Techdirt directs our attention to the fact that a new company named the US Copyright Group has started representing a collection of independent filmmakers by launching an automated copyright infringement threat letter campaign. The campaign has kicked off by filing copyright infringement lawsuits in federal court against some 20,000 BitTorrent users, with another 30,000 forthcoming. As with a similar controversial campaign in the UK, the money-making effort involves sending users rapid-fire threat letters in the hopes they'll settle outright, but it raises a litany of questions (and Techdirt asks all of them) over whether this is a smart PR move, legal, the reliability of the IP-address evidence being used, etc.

ISPs have traditionally fought handing over usernames tied to an IP address unless they see a subpoena, and getting a subpoena can be a costly affair for the copyright holder. Hollywood Reporter notes that the effort is seeing blowback from ISPs, with the exception of one unnamed ISP that voluntarily turned over 71 customer names to the lawsuit machine:Apparently, the US Copyright Group has reached out for MPAA support, but the MPAA wants to see if the company can get past the ISPs in court before getting too excited about this new "revenue stream."