It's bad enough to get subpoenaed for illegally downloading from BitTorrent. Worse still to get served for downloading 2010's aging-action star vehicle, The Expendables.

Some 23,000 BitTorrent users could face that precise scenario, Wired reported Monday. That's because a federal judge is allowing the U.S. Copyright Group, a plaintiffs' organization bringing together indy film producers, to subpoena Internet service providers to discover the identities of every single file sharer who illegally downloaded the film.

The order to allow the U.S. Copyright Group to subpoena ISPs was issued on March 17 by U.S. District Judge Robert L. Wilkins and can be found on Wired.com.

It is the largest illegal-downloading case in U.S. history, according to Wired. But the 23,000 BitTorrent users—who may soon have to decide whether to pay the Copyright Group several thousand dollars to settle or face possible damages of up to $150,000 per infringement—are just the tip of the iceberg.

Another lawsuit is targeting more than 15,000 BitTorrent users who allegedly downloaded a number of porn titles.

More than 140,000 BitTorrent downloaders face lawsuits across the U.S., according to Wired. A common plaintiff tactic is to demand $150,000, the maximum penalty under the U.S. Copyright Act, but to offer online settlement plans that typically ask for around $3,000.

"Many lawyers are mimicking the Copyright Group's legal strategy, which includes offering online settlement payments, in hopes of making quick cash," the tech journal reports.

The Copyright Group says it has so far obtained 23,322 IP addresses in its efforts to identify illegal downloaders of The Expendables.

UPDATE: Reader Eye Deving points out several inaccuracies in this article in comments. First, it was inaccurate to single out BitTorrent (and also unclear not to specify whether references were to the company, client or protocol) at all. Judge Wilkins' order refers only to "torrent infringement" and allegedly infringing downloads conducted via "the torrent network." Nowhere does the order name BitTorrent.

The reader is also correct that technical references to what the torrent network (and the BitTorrent protocol, client and other torrent clients) actually is was handled poorly in the article. Neither BitTorrent the company, the torrent network itself, nor torrent users in general are implicated in any way in the plaintiffs' case against individual "John Doe" defendants who allegedly made the "infringing downloads" named by the plaintiffs.

Just as it would be ridiculous to blame a download manager on a Web browser for what a few individuals used it to download, it's not accurate to imply that the BitTorrent protocol or the torrent network are to blame for the alleged wrongdoing of some torrent users.