Century Media files suit against 7,000 people who downloaded Lacuna Coil and Iced Earth tracks
Justice has a new name, and it's Jay R. McDaniels, a Hackensack, New Jersey-based attorney who has filed suit against over 7,000 BitTorrent users on behalf of record label Century Media for downloading and sharing albums by the metal groups Lacuna Coil and Iced Earth.
The suit is one of several infringement cases currently being pursued by McDaniels: According to NorthJersey.com, he's filed 17 suits in total and plans to charge over 14,000 people by casting an unusually wide net. While previous suits of similar size treated large groups of defendants as individuals, McDaniels is in the process of urging the U.S. District Court to consider a "swarm"—a collection of users downloading and sharing the same files—as a single legal entity. Luckily for anyone who may have been caught up in that, two separate judges have refused to grant Century Media the primary injunction that would allow them to sue everybody all at once. That's because, given the current limitations on wireless routers, there's a pretty good chance McDaniels could wind up suing someone in the immediate area who's never even heard of Lacuna Coil or Iced Earth.
McDaniels is in good company, by the way: In the past 18 months, 44 infringement cases have been filed in federal court within the state. Just one more reason not to go to New Jersey.