The number of people caught by mass copyright lawsuits in the United States has nearly reached 100,000, just in the last 12 month alone. 99,924 have been sued from January 8th 2010 to January 21st 2011, according to stats amassed by a TorrentFreak reader.
Only 80 individual lawsuits were responsible for the near 100,000 defendants listed, with 68 of these lawsuits still active and nearly 71,000 people still under the threat of being sued. Those sued are asked to pay $1000, on average, as a settlement fee to avoid having to go to trial and be potentially liable for much greater damages. This is nearly $100 million worth of settlement fees being asked of Internet users, although the number of people who actually pay up will be nowhere near the 100,000 mark.
Do you agree with these kinds of mass lawsuits? Post your opinion in our comments section below, or in this forum thread where you can also see a graph detailing the number of people being sued over time:
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=94508