I have to chime in here and talk a bit about the money involved.
In 2009 I spent around $25,000.00 to take down the pirate site known as WorldPlagiates.com / WP-Board.com
You can read my long ass blog about it here:
http://wp-board.com/
Just like some people are saying in this thread -- I was told it was a money losing deal and a waste of time.
Wrong -- it was a hugely successful investment!
In the first 9 months after the board shut down and I got all the records and logs I settled with the traders for $147,500.00 in various cases ranging from as little as $250.00 to as high as $25,000.00.
This -- my friends -- was done with total legal bills of about $1000.00. Correct, almost no lawyer involvement at all, except the drafting of a settlement agreement template, and him taking a call or two from media types.
That in and of itself makes it profitable to go after people if you have a way to absolutely prove what they did.
It would surprise you who some of the assholes are stealing stuff and / or posting to boards. In the WP settlements we had a lawyer from Orlando, a real estate investor from Boston, and many others. Three of the guys took just 1-3 days to pay me $25,000.00 each... they clearly had the money to join hundreds of sites, but selected to steal and be sort of covert.
But, thats not the end of the profit story...
My main website slowly started increasing the average number of subscribers over the next few months (June 2009 to October 2009). In October 2009 it set its all time record for the total number of paid subscribers at one time. It did that in the "bad economy" that has seen many programs shut down, or people leave the business.
The only reason my 8 year old site would be growing at that time would be because they wanted the style of content I have and couldn't get it for free on the WP board. There is no other reason my site grew in that time period.
My September and October 2009 daily subscriber average was about 550 above what it had been for many, many months prior to taking down WP. That means a bit over $16,000.00 each of those two months / about $33,000.00 total that I attribute to taking down the WP boards.
But the story doesn't end there.... I don't only sell memberships. I also offer DVDs, and sales for them went up a bunch in that same time frame.
Plus -- as all businessmen that use "long term thinking" would know -- its not just getting them to pay once that counts, its getting them to pay month after month after month.
My average daily subscribers is up around 250 for each of the last 14 months (since taking down WP) when compared to the 14 months prior to that. This means of course -- once they couldn't get content for free, they paid and many of them (the new customers / former WP downloaders) decided to stay.
The WP cases are not done. I've waited months for a certain lawyer to get his act in gear after major medical issues and it hasn't happened. Just last week we changed lawyers and expect to file suits in October against the last 12 guys that have money, but selected not to settle. More income for me!
There is one HUGE difference between going after a music trader like the RIIA did, and going after a person trading pretty girl images or videos, gay images or videos, TS videos or images, etc. Nude, Non-Nude, Hardcore or super Softcore... Doesn't matter.
It is much harder for the defendant to explain to his wife, children, co-workers and others that he was trading these materials.
Telling the wife that he just downloaded a song or two might be OK.
Telling the wife he illegally downloaded GBs of photos and videos of Jordan Capri is an entirely different story.
I had one guy call me within 2 days of posting his name online and FedEx me a cashier's check for $25,000.00 just to get his name off the WP blog before his family found out.
The embarrassment factor puts Steve and his legal team in a strong position. I read the entire suit and various affidavits and such and they are in a great position to make this a winning / profitable venture!
Jimmy