with pimping, he wrote in a court filing, left him with no interest in pornography. He had been married for 40 years, he did not need to download Hot Wife, another title in the list."
"But the subpoena did not seem like something he could laugh off. It said he could face damages of up to $150,000 per movie as much as $12m for all 80 films. If he did not respond promptly, the letter said, Comcast would identify him to the plaintiff in the case: a company called Strike 3 Holdings. Strike 3 is not a name that Brown, or most people outside the world of copyright law, would recognize."
Tom Brown, a 73-year-old retired Seattle police officer, received a subpoena accusing him of illegally downloading 80 films, some with explicit titles. The notice warned of statutory damages up to $150,000 per movie, potentially totaling about $12 million, and said Comcast would identify him to the plaintiff if he did not respond. The plaintiff, Strike 3 Holdings, owns rights to roughly 2,000 adult films produced largely by Vixen Media Group. Strike 3 was co-founded by Greg Lansky, a prominent porn director who has moved into the art world. Brown denied viewing the films and emphasized his long marriage and past work investigating sex crimes.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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