Voltage Pictures
| Private | |
| Industry | Film |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Founder | Nicolas Chartier |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Products | Motion pictures |
| Divisions | Voltage Productions |
| Website | www.voltagepictures.com |
Voltage Pictures is an American film financing, production and distribution company founded by producer Nicolas Chartier. The company's first financed and produced film was The Hurt Locker, which was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won six.
On January 6, 2011, it was announced that Voltage's president Chartier partnered with longtime Hollywood Gang Productions executive Craig Flores to form Voltage Productions to produce large pictures set at studios, and films in the $15 million-$40 million budget range.
Voltage Pictures has a history of filing lawsuits with severe monetary penalties against individuals that it accuses of illegally sharing its films online, a practice commonly derided as copyright trolling by groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
In November 2012, Voltage Pictures sought disclosure of personal information belonging to approximately 2000 customers of the Canadian ISP TekSavvy that it alleged illegally downloaded movies (based on data collected by the Canadian anti-piracy company Canipre between September 1, 2012 to October 31, 2012). Due to TekSavvy's corporate policy of requiring court orders before releasing customer information for any reason, Voltage filed a Statement of Claim in Canada's Federal Court (Voltage Pictures LLC v. John Doe and Jane Doe) seeking a court order for the release of the subscribers' personal information, including telephone numbers and email addresses.
On February 21, 2014 the Federal Court released its decision compelling TekSavvy to identify the consumers identified by Voltage as alleged downloaders while also implementing strong constraints on Voltage. The court ruled that the demand letters sent by Voltage to the specified consumers must first be approved by a Federal Court judge to ensure "there is no inappropriate language" and that "any correspondence... shall clearly state in bold type that no court has yet made a determination that such subscriber has infringed or is liable in any way for payment of damages". The Court further limited Voltage by requiring the company to pay TekSavvy's legal costs and any costs associated with identifying the consumers and only permitting Voltage to access the names and mailing addresses of the subscribers in question.
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