By: Bryan M. (Moneoa) w/info from AP
The MPAA, a Trade group representing the 7 Major Movie studios
has launched its first strike in its war with P2P this past Tuesday,
starting its drive by filing 3 lawsuits in Federal Court in St. Louis and Denver Respectively.
While not confirming how many defendants were accused, court papers filed show
the two Suits in Denver list 22 Defendants while the one in St. Louis
lists 18 alledged infringers.
Other lawsuits are believed to have been filed in New York, Philadelphia
and other areas with large concentrations of high-speed Internet customers.
Such connections are required to download the massive movie files.
The John/Jane Doe Lawsuits are part of an effort by the RIAA and
now the MPAA to curb what both groups describe as rampant
copyright infringment that they claim is eating into sales
of CD's and Movies. The MPAA claims the U.S. movie industry
loses more than $3 billion annually in potential global revenue because of physical piracy, or bogus copies of videos and DVDs of its films.
The Trade Group defended its decision not to say how many
suits were filed or where.
"It's not important," said John Malcolm, senior vice president
and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the MPAA.
"It doesn't matter if it's 10 lawsuits or 500 lawsuits.
The idea here is that there is no safe harbor."
In part of a broader effort to combat piracy the MPAA also
announced they would soon make available, software
that sniffs out movie and music files as well as
file sharing programs installed on users computers.
The MPAA said the information gained from this suspicous
piece of programming would not be shared with itself or outside bodies
but the software could be used to "remove" any infringing files
as well as any file trading software found on the system.
The group said the software available for windows would be
put on a web page made to educate consumers about copyrights.
The name or exact nature of the program was not described Tuesday.
While Experts profess that Movie trading is not as rampant as
music trading due to large file size and the need for a broadband connection
to the internet.
While initially reluctant to follow in the aggressive legal strategy of the RIAA
The Group claims the lawsuits were necessary now,
before high-speed Internet access makes downloading pirated copies of movies easier.
downloading pirated copies of movies easier.
"This was not an easy decision, but it must be done now before illegal online file sharing of movies spins out of control,"
Said Dan Glickman MPAA president and chief executive.
The trade group said that the lawsuits,
together with software and educational programs,
are necessary tools to fight the small but growing number of films
that are available on the Internet, often before a movie has even opened in theaters.
All this illustrates the latest attemtps by industry leaders
to curb what they see as the apocalypse of thier respective
markets. Unfortunatly in this reporters opinion perhaps
suing childeren and grandma while developing Malware is the wrong way
to educate the public.
______________________________________________
In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird.
Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
Well, begin boycotting the MPAA now!
Bye bye record profits!!!
*ahem* Fuck the MPAA!
Well, as much as I'd like to be the devil's advocate here and point out that people are stealing copyrighted material, and taking appropriate legal action is to be expected.... I just sat down to watch an ill gotten movie myself.
I really don't like the sound of that mysterious movie-deleting program though. I'd consider that hostile intrusion, which would warrant a retalitory ass kicking.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks