LOS ANGELES — Nine new porn BitTorrent piracy lawsuits involving 271 defendants were filed in federal courts throughout the U.S. in the past week.
In Massachusetts, Elegant Angel filed two suits there, targeting 124; Third Degree filed against 80; and Digital Sin sued 44.
In California, Sean Cody's 808 Holdings targeted two swarms involving 20 accused of pirating "Brandon & Pierce Unwrapped."
In Florida, Burning Angel filed two suits against individuals. And Sunlust Pictures filed against one in Colorado
Each of the suits ask federal judges to order ISPs to disclose user identities of the unnamed John Doe defendants and claim infringement damages of up to the statutory maximum of $150,000 per Doe.
Meanwhile, in other BitTorrent news, The Pirate Bay has announced new "Low Orbit Server Stations" that will house the site's servers and files on unmanned, GPS-controlled, aircraft drones.
MrSpock, one of The Pirate Bay's administrators, said in a blog post that with the advent of miniature computers such as the Raspberry Pi, a $35 micro computer the size of a thumb drive that includes a WiFi and SD card slot for storage, the site can take its servers far from any law enforcement.
"We have now decided to try to build something extraordinary," MrSpock said. "With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we're going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air.
"This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war. We're just starting so we haven't figured everything out yet. But we can't limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore."
The Swedish site has operated since 2003, and despite numerous raids remains one of the most popular pirating sites on the web.
XBIZ publishes a weekly report each Friday on porn BitTorrent piracy filings in the U.S.
