Netflix Hit With $105 Million Suit After Losing Copy of Nicolas Cage WWII Film - Variety

Swiss producer Simon Afram filed a $105 million lawsuit against Netflix on Wednesday after the company lost an unencrypted copy of his World War II film "Fortitude," starring Nicolas Cage and Ben Kingsley.
Afram, who wrote the script, says he spent seven years and $45 million producing the film; an associate producer delivered a digital cinema package to Netflix headquarters in June so the company could weigh buying the rights.
When the producer sought to retrieve the film, Netflix allegedly went unresponsive, and more than a week later acknowledged via email that the drives had been stolen from office desks.
Sean Berney, Netflix's director of original film, wrote that the theft was "a first for us," explaining that security teams had been unable to recover the stolen drives.
Netflix contends it is not liable, stating it disputes bearing the risk of loss for a film delivered without industry-standard safeguards such as password-protected links or encrypted DCPs requiring a Key Delivery Message.
Afram's suit counters that his team followed Netflix's instructions and that the associate producer had flagged the DCP as unencrypted while asking that the film be deleted after screening; the film previously drew a 2023 lawsuit against Martin Scorsese that settled out of court.