‘Expendables 3’ Leaks: Lionsgate Sues After Copy Of Film Is Stolen

Lionsgate is moving ahead with a lawsuit against those who leaked Expendables 3 footage online. The studio alleges that several individuals stole copies of the film and posted the video on the internet.

On Thursday, the film company filed a federal suit in a California court against “John Doe 1-10”. The studio discovered the leak of the Sylvester Stallone film on July 24, when a high quality copy of the film was uploaded to the internet without their authorization.

The Expendables 3 illegal copies have crossed one million downloads already, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and the lawsuit claims that all copies available online can be traced to the stolen digital file. The suit names the operatives behind Lime Torrents, Billion Uploads, Hulfile, Played, Swant Share, and Dot Semper.

In the lawsuit, Lionsgate states:

“By downloading one of these ‘torrent’ files associated with the Stolen Film from Lime Torrents, users join a ‘swarm’ where they download parts of the Stolen Film from many different users and also upload to other users parts of the Stolen Film they have already received, until eventually they have reproduced the entire Stolen Film on their own hard drives and in most cases have also uploaded all or a substantial part of the Stolen Film to others.”

According to the Expendables 3 lawsuit, Lionsgate sent letters to the torrent site Hulkfile every day between July 26 and July 31. This reflects the studio’s concerns about having its film leaked ahead of the scheduled August 15 official release. However, the site’s operators did not respond to any of the communications, according to the suit.

Lionsgate is demanding a temporary restraining order that would prohibit the unnamed operators from hosting, linking to, distributing, reproducing, performing, selling, or making available copies of the leaked Expendables 3 film. But the lawsuit goes further and wants to block any of the sites from operating, as well as recovering all existing copies of the stolen film.

“Additionally, the ISPs that are providing hosting and cloud storage as well as the banks and financial institutions servicing the torrent sites are also under the eye of the film company. Subpoenas could be issued soon,” according to THR.

Expendables 3 has an all-star cast including Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Kelsey Grammer, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, and Robert Davi.

You can watch the last theatrical trailer for Expendables 3 released ahead of the August 15 debut of the film (not a leaked copy).

[Image via Lionsgate]