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New Round of Lawsuits in Preparation for Oscars
An anonymous reader wrote to mention CNNMoney's coverage of the latest round of MPAA lawsuits targeting end users. From the article: "The civil suits against unnamed "John Doe" defendants seek up to $150,000 per downloaded digital file and come as the film industry prepares for its annual Oscar telecast in Hollywood where awards for top films and stars are given out."
Hollywood files more Web lawsuits
Studios sue traders of illegally copied films traded online, seek up to $150,000 per download.
February 24, 2005: 6:20 PM EST
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood's major movie studios filed a new round of lawsuits nationwide Thursday against people who trade illegally copied films and TV shows on the Internet.
The civil suits against unnamed "John Doe" defendants seek up to $1,500,000 per downloaded digital file and come as the film industry prepares for its annual Oscar telecast in Hollywood where awards for top films and stars are given out.
The studios, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, took the opportunity of the Oscars to again press the case that the illegal copying of films and their black-market distribution on the Internet is costing them billions of dollars a year in lost revenue.
The studios claim they lose $35 billion worldwide in annual revenues from sales of illegally copied movies on video and DVD formats in street bazaars and black markets.
The studios argue that the lost revenue means fewer artists will work to create movies or TV shows. Traditionally the films that are rewarded by Oscar voters at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are those that take thematic and commercial risks.
"When rampant online theft occurs, these films become that much harder to finance...we cannot and will not let that happen," MPAA Chief Executive Dan Glickman said in a telephone conference call with reporters.
MPAA officials said "several" of the Oscar nominated films had illegal copies on the Internet that could be downloaded, but they named only comedy "Sideways," which is nominated for best picture.
"Sideways" is a low-budget movie but was considered a financially risky one for its backers at Fox Searchlight because of its offbeat subject matter. Fox Searchlight is a division of News Corp Ltd's Twentieth Century Fox movie studio.
MPAA officials declined to say how many suits it had filed or whether the illegal copies were made by video camera taping in theaters or by copying videos or DVDs that are given away by the studios this time of year to win Oscar votes.
Earlier this month, the MPAA filed lawsuits against computer networks utilizing a software technology known as BitTorrent, but these new suits were against end users, or people who actually downloaded the films. Top of page
Unfortunately (stupidly?), the *AAs are looking at both up- and down- loading as equally wrong.
"Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders' exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). Napster users who upload file names to the search index for others to copy violate plaintiffs' distribution rights. Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs' reproduction rights." See A&M RECORDS, Inc. v. NAPSTER, INC., 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001) (emphasis added)."
Untill just recently, they've taken a "kill the head and the body dies" approach by getting the big uploaders.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Except this isn't a criminal case, so "punishment" does not apply. Civil courts are not there to "punish" lawbreakers--they don't fine people. They're there to determine whether one party acted illegally and damaged a second party, and if so to award COMPENSATION to the wronged party, based on the monetary value of the damages. A damage award is not PUNISHMENT--it's compensation for the actual value of the damage inflicted.
So, if they're seeking compensatory damages of $150,000, then their position is that each download costs them $150,000.
"Punitive" damages do exist in civil cases, and their existance is indeed to punish someone for wrongdoing, but not all civil cases are eligible for them, and I don't believe MPAA is claiming them at this stage.
The stuff off the internet is usually at best described as low quality with choppy motion, questionable sound and video artifacts from the compression schemes used.
Absolute bollocks. 1.4Gb XviD, DVD-R rips or HRHD (that high definition rips in high resolution off HDTV) are sometimes _better_ quality than national TV in many countries - and HRHD rips rival _anything_ available to buy here in Europe (while still being playable in HDTV resolutions with an Xbox and a projector/plasma/lcd-tv).
Why buy something of lesser quality when you can download something that actually makes use of the expensive toys you bought?
it's in my head
It has nothing to do with the courts -- Congress set the statutory damages at up to $150,000 per work infringed upon.
And anyway, while we've been forgetting the public interest here, I wouldn't praise Europe. You guys have traditionally far worse copyright laws than us, and have been pressuring the US to make ours worse.
If we had any sense we never would've joined the Berne Convention, and would've kept copyrights sharply limited in term, scope, with strict formalities required for them to come into existence.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Or so I have been told.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
I'd like to see some high-profile news articles about MPAA suing the producers, the screeners, the guild members who leak out all those freebie discs. That'd be good for the debate, but I'm not gonna see CNN (a division of Time Warner) covering this sort of thing.
Funny you should use CNN... Arrest in movie bootlegging scheme...
geek. lawyer.
Of course, it's a moot point in this case, as I never would have bought this bought the bootleg were it not for the film company in question formally announcing that they would never release the film in America. As an artist myself, I take copyright infringement fairly seriously.
You take copyright infringement fairly seriously yet you purposely bought a bootleg when there are many, many officially licensed and sanctioned versions of this film on DVD available to you? Jesus, what a hypocrite!
There is also "_no way_" that none of the people who downloaded this stuff would have bought it if it weren't available "for free."
Maybe in some bizarro logic this statement actually makes some amount of sense. I think maybe the problem isn't that you don't not have enough double negatives.
IT IS NOT ILLEGAL AND YOU CANNOT BE PROSECUTED FOR DOWNLOADING MOVIES. ONLY FOR UPLOADING.
Actually it is illegal, and you can be sued civilly or in some cases even prosecuted. The relevant portion of the law is 17 USC 106(1) which prohibits reproduction. Downloading is a form of reproduction.
Napster was successfully sued ultimately because its users infringed by both uploading and downloading, and it helped them do it. It's hardly unique.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
You might take a peek at the EFF's Tor project... if I understand it correctly, it should be capably of anonymizing any kind of traffic.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf