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"If piracy and those who profit from it are allowed to flourish, they will erode an engine of economic growth and job creation; undermine legitimate businesses that strive to unite technology and content in innovative and legal ways and limit quality and consumer choice." ... "There are lots of ways to legally download our products through companies like CinemaNow, Movielink, Ruckus and others."

Now if this claim is true:

The movie industry is the only industry with a positive balance of tradein countries with which it does business. Copyrighted industries are responsible for an estimated $626 billion of the total gross domestic product.

The Motion Picture Association is not just "of America". Please read the "MPA" column on this page.

Yes, they are the MAFIAA.

See the press release.

This has more information than the news articles:
(pdf warning)http://www.mpaa.org/MPAAPress/2005/2005_05 _12_BitTorrent.pdf
from their page 2:

"Since we began shutting these sites down, the time that it takes to download a file on BitTorrent has increased exponentially which means the experience of downloading copyrighted films and TV shows is not what it used to be," said Glickman. "We intend to make it even worse. Protecting the television industry is essential."

Below is a list of the six BitTorrent sites being sued by the MPAA. Together, these sites facilitate the illegal swapping of copyrighted material to over 100,000 people daily.

ShunTV [www.shuntv.net] ShunTV specializes in distributing recent television shows. It has around 10,000 registered users. A regular team of users (dubbed "TeamTV") appears to upload content on a daily basis as shows are broadcast. The site even includes a "Calendar" of television programs showing the date of broadcast and whether a copy is available on the server.

Zonatracker [www.zonatracker.com] Zonatracker is mostly in Spanish and has over 2500 users. It offers hundreds of popular movies, including many movies still in theaters. The Zonatracker tracker is also used by another Spanish-language torrent site, Zonadivx.com.

Btefnet [www.btefnet.net] This torrent site and the eight associated servers specialize in distributing television shows. The torrent site shows that there are over 48,000 registered users seeding files on the servers.

Scifi-Classics [scifi-classics.net] This site is designed to distribute science fiction content. Torrents are posted in the forum section and tracked by the associated server. There are over 1600 registered users in the forum section. CDDVDHeaven [cddvdheaven.co.uk] This site has over 8000 registered users, and averaged over 1500 visits a day in March 2005 according to statistics posted on the site. It currently lists over 100 torrents for a variety of movies and televisions shows. The site profits by giving privileges to users who make monetary contributions to the site, allowing them faster downloading speeds without requiring them to upload torrents.

Bragginrights [www.bragginrights.biz]Bragginrights has over 12,000 registered users and a wide variety of torrents, including those for films currently in theaters. It solicits donations to make money.

http://www.mpaa.org/MPAAPress/2005/2005_05_12_BitT orrent.pdf

The six sites sued Thursday include ShunTV, Zonatracker, Btefnet, Scifi-Classics, CDDVDHeaven and Bragginrights.

ShunTV posted this copy of the MPAA press release (pdf) and says they are down for good.

Btefnet is still up at the moment, but there is no official response on the main page so maybe they just haven't gotten around to shutting down yet.

None of that is violent enough for a PG-13 rating?

On top of the fact that movie ratings are not a law, but an agreement between movie theaters and the MPAA (you either go by our ratings or you cant show our movie) http://www.mpaa.org/movieratings/ it is a voluntary system (eveyone I asked has said they thought it was a law)

Governments Note Links to Terrorism

Mr. Chairman, let me commend to your attention an article by Kathleen Millar in the November 2002 issue of US Customs Today entitled "Financing Terror: Profits from Counterfeit Goods Pay for Attacks." With your permission, I would like to enter this article into the record. The article outlines the "close connections between transnational crime and terrorism." It states that the participants at the 1st International Conference on IPR hosted by Interpol in Lyon, France in 2001 "all agreed the evidence was indisputable: a lucrative trafficking in counterfeit and pirate products - music, movies, seed patents, software, tee-shirts, Nikes, knock-off CDs and 'fake drugs' accounts for much of the money the international terrorist network depends on to feed its operations." The article concludes that "The new link between commercial-scale piracy and counterfeiting has redirected public attention in 2002, and law enforcement agencies like Customs and Interpol are going after the organized crime syndicates in charge of what was too often viewed as a "victimless crime." September 11 changed the way Americans look at the world. It also changed the way American law enforcement looks at Intellectual Property crimes."

http://www.mpaa.org/jack/2003/2003_03_13B.htm

What one can do is drag the COUNTRY to the appropriate EU court for not implementing the directive correctly

And what makes you think the MPA, the export division of the MPAA, won't take the government of France to court over this issue? Is that how it works?

Finding Nemo isn't a Disney movie, it's a Pixar movie, that Disney distributed.

Even the Ghibli and Pixar works that Disney distributes still result in revenue for Disney that can be funneled toward lobbying for further changes to the U.S. copyright statute in favor of the six major American motion picture distributors.

Does Disney have any creative control whatsoever?

Yes. Because of an act of Congress whose lobbying was paid for through revenues from movies distributed by Disney, the vast majority of Americans are still forbidden to use the image of Mickey Mouse in new works. Therefore, Pixar revenue helps cement Disney's creative control of the American culture.

...who haven't a clue what "PG-13" means, here are some useful links:-

Overview of MPAA ratings
G and PG in detail
PG-13 upwards in detail

Basically, PG-13 means you *can* get in if you are under 13; as far as I can tell, no accompaniment is required. It differs from the US PG rating in that it is a stronger warning that the material *may* be unsuitable for under 13s.

This makes it somewhere between the UK (and US's) PG rating and the UK's 12A (which requires accompaniment by an adult if you are under 12).

It shouldn't be assumed that the film will be a 12A in the UK though; if the rating was as a result of sex or language, then the BBFC might judge it differently.

...who haven't a clue what "PG-13" means, here are some useful links:-

Overview of MPAA ratings
G and PG in detail
PG-13 upwards in detail

Basically, PG-13 means you *can* get in if you are under 13; as far as I can tell, no accompaniment is required. It differs from the US PG rating in that it is a stronger warning that the material *may* be unsuitable for under 13s.

This makes it somewhere between the UK (and US's) PG rating and the UK's 12A (which requires accompaniment by an adult if you are under 12).

It shouldn't be assumed that the film will be a 12A in the UK though; if the rating was as a result of sex or language, then the BBFC might judge it differently.

...who haven't a clue what "PG-13" means, here are some useful links:-

Overview of MPAA ratings
G and PG in detail
PG-13 upwards in detail

Basically, PG-13 means you *can* get in if you are under 13; as far as I can tell, no accompaniment is required. It differs from the US PG rating in that it is a stronger warning that the material *may* be unsuitable for under 13s.

This makes it somewhere between the UK (and US's) PG rating and the UK's 12A (which requires accompaniment by an adult if you are under 12).

It shouldn't be assumed that the film will be a 12A in the UK though; if the rating was as a result of sex or language, then the BBFC might judge it differently.

Nothing has taken place in America hence the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America have no say in what goes on.

RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is a member of IFPI (International Federation for the Phonographic Industry). BPI (British Phonographic Industry) is also a member of IFPI. Several other national record label interest groups are members of IFPI, and record labels' international divisions are often members of those groups. MPAA has a division called Motion Picture Association that does the MPAA's bidding outside the United States.

The problem is senator Clinton assumes that video games and children go hand in hand. This is certainly not the case. She doesn't understand that there are video games (like GTA) that are not designed for children. Adults and video games are not mutually exclusive.

The biggest issue is that most parents think the same way. Most don't bother to investigate what kind of games their chilren are playing. They assume that it's a video game so it must be designed for children.

If the government wants to fix this problem, they need to make stores enforce those ESRB ratings the same way stores and theatres honour the MPAA rating system.

Sending letters to copyright violators is usaly something that APB of sweden and I think MPAA http://www.mpaa.org/ does. Many file-sharers oppose this. And use the same argument as RMS http://stallman.org/ that you still have your copy after the copying. So that must mean that the GPL people still have their software after the companies have copied it. So what have the GPL people to complain about.

Here's the MPAA press release that proves that the scam story was never true to begin with.

In fact, some believe that The Empire Strikes Back (Ep V) could have been PG-13 had that rating existed.

Isn't it great when somebody actually get's it...unlike some people.

Are you trying to slashdot their phone lines too ?

Alas, calling there
"
Main Office Address:

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
Motion Picture Association (MPA)

15503 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, California 91436
(818) 995-6600
"
or trying to find the number yourself (at the bottom) to see a slashdot effect vs mpaa would be, in my opinion, futile and somewhat childish.

Then again, this is slashdot...

We can hope 8p

You clearly did not RTFA. The lawsuit was a hoax, start to finish.

You clearly did not read the relevant documents the article's author didn't bother to look for.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Perhaps revealing, the MPAA website is not taking credit for taking down lokitorrent: there is no mention of loki on its website, and its recent press release on targeting torrent sites neither mentions lokitorrent, nor mentions interrupting the service of any website. It only mentions legal action taken.

Perhaps revealing, the MPAA website is not taking credit for taking down lokitorrent: there is no mention of loki on its website, and its recent press release on targeting torrent sites neither mentions lokitorrent, nor mentions interrupting the service of any website. It only mentions legal action taken.

http://www.mpaa.org/CurrentReleases/2005_02_10_Bit TorrentLokitorrent.doc
No story here, just /. spreading FUD

The MPAA's efforts to date have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the number of servers that continue to operate. One such site that will no longer exist is LokiTorrent--one of the largest BitTorrent host servers. The operator of that site, Edward Webber, agreed to not only pay a substantial settlement with even greater financial penalties for any further such actions, but by Court Order must provide the MPAA with access to and copies of all logs and server data related to his illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities.

quoting from this mpaa press release:

"The MPAA's efforts to date have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the number of servers that continue to operate. One such site that will no longer exist is LokiTorrent -- one of the largest BitTorrent host servers. The operator of that site, Edward Webber, agreed to not only pay a substantial settlement with even greater financial penalties for any further such actions, but by Court Order must provide the MPAA with access to and copies of all logs and server data related to his illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities."

took all of like 3 seconds to find this.

in keeping with the usual /. tradition of journalistic excellence, we'll probably see this same "story" reposted several times in the next few days.

There's a link to the related press release on the MPAA's website.

If it's such a hoax what exactly do you call this? (Google's HTML Version)

"The MPAA's efforts to date have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the number of servers that continue to operate. One such site that will no longer exist is LokiTorrent?one of the largest BitTorrent host servers. The operator of that site, Edward Webber, agreed to not only pay a substantial settlement with even greater financial penalties for any further such actions, but by Court Order must provide the MPAA with access to and copies of all logs and server data related to his illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities."

The premise of the article is based entirely on the fact that there is no documentation from the MPAA--but indeed there is such documentation. I know we'd all love to believe the MPAA created that release to capitalize on this so-called hoax but no doubt that would be subject to legal action for such blatant lies.

The article also states "If LokiTorrent.com had been sued in Dallas Federal Courts, then some type of public record would appear. NO ONLINE RECORD APPEARS WHATSOEVER!"

So...if it's not on the internet, it must not exist right....right!?

Did anyone bother contacting the MPAA for a comment on the Lokitorrent case rather than providing more fire to the rumor mill?

Why the obvious choices are Dan Glickmanfor the former, and a very special joint collaboration of James Dobson and Pat Robertson for the latter!

How is this different, than say, preventing children from seeing a rated R movie without their parent?

Simple, there is nothing in law that mandates that theaters keeps kids out. The MPAA's rating system, and near universal enforcement of age restrictions is all volutary. source Actually, its not too dissimilar to what we are seeing happen today with video games. With legislative bodies threatening legislation, the MPAA adopted the rating system volutarally. The gaming industry is moving that way, and will get there, the last thing we need is yet another nanny-state law to create problems for legitimate purchasers.

And hey, if a kid wants to drink alcohol, he's gonna drink it, so let's legalize it for minors.

Yes, please, maybe then we might be able to emulate the success of Germany and other countries where underage binge drinking isn't a widespread problem. But them, it's better to have this forbidden fruit out there which teenages will get a hold of and will over indulge in.

The difference is it takes a parent to make that game available to the child, so the parent is better able to enforce their decisions.

These games cost upwards of $50, how are they getting a hold of them in the first place? Second, why aren't the parents paying a little bit of attention to what their kids are doing? Yes, the kids are going to manage to hide some stuff from their parents, but honestly, a mildly involved parent is going to notice this stuff. Why not, instead of shirking responsibilities, the parents actually spend time with their kids and pay attention to what the kids are doing?

you forgot a few steps

5. PROFIT!!
6. Beg for donations to fight impending legal battle s for steal from said company
7. Beg some more..
8. Settle
9. MORE PROFIT!!
10. Get free design from http://mpaa.org/

There is a reward if you can report a "pirate video lab" that consists of 30 or more VCRs at a single location. See http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/contact/.

MPAA press release

"The MPAA's efforts to date have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the number of servers that continue to operate. One such site that will no longer exist is LokiTorrent -- one of the largest BitTorrent host servers. The operator of that site, Edward Webber, agreed to not only pay a substantial settlement with even greater financial penalties for any further such actions, but by Court Order must provide the MPAA with access to and copies of all logs and server data related to his illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities."

As I reported on isoHunt.com and from the sources, Lokitorrent has been shutdown by US court order. The scandal surrounding its owner "taking the community's donations and ran" aside, this sets a bad precedent as Loki should qualify for OSP Safe Harbor under the DMCA. I don't know what exactly was the settlement between Loki and the MPAA, but my question for you is: how many hoops of links (.torrent should be considered a link) you have to jump through the internet, before it's not considered contributory infringement? With the historic example of the Universal vs. Betamax case and the resulting profitable home video business, what are possible business models the MPAA/RIAA can use to harness P2P as the next generation distribution channel? As I run the largest BitTorrent search engine around and was hit by MPAA's letters, this is of some personal concern to me.

"The MPAA's efforts to date have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the number of servers that continue to operate. One such site that will no longer exist is LokiTorrent--one of the largest BitTorrent host servers. The operator of that site, Edward Webber, agreed to not only pay a substantial settlement with even greater financial penalties for any further such actions, but by Court Order must provide the MPAA with access to and copies of all logs and server data related to his illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities." So, there is a possibility that the MPAA will be going after people who used the website to download torrents. You can view the rest of the article here.

1) Yet another reason to NOT use windows media
2) Yet another reason to NOT use windows
3) Yet another reason TO USE Macs
4) Yet another reason all slashdot users should attempt to visit http://www.riaa.org/ and http://www.mpaa.org/ exactly every 15 minutes.

99.999%, eh? I love distortions. That is, lying due to complete ignorance.

the faq seems to have been defaced, as we speak.

"OWNED BY YOGI! MOUAHAHAHAHAH

You fucker steal artists !

REAL FAQs ARE HERE AND HERE
"

i have censored a oh so original link to that other site...

Actually, despite all this "piracy", the RIAA's sales continue to increase, as shown. The November 11, 2004 press release from the MPAA shows similarly for the MPAA:

"The movie industry's share of the American economy is growing--faster than the rest of the economy. And the copyright industries are creating jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the economy." (excerpted from above)

I fail to see how you can call something "theft" when someone is seeing greater sales happen while the "theft" is occurring. Theft would presume a model in which, for every download which occurs, one sale is lost. This is quite simply not true, as many, many people download things to preview them and see if they are worth the money. Given the large amount of garbage put out by the **AA's and the inflated prices they charge for it, this does not seem an unreasonable precaution.

The true solution for the **AA's is one which is known to all businesses which don't have a virtual monopoly and routinely have to deal with competition: Improve your product, LOWER YOUR PRICES, and find innovative ways to market and deliver the product.

Don't put ads on something people have paid money for, it will turn them off very quickly. (A trailer or two generally won't turn a consumer off if placed on their DVD, but a non-skippable Pepsi commercial most certainly will.) There is NO quicker way to turn off a consumer than making it so that the product they purchased (their DVD and DVD player) do not do what they expect it to (fast-forward when they hit the fast-forward button.)

Imagine your car not starting for 5 minutes after you turned the key so that it could play ads over the car's stereo. If you wouldn't be extremely frustrated by this, and very unlikely to purchase that brand of car again, well then, you are the definition of corporate whore. But the reason car manufacturers -don't- do this is because other manufacturers exist, and would refrain from doing this and take away their business. However, the MPAA has no competition, at least not on anything even remotely approaching their scale. If it takes suprnova and Kazaa to create the competition, then I'm not sorry to see it, whether or not there's a technical violation of law.

If these companies are not willing to address the fact that CUSTOMERS ARE NOT SATISFIED, and the ONLY reason that they have stayed in business is a lack of real competition, they deserve to die off and I don't care if people do pirate the stuff.

Watch out on the sweeping generalisations, or some anonymous pedant is likely to point out the flaws in the statement as a matter of principle. Not all law is about "good and bad": a substantial portion of it is entirely utilitarian. Taxes are not legislated in such-and-such a way because of "good/bad" reasons (although any attempt to be "fair" will ground itself in that territory) but rather to generate revenue for public works in a viable manner. Some trade regulations are grounded in morality (no cheating, stealing, etc) but just as many exist for purely utilitarian reasons. Copyright isn't about enforcing the moral truth that "stealing is wrong", despite what some propagandists would have us believe: it's supposed to be about the utilitarian goal of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts. (In practice these days it's more about protecting entrenched interests -- a perennial problem with utilitarian laws of this sort.)

Rant ends. Summary: law has far less to do with morality than you think it does. No argument against "clear and simple" though. Preferably "as few as reasonably possible" also: Tacitus could well be a modern commentator, not a guy who died nearly 2000 years ago, with lines like, "And now bills were passed, not only for national objects but for individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt."

found the a link to the add. http://www.mpaa.org/CurrentReleases/ november 4, print add scheduled for week nov 15th.

The following two quotes are from the MPAA's own 11/11/04 press release:

"With access to high-speed Internet access increasing, and the movie industry already losing $3.5 billion annually to piracy, Glickman asserted that legal action is necessary to protect the future of moviemaking."

Must be terrible...the industry is losing $3.5 BILLION a year in revenue? They must just be drowning in the losses!

"The movie industry's share of the American economy is growing--faster than the rest of the economy. And the copyright industries are creating jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the economy."

Wait a moment. This industry, suffering these massive, crippling losses from piracy, is doing BETTER than most sectors of the economy?

Here's the problem, and that is that the MPAA's figure is grossly inflated. Effectively, the MPAA figures EVERY download as a lost sale. (The MPAA's figures on downloading are also inflated, but that's pretty technical and better left to someone who can explain it comprehensively.) However, even provided that they're correct, they presume that EVERYONE who downloads a movie would have, instead, gone to a theater or bought a DVD in place of every download. (They also assume that these people don't do that anyway, and look at a lower-quality download to decide if the movie is WORTH seeing or purchasing on DVD.) This is, quite simply, not true.

It's time for the **AA's to quit whining. DESPITE widespread downloading, and bad business practices that turn customers away in large numbers, their revenues and market shares grow daily. Given that, it's hard for them to claim that downloads, whether on Internet1 or 2, are threatening to put them out of business.

Check out the ad at http://www.mpaa.org/CurrentReleases/IsThisYou_Ad.p df

I, too, found the ad humorous. I like how the guy is using the middle mouse button to execute the illegal download. The button appears to be labeled with Apple's AirPort logo.
The ad is hanging on my dorm room door, along with the following cliché manifesto:
MPAA: The Lawsuits Will Not Stop Us.

The media industries are pathetically clinging to an obsolete system of copyright. The internet has triggered an unstoppable chain of events that will culminate in the total free-flowing information/media.

A handful of week-minded kids and ignorant adults might be frightened into deleting their pirated movies and songs as a result of the lawsuits, but the revolution will continue. Enforcing the current archaic intellectual property laws is literally impossible. The media giants need to embrace the emerging technology instead of fighting it.

Mark my words: 12 years from now, our conceptions of intellectual property will be radically different.

But Ethan, if everyone gets their movies and songs for free, then moviemakers won't get paid and we'll stop having movies!

You ignorant, short-sighted fool. I don't see the publishing industry collapsing, even though their books are freely available at libraries! Anyone who claims that file-sharing will destroy musicians and movie-makers has no concept of the true nature of artists.

The revolution will not be stopped.

I'll be in court for the next few weeks. Keep it real while I'm gone.

All the best,
Ethan

The high-res "Is this you?" ad is available in pdf format here.

But in 1977, there was no movie ratings, but now we do have them.

ummm... the ratings system was introduced in November 1, 1968. That's 9 years before Star Wars came out. At the time of Star Wars, however, there was no PG-13. Perhaps that is what you are thinking of.

It's not run by the government. It's done by our friends, the MPAA. It's nominally voluntary, although you would have a hard time finding a theater to show your film if it wasn't rated. Government isn't involved at all, except to rattle their sabres when they feel enforcement is getting too lax.

This is France. There is no MPAA.

BS. The MPA, the MPAA's export arm, is in every developed country. Please read about the MPAA and MPA.

Does Sony Electronics outsell both the music industry and the record industry along with the movie and video game industries that Sony's in as well? Does Sony own any book publishers?

current job listings
who wants to volunteer for a covert subversion operation in database erasure? :)
you can help melissa_valenzuela@mpaa.org write their sniffing software with advanced skills such as Excel and Access... har har dee har har