Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer last month told the US Copyright Group that no, it couldn't have five years to decide who it actually wanted to sue for sharing movies online. Instead, it had until December 6. So the lawyers dutifully filed papers with the court yesterday, bringing 6,230 defendants down to just 868. Every other case was dismissed.

Collyer oversees two of the US Copyright Group's file-sharing lawsuits, those for the films Far Cry and The Steam Experiment. Both cases have grown over time, and the Far Cry case eventually targeted 4,577 defendants while the Steam Experiment case went after 1,653.

But these were just IP addresses—numbers without names—and it was clear from the start that many of the defendants weren't actually within the jurisdiction of the DC District Court where the cases were filed. Judge Collyer eventually told US Copyright Group that it had to end the uncertainty over who would be sued; once Internet providers like Comcast and Time Warner had connected the IP addresses with real names and addresses, US Copyright Group could only proceed against those in DC.

The newly amended complaints in both cases therefore dismiss 93 percent of the defendants—those who live outside the District—and they finally name names for the first time. The Far Cry case now targets DC resident Adrienne Neal, while the Steam Experiment case goes after Enid Ennings and Crystal Pabrezis, also of DC. In addition, US Copyright Group wants to continue proceedings against 865 Does who may live in DC. (A good chunk of these will probably be dismissed in the future; many come from Time Warner, which is responding slowly to the IP lookup requests. The judge has allowed more time in these cases.)

While the dismissals sound meaningful, by themselves they are unimportant. The cases were dismissed "without prejudice," meaning they can be brought again. US Copyright Group could well partner with local lawyers across the US to bring all of these cases again, filing each one in the proper federal court that is local to each defendant. For the small firm of Dunlap Grubb & Weaver, which started the US Copyright Group, this could be an expensive outlay, and our search of the federal court dockets don't yet show any such cases.

So it could well be that those defendants who were dismissed won't ever hear about the case again—although anyone who paid up in response to a "settlement letter" won't be seeing that cash again.

Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver did not respond to our request for comment.