Godzilla Sues The Godzilla Of Copyright Trolls, Voltage Pictures, For Copyright Infringement

from the and-appears-to-have-a-case dept

Every so often there are lawsuits where we note that both parties have a long history of doing the sort of thing that gets them written about on Techdirt in less-than-positive ways. Here's another one of those situations. Voltage Pictures is a well known copyright trolling firm, which is its side business along with producing some highly acclaimed movies. Voltage has gone on quite a rampage trying to shake down people all around the globe. The company's boss, Nicolas Chartier, tends to take a rather black and white view of the situation. Back when he first started shaking people down, someone sent him a friendly email noting (accurately) that going the copyright trolling route might hurt Voltage's reputation. Rather than considering the message, Chartier turned around and called the helpful emailer a "moron" and a "thief." This is someone who has quite a strong view on what he believes is his "property."

So it seems rather fascinating to hear that Toho is suing Voltage for copyright infringement, claiming that a new movie that it's producing, Colossal, infringes on its copyright on Godzilla. The movie was just announced last week, and the Hollywood Reporter described it this way:

In the movie — described as Transformers versus Adaptation and Godzilla meets Being John Malkovich; Hathaway will play Gloria, an ordinary woman who, after losing her job and her fiancé, decides to leave her life in New York to move back to her hometown.

But when news reports surface that a giant lizard is destroying the city of Tokyo, Gloria gradually comes to realize that she is strangely connected to these far-off events via the power of her mind. In order to prevent further destruction, Gloria needs to determine why her seemingly insignificant existence has such a colossal effect on the fate of the world.

Right. So, you can see why Toho might be mad, but Toho also has a long and storied history of suing basically anyone they think might be doing anything even loosely connected to Godzilla. It once went after Comcast for having a godzilla-like monster in a marketing campaign and a small mobile app firm for creating a silly game called Fingerzilla.

So... yeah. Two big firms with long histories of legal bullying/threatening/suing people that they feel are unfairly "stealing" their property, when both take a very ridiculous black and white view of what kind of "property" is being "stolen." Toho even makes note of Voltage's copyright troll history in the very opening of the lawsuit:

Godzilla is one of the most iconic fictional characters in the history of motion pictures. Toho Co., Ltd., the copyright owner of the Godzilla character and franchise of films, brings this lawsuit because defendants are brazenly producing, advertising, and selling an unauthorized Godzilla film of their own. There is nothing subtle about defendants’ conduct. They are expressly informing the entertainment community that they are making a Godzilla film and are using the Godzilla trademark and images of Toho’s protected character to generate interest in and to obtain financing for their project. That anyone would engage in such blatant infringement of another’s intellectual property is wrong enough. That defendants, who are known for zealously protecting their own copyrights, would do so is outrageous in the extreme

At the very least, Toho has a point that Voltage pictures is clearly making use of Godzilla in its description and promotion for the movie. From the lawsuit, here is the promotional email that Voltage itself sent out, which includes an image of Godzilla (Toho claims it's taken directly from a publicity photo of last year's Godzilla movie) and mentions Godzilla. Toho further notes that the email sent around "director's notes" for the project which include a bunch of historical images of different representations of Godzilla.

The Director’s Notes also make clear that Defendants have not only taken the Godzilla Character as their own, but that they also intend to use the Godzilla Character in precisely the same way that Toho used the character in its initial film – attacking Tokyo. As stated therein, “[W]e need scenes with the monsters crushing Tokyo. .

Not only that, but Toho notes that, last year, the director in question, Nacho Vigalondo, stated that he's absolutely planning to make a "cheap" Godzilla film:

The script I finished and want to get financing for is a twist on the kaiju eiga genre, the Godzilla genre. It’s going to be the cheapest Godzilla movie ever, I promise. It’s going to be a serious Godzilla movie but I’ve got an idea that’s going to make it so cheap that you will feel betrayed. You’re going to be so frustrated by it, it’s not even possible.

The way I wrote the movie – and I don’t want to explain too much – I found a way that is honest and logical to make Godzilla in a costume, destroying cities, models all the time. I wrote the movie in a way that the story has a twist so it makes sense to do Godzilla this way and I’m going to try to be the guy inside the costume because I love filmmaking to the core and I’m a film lover, one of dreams is not to direct a Godzilla movie but to be inside the costume and destroy the cities. I want to be the guy in the costume.

When I first saw the headlines about this, I thought it might be another case of Toho stretching its claims of infringement, as it has done in the past -- and was prepared to argue that, even in all its copyright trolling insanity, that Voltage Pictures should have the right to make its own type of monster movie. In fact, we've defended Voltage against ridiculous legal attacks in the past.

And, further, I think that it's ridiculous that courts have decided that using similar characters in totally different settings is copyright infringement, as it seems to go against the idea/expression dichotomy that is supposed to be a core tenet of copyright law. But, it's still kind of jarring just how blatant Voltage appears to be in just making use of Godzilla in the pitch for this movie without a license. And for a company whose boss argues that merely saying that his copyright trolling plan could be bad for business makes you a "thief," I think it's at least fair to argue that Nicolas Chartier is one hell of a hypocrite.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, godzilla, nacho vigalondo, nicolas chartier
Companies: toho, voltage pictures

Copyright Troll And Famed Movie Producer Nicolas Chartier Debunks Entire Hollywood Talking Point About Protecting The 'Little Guy'

from the it's-about-lining-his-own-pocket dept

Nicolas Chartier is the CEO of Voltage Pictures, a very high-profile movie studio, thanks mainly to producing some critically acclaimed films like Hurt Locker and Dallas Buyers Club. For the past five years, Chartier has also been known as an over-the-top, somewhat ridiculous copyright troll, thinking that it's smart to sue thousands of fans of his films. When this began, someone sent him a very polite email, explaining why he thought suing fans was a bad idea that might backfire, and Chartier responded by calling him a moron and a thief. Chartier doesn't seem particularly thoughtful, but is very, very emotional about this stuff.

The Hollywood Reporter has a big interview with Chartier where he continues to make ridiculous statements, often without any foundation, and also undermines Hollywood's carefully crafted narrative about how its fight against piracy is really about protecting the jobs of the little guys, the union workers who work on films. Creative Future, the astroturf group set up by Hollywood to push for stronger copyright laws and to attack innovative services that threaten its obsolete business model, likes to trot out the "little guys" who work on movies, and highlights that it's a partnership between the studios and the unions. Yet, in the interview Chartier repeats his attacks on union works in Hollywood and points out that he films outside of the country to avoid paying them:

Bruce Willis makes a million a day, but we make the movie because of Bruce Willis. But at the same time, when I see a union driver sitting for 12 hours and being really difficult, that's why we end up shooting a lot of movies in foreign countries. People don't understand that without movie stars making big money, there's no movie. It's nice to victimize the big stars, but we need that because otherwise we don't make the movie. I don't make the movie because of the driver.

Yup, this is all about the rich getting richer, and Chartier apparently has no problem admitting that he'd screw over the everyday workers on films when he can. The fight over these things has never been about the everyday worker. They get paid their standard rate no matter what the film does. The issue is over the fat cats at the top. Also, that line about the movie only getting made because of the stars? Yeah, that's not exactly true either. As we've discussed in the past, there's no evidence that having a big name movie star helps a film do any better. It's just because Hollywood is so sucked into this vortex of believing that a "name" makes a movie that it focuses on that. That isn't to say that good acting isn't important. Great actors can make a real difference, but the idea that a big name is necessary to make a big film simply isn't supported by the evidence.

But Chartier isn't big on evidence or facts. He just makes up whatever he wants -- like his claim that the day after they announced plans to sue Hurt Locker downloaders, people suddenly stopped downloading the movie:

And the day after we announced 20,000 lawsuits, the Internet downloads of Hurt Locker went down about 40 percent. So, you know, you frighten people and then they stop.

Yeah, that didn't happen. And, really, in this day and age, if you're still going to claim that every download is a lost sale, it suggests you haven't put much (if any) thought into what's going on:

Hurt Locker ended up winning six Oscars, but at the same time we had 8 million illegal downloads on the movie. And I was like, "Wow, you know, we barely reimbursed the movie and we had 8 million illegal downloads." Well, if everybody had given me one dollar, that would be 8 million dollars, and the movie cost 11, so we lost 80 percent of the movie to piracy. That cannot hold

Or, you know, there are people like me who didn't see the movie, but wanted to. And then you sued all those downloaders and it got crossed off the list of movies I would rent. Ditto for any other Voltage picture. To this day, I've never seen a single one of them, and I know I'm not the only person to do so. Those are true "lost sales" because I absolutely intended to pay to see the movie. But now I won't. Unlike most of the people who downloaded who never would have paid. It's like Chartier doesn't even understand what battle he's really fighting.

He should be looking for ways to get more people to see movies. Instead, he's fighting ghosts: people who would never pay. It's not too different from his fight against the everyday people who work on his movies. He's pushing to keep down how much they pay while happily paying stars many millions. While he may have a knack for picking good movies, he doesn't seem to have much business sense, always fighting the wrong fight.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright troll, dallas buyers club, hurt locker, movies, nicolas chartier, piracy, unions
Companies: voltage pictures

Voltage Pictures Abuses Trademark Law To Go After Dallas Buyers Club Downloaders

from the of-course-they-are dept

We've discussed how Voltage Pictures, a big time Hollywood producer behind award winning films like Hurt Locker and Dallas Buyers Club, has been one of the few non-porn film entities to really embrace copyright trolling (in particular over those two named films). We've also discussed how courts have been frowning on mass copyright trolling lawsuits of late, leading some copyright trolls to seek alternative means to identifying accounts associated with particular IP addresses. For example, we noted that infamous troll Prenda Law has tried both questionable CFAA claims and a bizarre interpretation of an antiquated Florida state law, known as "pure bill of discovery" (a move that failed miserably).

It appears that Voltage and its lawyers' latest trick is to abuse Oregon's state trademark law, which is clearly designed for things like stopping counterfeit physical goods, and not to go after people sharing a movie they like. This was first noted on the Troll Defense blog written by Benjamin Justus (representing two defendants in these suits), with further reporting done by Joe Mullin at Ars Technica:

"It's a little bit puzzling to me, because they can't get damages against these people under Oregon trademark law," said Justus in an interview with Ars. "They'd have to prove they applied a counterfeit mark to a product. I have looked at the law, and this is not a slam-dunk case. My guess is that the lawyer for Voltage is trying to find a more convenient and friendly court to get his subpoenas out."

That's a good guess, because this has always just been about getting names and contact info in order to pester people. None of these cases ever go to actual trial. The legal damages are basically meaningless, because the copyright holder never intends to pursue this under the law. The reason for all these "workarounds" is exactly as claimed: seeking a "more convenient" way to get the subpoenas out to get this information. Picking random state laws is often more convenient, especially as less sophisticated state courts often have a lot less familiarity with the nature of copyright trolling and how these cases have fared at the federal level.

In fact, these filings try to make the same "joinder" case for lumping totally separate people together that has failed in so many copyright trolling cases across the country. Given that, it seems fairly clear that Voltage is basically just jurisdiction shopping for less sophisticated and less knowledgeable state courts. That really seems to be a serious abuse of the judicial process.

And, of course, the "trademark" claim itself is laughable. No one is infringing on the trademark here at all, no matter how Voltage's lawyers seek to twist the law. The lawsuit itself is full of emotional arguments -- including calling infringement "stealing," perhaps because the legal ones are not particularly compelling. Speaking to Joe Mullin at Ars Technica, Justus also noted that he gets the sense that this is "personal for the higher-ups" at Voltage. I think that was established many years ago. You may recall that when Voltage first started copyright trolling, a fan emailed Voltage's Nicolas Chartier to try to engage him in a friendly, respectful conversation about how copyright trolling probably wasn't a good way to win fans, and that there might be more appropriate ways to deal with the issue. In response, Chartier lashed out at the person, called him "a moron" and told him to "keep being stupid" and "I hope your family and your kids end up in jail one day."

So, yeah, it's pretty clear that this is an emotional thing for Voltage, and no attempt to talk sense to the company's execs is likely to do much useful. Given that, it's unsurprising that Voltage would now seek to abuse a state trademark law to continue on a path that has been failing using federal copyright law.

Filed Under: benjamin justus, dallas buyers club, nicolas chartier, oregon, trademark
Companies: voltage pictures

Voltage Pictures Continues To Use Its High Profile Films To Copyright Troll

from the sad dept

Voltage Pictures is the movie studio which famously kicked off the process of copyright trolling by "suing" thousands of people who, it claimed, had illegally downloaded its Oscar-winning movie, Hurt Locker, via Bittorrent, and whose producer, Nicolas Chartier, said that anyone who thought this was a bad plan was a moron and a thief. It recently did the same thing in Canada, and apparently can't resist still suing fans. The latest is a new lawsuit filed against 31 anonymous people for supposedly using Bittorrent to get Dallas Buyers Club, an Oscar-nominated film from the same studio. This lawsuit at least seems a bit more targeted, in that it tried to make sure the targeted IPs were actually in the jurisdiction of the court, unlike in the Hurt Locker case. These attempts at lumping a bunch of individuals for a single lawsuit has run into trouble in many (though not all) courts. Still, as a way of making sure that a lot of people will simply avoid any Voltage movie, it seems like an effective strategy. It seems like a reasonable rule to not support any company that sues its fans.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright troll, dallas buyers club, joinder, nicolas chartier
Companies: voltage pictures

And We're Off: Hurt Locker Files First 5,000 Lawsuits Against File Sharers

from the welcome-to-the-digital-hurt-locker dept

As was widely rumored and more or less confirmed by the rude email from Hurt Locker's producers, saying that anyone who thought this was a bad idea was a "moron" and a "thief," the producers of Hurt Locker have now officially started suing people, whom they accuse of sharing the movie online in an unauthorized manner. While the initial rumors said that there would be "tens of thousands" of lawsuits -- and some had predicted over 100,000 -- at least the initial burst is for 5,000 people. The actual complaint (pdf and also embedded below) has some fun claims about how a single copy being distributed destroys the whole market blah blah blah. That this point is disproved time and time again by box office results apparently doesn't matter: Of course, this really has nothing to do with stopping unauthorized file sharing or the perceived harm of file sharing. This is entirely about trying to squeeze money out of people. Thomas Dunlap, the lawyer running this under the name US Copyright Group, isn't looking to take any of these lawsuits to court. The whole point is to find out who these people are and to send them legal nastygrams, that come very close to your garden variety extortion letter -- telling people that they'll drop the lawsuit if they just pay $1,500. It comes across as a classic "protection racket." "Pay up and you won't get hurt." Hopefully more ISPs stand up for their customers (and their own business interests) and don't just roll over. But, more importantly, hopefully the courts recognize how questionable this practice is and start blocking such a clear abuse of the court system. Over in the UK, lawyers have been disciplined for these sorts of stunts, and in France, some lawyers were barred from practice for six months after trying to do something similar. With any luck, US officials recognize that this is an abuse of the legal system and work quickly to block this practice.

Filed Under: copyright, hurt locker, lawsuits, nicolas chartier
Companies: voltage pictures

Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief

from the reality-check dept

Robert Ring was the first of a bunch of you to send in this gem. You may recall the reports that the producers of the Oscar-winning movie Hurt Locker were supposedly gearing up to sue tens of thousands of fans for unauthorized file trading of the movie. Even if you're against infringing on copyrights, it's not hard to see why this is a strategy doomed to backfire massively. A Boing Boing reader found the email from Hurt Locker producer, Nicolas Chartier, who already has something of a reputation for... well... aggressive emailing, and received quite a response.

First, the polite email the reader sent to Chartier, expressing why he thinks the legal strategy is a mistake:

Dear Mr. Chartier,

I have recently become aware of Voltage Pictures' intention to sue thousands of people who are suspected of having used BitTorrent to download films produced by your company.

I wish to register my disagreement with these tactics, and would like you to know that as a result of these actions I am boycotting your films. The majority of the people you are suing were not seeking to make money from their downloads, and will be financially devastated by a lawsuit or settlement. While it is completely understandable that Voltage Pictures wishes to defend its intellectual property, this is an inhumane way of doing so.

Until Voltage Pictures publicly states that it will not pursue lawsuits for downloading its films, I will not view, rent or buy any films produced wholly or in part by your company. I will urge my friends and family to take the same actions. I do not wish for the money I spend on entertainment to be used against otherwise good people.

Thank you for your time.

And now for Chartier's response:

Hi Nicholas, please feel free to leave your house open every time you go out and please tell your family to do so, please invite people in the streets to come in and take things from you, not to make money out of it by reselling it but just to use it for themselves and help themselves. If you think it's normal they take my work for free, I'm sure you will give away all your furniture and possessions and your family will do the same. I can also send you my bank account information since apparently you work for free and your family too so since you have so much money you should give it away... I actually like to pay my employees, my family, my bank for their work and like to get paid for my work. I'm glad you're a moron who believes stealing is right. I hope your family and your kids end up in jail one day for stealing so maybe they can be taught the difference. Until then, keep being stupid, you're doing that very well. And please do not download, rent, or pay for my movies, I actually like smart and more important HONEST people to watch my films.

best regards,

Nicolas Chartier
Voltage Pictures, LLC

Wow. Note that the original letter to Chartier did not, in any way, defend the practice of downloading the film. It just noted that suing everyone did not seem like a proportional response. And, for that, Chartier calls him a moron and a thief and wishes his whole family ends up in jail. I guess when you have someone like that in charge, it's no wonder that they think filing tens of thousands of lawsuits against fans is a sensible position. Perhaps somewhere along the line someone will sit Chartier down and explain to him the difference between disagreeing with a strategy and promoting infringement. At that time, perhaps they can also explain to him the difference between theft and infringement. Now I can understand why even folks at the MPAA have been rapidly distancing themselves from Chartier and this particular campaign, making it clear to pretty much everyone that they do not support his strategy for dealing with unauthorized sharing of his movie.

Update: In the meantime, I had almost forgotten that the producers of the movie, including Voltage Pictures, are being sued by a soldier, who claims that the movie was actually "his" story. Now, as we wrote when that story came out, the claim seems ridiculous, but if you run his claim through the same argument that Chartier makes above, it makes you wonder if by Chartier's own bizarre logic, he really should pay that soldier. After all, he took that soldier's "story" for free, and that soldier likes to get paid for his work too, I'm sure.

Filed Under: copyright, hurt locker, lawsuits, nicolas chartier
Companies: voltage pictures