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Porn Companies Suing Hundreds In Metro Detroit For Illegal Downloads

DETROIT (WWJ) - More than 200 people in metro Detroit are being sued by several pornography companies for illegally downloading adult movies.

The suits are for copyright infringement ... and is an attempt to address the issue of thieves who steal skin-flicks thousands of times a month.

WWJ legal analyst and Talkradio 1270 morning show host Charlie Langton says hundreds are being sued by Third Degree Films and other movie makers.

"Anybody who creates something, creates music or creates porn - those people are protected by copyright laws of the United States, and if you create something that people should pay for and those people don't pay for - that's a violation of the law, and they can be sued," said Langton. "The trick is to identify them and that's what the pornographic companies are trying to do right now in a Federal Court in Detroit."

"I would say settle, I don't really know how much pornographic movies go for these days, and I don't know how much damages they actually suffered, but if I'm downloading 10 porno movies a week - that's 'X' amount of dollars that the company that made them ... would be entitled to that money," said Langton.

The Detroit News reports the filmmakers filed more than 20 lawsuits in federal courts in 6 states since December of 2010.

One of the Plantiffs is Third Degree Films, who has settled for between $700 to $2,000 some cases ... which is paid by many to avoid embarrassment.

The companies have traced a digital trail to computers in Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Northville, Detroit, Novi and Northville.

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