How many web users are currently being sued for alleged online copyright infringement in the US? The folk at TorrentFreak, who have been obsessively logging these cases, claim 200,000 BitTorrent users are now involved in some stage of lawsuit, and claim settling with a relatively small fee on a large number of cases is fast becoming a way that rightsholders can profit from piracy.Nearly all the 201,828 cases have been filed against BitTorrent users who allegedly shared music online, with a small number using eD2k. Once lawyers for the rightsholders have identified individuals, they generally offer to settle for a typical penalty of $2,500 which means no further legal costs or risking larger $150,000 infringement fines. TorrentFreak claims that many of the people targeted by the lawsuits aren’t the actual infringers but the person who pays for the connection; facing a massive fine and a long case, they opt to pay a small fine and be done with it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/aug/09/bittorrent-piracy
BitTorrent: Copyright lawyers’ favourite target reaches 200,000 lawsuits
How many web users are currently being sued for alleged online copyright infringement in the US? The folk at TorrentFreak, who have been obsessively logging these cases, claim 200,000 BitTorrent users are now involved in some stage of lawsuit, and claim settling with a relatively small fee on a large number of cases is fast becoming a way that rightsholders can profit from piracy.