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MPAA Sues Movie-Swappers

Posted by timothy on from the shocked-simply-shocked dept.

aacool writes "The MPAA has filed a first wave of lawsuits against individuals they say are offering pirated copies of films using Internet-based peer-to-peer file sharing programs." From the article: "The MPAA said it would also make available a computer program that sniffs out movie and music files on a user's computer as well as any installed file sharing programs. The MPAA said the information detected by the free program would not be shared with it or any other body, but could be used to remove any 'infringing movies or music files' and remove file sharing programs."

3 of 585 comments (clear)

  1. Sweating over whether you'll be serverd? by Noksagt · · Score: 4, Informative

    This article cites St. Louis as the first city to receive suits, followed by New York and Philadelphia. Examples of movies: "Troy," from Warner Bros., "Spider-Man 2," from Columbia Pictures and "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen," from The Walt Disney Co.

  2. Re:Snoopery by fanboy19 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You guys should really read the article. It said the program would be available for parents to download to find music and movies that their kids may have downloaded. It doesn't just bounce around the internet looking for music and movie files.

  3. MPAA ad campaigns at universities by Xref · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just posted a screenshot of an add the MPAA ran yesterday (Monday) in the school newspaper here at the University of Michigan:

    http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2004/11/lawsuits-begin- this-week.html

    The ad features the usernames and partial IP addresses of peer2peer file sharers, surrounded by bold, red captions reading:

    IS THIS YOU?

    IF YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH
    ILLEGALLY TRAFFICKING IN MOVIES, THINK AGAIN.

    LAWSUITS BEGIN THIS WEEK.

    It then proceeds to note that:

    Pursuant to the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. Section 504(c)), statutory damages can be as much as $30,000 per motion picture, and up to $150,000 per motion picture if the infringement is willful.

    *sigh*