PrimeWire ‘Relentless’ in Its Piracy, Says Motion for Default Judgment

The major Hollywood studios plus Netflix moved Monday for a default judgment in their Dec. 1 copyright infringement lawsuit against PrimeWire, seeking $20.7 million in “maximum statutory damages,” plus the recovery of $417,000 in attorneys’ fees. PrimeWire is “relentless” in its “commercial scale piracy,” said a motion (docket 2:21-cv-09317) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. PrimeWire “sought to avoid accountability,” it said. The court gave the PrimeWire defendants “every opportunity to appear and defend their conduct,” but they “deliberately refused to identify themselves or appear, instead hiding behind anonymous emails,” it said. PrimeWire forced the studios “to engage in third-party discovery regarding damages, only to encounter intermediaries and shell companies designed to hide the actual profits that the Defendants gained from their illegal conduct,” it said. The studios’ investigation found the PrimeWire defendants “have connections to money-laundering schemes and other infringing enterprises, further underscoring the willfulness and scale of their infringement.” Efforts to reach PrimeWire for comment were unsuccessful Tuesday.