Voltage Pictures, producers of the award winning Hurt Locker, are suing 5,000 illegal viewers of the movie for amounts between $1500 (if the pirate admits liability) and $150,000 (if the case goes to trial). In a suit filed in a district court in Washington D.C they say;
"Each time a Defendant unlawfully distributes a free copy of the Plaintiff's copyrighted motion picture to others over the Internet, each person who copies that motion picture can then distribute that unlawful copy to others without any significant degradation in sound and picture quality. Thus, a Defendant's distribution of even one unlawful copy of a motion picture can result in the nearly instantaneous worldwide distribution of that single copy to a limitless number of people,"
Nicholas Chartier the Producer was quoted as saying
"...please feel free to leave your house open every time you go out and please tell your family to do so, please invite people in the streets to come in and take things from you, not to make money out of it by reselling it but just to use it for themselves and help themselves. If you think it's normal they take my work for free, I'm sure you will give away all your furniture and possessions and your family will do the same. I can also send you my bank account information since apparently you work for free and your family too so since you have so much money you should give it away."
Interestingly in this example the ISP's are working with the movie producers to release lists of subscribers who have infringed copyright.