LIONSGATE is taking legal action against the anonymous individuals who shared online an advance copy of “The Expendables 3,” starring Sylvester Stallone. The film will be released Aug. 15.

    Thursday, the film company filed a lawsuit in California federal court against “John Does 1-10.” Lionsgate reported learning July 24 that a digital file containing a high-quality reproduction of the film had been stolen and uploaded to the Internet. “The Expendables 3” has reportedly crossed more than a million downloads already. All of the copies circulating online are said in the lawsuit to be traced to the original stolen digital file.

    The lawsuit targets the operators behind limetorrents.com, hulkfile.eu, and some other sites.

    According to the lawsuit, “By downloading one of these ‘torrent’ files associated with the stolen film from , 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.”

    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.

    The identity as well as the motivation of the individual who first uploaded the film hasn’t been revealed. (SD-Agencies)