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How Seven Movie Studios Forced A Pirated Movie Site Offline (hollywoodreporter.com)
A major pirated movie site went offline last month after seven Hollywood studios won a preliminary court injunction. An anonymous reader quotes the Hollywood Reporter:
The MPAA-member studios sued the operators of PubFilm/PidTV in February, asking the court for a temporary restraining order to shut down what it described as a ring of six interconnected large-scale piracy sites. The suit was initially sealed, but was made public on Friday. Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal, Disney, Paramount and Viacom are named as plaintiffs in the suit for direct and secondary copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition.
They're seeking statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement plus restitution of the sites' profits. So, depending on how many instances of infringement are discovered, the damages in this case could be astronomical. The studios claim the sites had more than 8 million visitors each month, nearly half of which were linked to IP addresses in the U.S... The sites are believed to be operated in Vietnam.
The court also ordered GoDaddy, VeriSign and Enom to disable all six domain names, to prevent the domains from being transferred, and to do it without communicating or warning the sites' owners first. In response, the defendants purchased a new domain, and then began publicizing it with ads on Google AdSense.
They're seeking statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement plus restitution of the sites' profits. So, depending on how many instances of infringement are discovered, the damages in this case could be astronomical. The studios claim the sites had more than 8 million visitors each month, nearly half of which were linked to IP addresses in the U.S... The sites are believed to be operated in Vietnam.
The court also ordered GoDaddy, VeriSign and Enom to disable all six domain names, to prevent the domains from being transferred, and to do it without communicating or warning the sites' owners first. In response, the defendants purchased a new domain, and then began publicizing it with ads on Google AdSense.
Yes, business is business, the constitution be damned... Dark times ahead in the *New World Brutality*. How do we defend ourselves?
TBP is still around. So is Kickass, Demonoid, and Torrentleech.
Dunno what the websites they shut down were for, but it certainly didn't affect me, or anyone I know who regularity pirates stuff.
I guess... maybe they need to announce some sort of victory every so often? I dunno.
In theory I agree with this. However since in many countries (including mine) these studios force us to pay fees on things that could theoretically be used to pirate their stuff (blank media, printers, etc), I have little respect for "what's theirs" because they take "what's mine" by force of law.
And what if I disagree to very concept on owning exclusive rights to any sort of media? Besides, they are NOT authors, they're middlemen who have their own interests first.