Sues two of the more popular video on-demand streaming sites.It seems as though the MPAA's legal team has been eating it's "Wheaties" this week because it has just announced that it filed lawsuits in the federal court of Los Angeles yesterday against YouTVpc and Peekvid, accusing them of contributing to and profiting from "...massive copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organizing, and indexing links to infringing content found on the Internet that consumers can then view on-demand." "The sole purpose of these sites is to disseminate content that has been illegally reproduced and distributed. They are a one-stop shop for copyright infringement. These lawsuits should serve as warning to other aspiring movie theft 'entrepreneurs' that they are not above the law and will face serious consequences for their activities. Profiting from the theft of other people's creative works is illegal and must be stopped," John Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA. Though neither are sites I frequent, and I do not dare to mention those that I do for fear of bringing unneeded attention their way, it still signals a a curious new path that I haven't seen before, that is the targeting of the these semi-ubiquitous video on-demand streaming sites that have grown more and more popular over time. It used to be that people had to actually download video content if they wished to see it but, for many people with either slower internet connections or those who simply didn't want to hassle with downloading everything all the time, sites like these made it a much simpler and easier process. Click and play is all you have to do and you gotta love it. The MPAA makes no bones about its ire with video on-demand streaming sites, going on an on about them in a recent press release about how they "... profit handsomely from a seemingly endless stream of third-party advertising pitches" and how they "...solicit monetary donations through a 'Donations' tab that allows users to make financial contributions through PayPal.com." Notice how they place the Donations tab in quotes so as to make plain their insistence that the money is spent on personal items rather than on server and maintenance costs. But, unfortunately it seems as the case will be a slam dunk, for the MPAA also points out that Peekvid.com's servers are located in San Antonio, Texas, and that YouTVpc's servers are located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Not too smart if you ask me, though then again I guess everyone can't afford to host a site in Sweden or the Netherlands. Looking for more stuff to watch or download?
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