The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Citizen stand up to argue that it�s unfair for the US Copyright Group to make accused illegal downloaders to defend themselves in DC without regard to where they live, and accuse the USCG of creating a business model trying to shake settlements out of users who are unable to defend themselves.

ACLU and EFF have teamed up in order to file briefs with DC judges, asking them to cancel subpoenas from the US Copyright Group that target thousands of alleged copyright infringers. They argue that DC courts can�t hear the lawsuits because the US Copyright Group has yet to prove the unknown defendants are under their jurisdiction, as even the law firm submitting the subpoenas admits that an IP can only provide a general geographic location.

The brief filed by ACLU and EFF says that the USCG can with minimal investigation find out that hardly any of the unknown defendants is a resident of DC, so the lawsuits were most likely not properly brought in this District continues. However, the law firm improperly sues them in DC, apparently intending to make defendants either cover expenses of defense in a foreign District or settle it to avoid that expense. Seems like it�s the real aim of the USCG. Even if an IP is registered somewhere in Seattle, the law firm wants the defendant to pay for airfare, hotel, food, alongside with legal expenses to fight a case. It won�t leave people a choice � they will settle.

The EFF states that according to the First Amendment, each defendant should be given notice and chance to quash a subpoena, while the plaintiff is providing a sufficient evidence of violation for each infringer individually.

The USCG was originally going to target over 20 thousand BitTorrent users this past March, accusing them of unauthorized distribution of indie movies such as �Far Cry,� �Gray Man� or �Call of the Wild 3D.� A month ago it also succeeded to convince the producers of �The Hurt Locker�, who were upset with dismal ticket sales, to mass sue downloaders, offering the accused quick settlements worth $2500 instead of potentially much larger penalties for infringement at the court.

The EFF, ACLU, and Public Citizen now stand up to prove that the dragnet employed by the US Copyright Group is just an attempt to develop a business model of mass-scale extortion and nothing else.



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Bo pen nyang.