Seventeen unnamed Americans are facing copyright infringement lawsuits from the filmmakers for allegedly illegally downloading the movie "Angel Has Fallen"

Torrent Freak reports that 14 of these people have been sued and given DMCA notices for illegally watching the movie using Private Internet Access, the premier VPN

Fallen Productions, which produced the film, is considering subpoenaing the alleged pirates after filing a lawsuit in US federal court in Colorado

Documents filed with the court state the following:" Upon information and belief, defendants DOES 3-5, 7-10, and 12-17 have registered for paid accounts with the Virtual Private Network ("VPN") service of Private Internet Access, a Colorado Internet service provider"

At this time, it is unclear who the individual defendants are However, attorney Kerry Culpepper, representing Fallen Productions, believes that the subpoena will help reveal their identities

The fact that the individuals were using a no-log VPN service should help conceal their identities and potentially make their trial more difficult, but the defense lawyers pursuing the case have access to the individuals' emails and IP addresses through the torrent site YTS

Although the lawsuit relies heavily on information from YTS, Culpepper is asking the court to issue subpoenas to Private Internet Access, Internet service providers, and email services

If this request is granted and Private Internet Access is subpoenaed, the VPN provider may not be able to produce anything incriminating due to its policy of refraining from tracking user Internet traffic and data

A spokesperson for the VPN company told Torrent Freak: "Private Internet Access has not received a subpoena in this matter Even if we had, our response would be the same as always: PIA does not record VPN user activity"

Jake Moore, a security specialist at ESET, told Tom's Guide that the case highlights the various steps the film industry is taking to prevent people from downloading their content for free

He acknowledged, however, that the case would be difficult

"People who illegally use these torrent services usually know how to avoid capture by properly using a VPN," Moore explained

"This lawsuit sheds light on what data remnants law enforcement can still access when they get their hands on VPN companies, but ultimately, they are unaware of these extra privacy-oriented tactics, such as using personal emails to sign up It is likely to only catch the low-hanging fruit of making mistakes

"However, as will become clear, it is still not enough to track down who downloaded a particular torrent without a digital forensic search of the target's hard drive from which the data was supposedly copied