QOTD Film Investment Ltd., which holds copyrights to the newly-released Werner Herzog epic “Queen of the Desert,” has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. As noted in a prior troll defense post, “Queen of the Desert” stars James Franco, Nicole Kidman and Robert Pattinson, and the Washington suit is part of an emerging national trolling campaign.
The new lawsuit alleges copyright infringement by 14 separate “Doe” parties through their use of BitTorrent file-sharing software. The case seeks statutory damages pursuant to the Copyright Act, attorney’s fees and costs, and an injunction against further infringement.
As noted in the prior post regarding QOTD, the nominal copyright holder is an affiliate of Benaroya Pictures, which was founded by “Michael Benaroya, scion of a prominent Seattle real-estate family,” who began backing films in 2009, including past titles such as “New York, I Love You,” “The Romantics,” “Catch .44,” “Margin Call” and “The Words.” According to IMDb, Benaroya Pictures has several other unreleased titles in production or development, and Troll Defense would not be surprised to see more of its titles in BitTorrent litigation in the future.
Like many other similar lawsuits filed in the Western District, this complaint was signed by attorney David A. Lowe of Lowe Graham Jones PLLC. A case listing with link to the complaint is below.
Parties and subscribers receiving ISP notices of the case can contact attorney Benjamin Justus for a free consultation regarding possible options.
QOTD Film Investment Ltd. v. Does 1-14
Filed: 03/11/2016