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 alleged infringer’s. 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 infringement 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 suspicious 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. “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 attempts by industry leaders to curb what they see as the apocalypse of their respective markets. Unfortunately in this reporters opinion perhaps suing children and grandma while developing Mal ware is the wrong way to educate the public.
Related Posts
- MPAA�s third round of anti-piracy campaign begins
- MPAA files new film-swapping lawsuits
- MPAA touts lawsuits, new P2P-fighting software
- MPAA targets TV download sites
- Group plans special gift for RIAA, MPAA
Loading ...
