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Emily Orlando and her husband, Charlie Foster, were shocked to learn they're among 371 defendants named in a costly illegal downloading suit. Orlando is passionate about copyright laws and believes confusion over an IP address led to the accusation. "But I'm mad now," said Orlando, who is fighting back. "They just barked up the wrong damn tree."

(Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian)

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Emily Orlando taught English at Clackamas Community College for 26 years, and each term she'd cover the legal and ethical issues of plagiarizing or otherwise using others' work without giving payment or attribution.

So the 64-year-old was surprised when she received a stern letter last month from a Salem lawyer accusing her of illegally downloading

through an online file sharing program. She was given two weeks to pay $7,500, the lawyer for

threatened, or she could face a judgment of as much as $150,000.

But Orlando says she's never streamed a movie or seen "Maximum Conviction," and hadn't heard of

before the letter.

, would not comment on the case. Since February, he's filed

in the state, naming nearly 1,000 defendants.

Know your rights

Local copyright lawyers say there are ways to limit your risk of getting snagged in a file-sharing lawsuit and offer tips on what to do if you receive a copyright infringement letter:

Lock it up:

Check your settings to ensure your Wi-Fi is password protected, and be cautious when providing the password to others.

Take it seriously

: While some of these lawsuits are thrown out, some courts make judgments against defendants who don't show up.

Get info

: Call a lawyer to understand your options. The

.

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Orlando is among 371 named as "Does" in the largest of the suits. Based on the activity in other parts of the country, Oregon can expect dozens more suits involving thousands of Oregonians who use BitTorrent, for which users must sign up and actively save to their computers.

Nationwide, around 250,000 "Does" have been named in such cases, according to Julie Samuels of the

.

Plaintiff lawyers build these cases by identifying Internet protocol, or IP, addresses associated with movies downloaded to BitTorrent. They then subpoena service providers to hand over names of those customers and send letters such as the one Orlando received.

Consumer and copyright lawyers criticize the strategy because, they contend, it's meant to scare consumers into costly settlements to avoid the far greater cost of litigation. They liken it to a reverse class-action in which hundreds of defendants are named. That allows plaintiffs pay a singlefiling fee -- typically a few hundred dollars -- as opposed to filing and paying for hundreds of individual suits.

The lawsuits, they say, also leave a ripple of more damaging effects -- defendants being identified through a less-than-reliable mechanism, consumer data being released to third parties and an overwhelmed federal court system.

"It's terrifying, it's legal extortion," said Orlando, who'd never heard of BitTorrent before the letter.

"I won in the 'Bad Lottery,'" she said, "I didn't do anything, but now I have to get a lawyer and fight this."

Cases multiply

Court battles have raged in the past decade on how content should be used and shared online. Imagine those cases as eagles clashing high overhead seeking to balance the rights of creators and users.

To continue the metaphor, critics say, these cases are pigeons picking at the scraps.

BitTorrent-related copyright infringement cases began popping up in earnest two years ago in the Midwest and California. Early on, most had accused defendants of downloading porn. In those cases, defendants received notice that if they didn't pay around $2,000, then they'd be named in federal cases.

Similar cases nationwide

Cases filed by so-called copyright trolls have multiplied in earnest over the past two years.

"People understood their name would be out there in a public record that's probably going to stay on Google for a long, long time whether they'd done anything or not," said

. "There were very descriptive titles that people didn't want their names associated with, and they'd pay the $2,000."

As firms found success in reaching settlements, the number of cases grew and spread geographically and across movie titles.

Among the nine suits filed in Oregon, Crowell has three on behalf of

, a company associated with a movie by the same name that came out last year. In "Elf-Man," Jason "Wee Man" Acuña plays an elf who discovers that he is a budding superhero. Crowell has filed four on behalf of Voltage Pictures, which is associated with last year's "Maximum Conviction,"

"It went straight to video, it was a terrible picture," said

. "This movie is worth $12.99 on Amazon. But these cases don't seek that. If all 371 'John Does' on this lawsuit ultimately pay $3,000 or $2,000, they're shaking down Oregon residents for more than a million dollars."

She has spoken with people identified in the suit who may be inclined to settle because they think paying a lawyer would only ratchet up their costs. Others try to defend themselves, swamping federal courts -- much less user-friendly than small claims -- with ill-conceived filings.

Still others ignore it all together. In at least one case, however, a judge in Indiana i

.

Rupp and a colleague aim to gather multiple defendants to share costs and fight the plaintiff move to include them in a single lawsuit.

Defendants vary



A handful of judges have thrown out similar cases in other states saying large groups of defendants --

Orlando, for instance, has never used BitTorrent. When she and her husband watch movies, they order them through Blockbuster or turn to one of the many channels on their Dish Network system. She believes her name popped up on Crowell's search because of the small Internet provider that serves her rural Estacada community.

uses dynamic addresses, meaning the addresses aren't necessarily attached solely to one modem. Orlando says she was told the company distributes IP addresses among customers as they log on and that it can't track exactly who had what number when. Still, Orlando was frustrated to discover the company gave out her name and contact information when it was subpoenaed by Crowell.

Larger providers, such as Comcast, only change IP addresses occasionally in areas where many more homes or apartments are regularly added. And it has entire departments that track exactly which modems are attached at any given moment to a particular IP address.

Defenses to these copyright lawsuits run the gamut. Anyone who doesn't use a password to protect their wireless Internet runs the risk of a neighbor using their IP address to download movies illegally. Renters may be relying on an IP address used by someone who once lived there. Another defendant named in the Voltage case is in a senior care center, which has close to 100 people accessing its Wi-Fi, Rupp said.

In many cases, a child or grandchild is doing the actual downloading. But those held responsible contend that being asked to pay so much more than the actual price of the movie is egregious.

A number of consumer groups and copyright lawyers are keeping track on the Oregon cases to see how judges here will lean.

"Copyright law is intended to promote science and useful arts and the question is whether this (strategy) promotes that," s

. "This is federal court and I would guess that the average person on the street is going to be intimidated by this and try to do whatever they can to make it go away.

"It's going to be pretty frightening and that's why they're doing it."

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