Movie Industry Takes Active Role in Fighting Piracy

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Movie Industry Takes Active Role in Fighting Piracy

Simon Avery
The Associated Press
07-22-2002
Law.com, 07-22-2002
http://www.law.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/View&;
c=LawArticle&cid=1024079022232&t=LawArticleTech

The movie industry is hunting down people who swap digital films online
and demanding that their Internet service be cut off -- all part of an
effort to stamp out piracy and avoid the online trading frenzy that has
plagued the music business.

The Motion Picture Association of America uses a special search engine to
scour the Web for copyright movies, which circulate on the same
peer-to-peer software networks as MP3 music files.

Since 2001, more than 100,000 customers have been ordered to stop their
activities through cease-and-desist letters sent from their Internet
service providers, the MPAA said ... The MPAA uses special monitoring
software from San Diego-based Ranger Online Inc. The automated software
provides the Internet address of the file-swapper, which the MPAA forwards
to the relevant Internet provider.  ... InternetMovies.com, a Hawaii-based
Web site, filed suit against the MPAA for causing a business disruption
after it was tagged for illegal file-swapping and had its Internet service
disconnected. Jacobsen said the MPAA will wage a vigorous defense.

Some critics of the MPAA's initiative question how long Internet providers
will continue to assist the hunt against their own customers.

It's just too expensive for the providers to lose those customers, said
Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group
representing defendants in copyright infringement suits.

"Hollywood is pressuring intermediaries to do their police work. That was
never the intention of copyright law," von Lohmann said.  ...

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