By Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES, July 30 (Reuters) – A movie producer is seeking $105 million in damages from Netflix after he says a copy of his unreleased Nicolas Cage movie was stolen from the streaming service’s studios in Hollywood.
Attorneys for producer Simon Afram said in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in California that the filmmakers had delivered an unencrypted master copy of the World War II drama “Fortitude” to Netflix in June at the company’s request. Afram invested more than $45 million in the production, which took seven years to complete, and he was in the process of trying to sell the movie to Netflix or another distributor.
Nine days later, the plaintiffs were informed via a Netflix email that “someone stole a good amount of drives from our desks this past week,” including the one containing “Fortitude,” the lawsuit said.
The producers argue that the film’s value has been “destroyed” because distributors are unlikely to buy a film that could appear on piracy sites. They said Netflix should have better secured the hard drive.
“It is not fathomable that a sophisticated buyer would invest tens of millions of dollars to acquire the film — and tens of millions more to market it — while facing the constant risk that it could appear online to be viewed widely for free at any time,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit asks for at least $105 million in damages.
In a statement, Netflix said it “disputes any claim that it bears the risk of loss for a film delivered without the proper industry-standard safeguards.”
“While we do not own the rights to ‘Fortitude,’ we take content security seriously and have taken extra measures to support the filmmaker and his team,” including investigating the theft and monitoring piracy sites for unauthorized distribution of the film, the company said.
Netflix also said it had declined to share information from the investigation with Afram’s attorneys “given their hostile attempts to extort money from Netflix over this situation … rather than work with us in good faith.”
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by David Gregorio)
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