MPAA Revives P-to-P Lawsuit
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Group is asking the Supreme Court to overturn decision in favor of file-swapping networks.
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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments March 29th on whether companies that provide peer-to-peer software violate copyright laws if their users commit copyright infringement.
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LOS ANGELES -- The Motion Picture Association of America announced Thursday it will work with its members and other film studios to file lawsuits against people who have illegally traded digital copies of movies over the Internet.
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The Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it will sue people who download movies from online file-sharing services. Reporter David McGuire discusses the likely impact of the lawsuits with Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge.
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(Article Central) The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. announced on Thursday that its lawyers would expand the MPAA&#39;s campaign to prevent film piracy, working with its members and other film studios
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The Motion Picture Association of America&#39;s war on piracy took an unexpected turn this week with a new lawsuit. This time, instead of targeting pirates directly the MPAA has sued two microchip makers, Sigma Designs, Inc.
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The company makes another move to compete against video on demand.
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Two more distributors of allegedly -- if not obviously -- unlicensed content are facing civil prosecution by the Motion Picture Association of America this afternoon. YouTVpc and Peekvid are the subjects of civil suits in US District Court in Los Angeles, not only for hosting unlicensed content but linking to other sources for unlicensed content as well.
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(InfoWorld) - One of the last of the popular P-to-P (peer-to-peer) music sharing sites has been defeated, with eDonkeyâs agreement to settle its copyright infringement case with the record industry. In documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday, eDonkey founders and parent company MetaMachine Inc. said theyâll pay US$30 million to record companies to settle the case. They also agreed to refrain from conducting any further business that might involve copying, distributing or otherwise infringing copyrighted works. The settlement follows just more than a month after Sharman Networks Ltd., developer of the file-sharing software Kazaa, said it would pay the entertainment industry $100 million to settle similar lawsuits. Other file-sharing companies to succumb include Grokster Ltd., which shut down last year after losing a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The eDonkey Web site now features a statement, similar to one on the Grokster site, informing visitors that illegal downloaders can be prosecuted and ominously warning visitors that they arenât anonymous by displaying and claiming to log their IP address. The eDonkey settlement will be paid to Arista Records LLC, Atlantic Recording Corp., Capitol Records Inc., Elektra Entertainment Group Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment and UMG Recordings Inc. Lime Wire LLC is one of few the remaining popular file-sharing software companies although in August a group of record companies filed a suit against it in the U.S. asking for damages that could amount to as much as $476 million. Late last year, eDonkeyâs founder predicted the demise of the file-sharing industry. During a speech in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, he warned that U.S. P-to-P companies would all cease to exist because they would lack the resources to defend themselves against the record companies under the ruling he characterized as vague in the Grokster suit. The record companies and movie studios have spent the last couple years carrying out attacks against the creators of file-sharing software, contending they should be held liable for copyright infringement by their users. The file-sharing software developers have largely failed in their arguments that they warn users not to illegally transfer materials and so shouldn't be held responsible for how people use their products. REFERENCES: Kazaa settles with record industry, Jul. 27, 2006Grokster shuttered in court settlement, Nov. 7, 2005US P-to-P companies will disappear, executive says, Sep. 30, 2005
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StreamCast, which owns the Morpheus P2P Network has formally asked the US Supreme Court to reject requests made by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to revisit lower court decisions
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The US movie industry has launched legal action to sue people who facilitate illegal film downloading. The Motion Picture Association of America wants to stop people using the program BitTorrent to swap movies.
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The Motion Picture Association of  America said on Wednesday it has sued a company that sells  Internet downloads of current movies like "I, Robot" and  "Spider-Man 2" without permission.
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LOS ANGELES  - The Motion Picture Assn.  of America has filed suit against two Web sites that it claims  are allowing Internet users to view pirated films, many of  which are still in theaters.
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The Motion Picture Association of America yesterday filed its first wave of lawsuits against people it alleges have traded illegally copied movies online, a practice the MPAA says represents
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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has won a lawsuit against the operators of&#160;TorrentSpy.com, with the judge ruling in favor of the MPAA because the Web site operators tampered with evidence.In a ruling that could have implications for the privacy of Web site users, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, ruled that TorrentSpy has infringed MPAA copyrights in a default judgment against the operators of the site.Cooper, in a ruling made public Monday, agreed with the MPAA that defendants Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media had destroyed evidence after another judge had ordered them to keep server logs, user IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and other information. TorrentSpy billed itself as a central location to find files distributed on BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) networks.The defendants&#39; conduct was &quot;obstreperous,&quot; Cooper wrote in her decision. &quot;They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in a effort to hide evidence of such destruction,&quot; she wrote.TorrentSpy had located its servers in the Netherlands and argued that Dutch law protected them from having to turn over server logs and other information. In May, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian ruled that TorrentSpy must preserve server data logs held in random access memory, or RAM.That decision was widely criticized as being an unreasonable standard because information held in RAM is temporary, but Cooper, in her new ruling, said TorrentSpy destroyed or altered several types of evidence, including user IP addresses, discussion forum postings about the trading of movies and moderator identities. &quot;A substantial number of items of evidence have been destroyed,&quot; she wrote. &quot;Defendants were on notice that this information would be of importance in this case.&quot;TorrentSpy&#39;s lawyer Ira Rothken said his client had concerns about protecting users&#39; privacy. TorrentSpy will appeal Cooper&#39;s decision, he said.&quot;It&#39;s not a ruling on the merits of the case,&quot; he said. &quot;One person&#39;s willful destruction of evidence is another person&#39;s willful attempt to comply with customer privacy policies.&quot;The ruling, if it stands, could expose private information about Web site users in many civil lawsuits, Rothken added. &quot;This doesn&#39;t apply only to TorrentSpy, but to anyone who operates a Web site,&quot; he said.A ruling on damages in case will happen at a later date.The MPAA, which filed the case against TorrentSpy in February 2006, applauded Cooper&#39;s ruling. &quot;The court&#39;s decision ... sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system,&quot; John Malcolm, the MPAA&#39;s executive vice president and director of worldwide antipiracy operations, said in a statement. &quot;The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content. TorrentSpy is a one-stop shop for copyright infringement.&quot;
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The real question is whether the movie industry, unlike the recording industry, can provide an answer to P2P that is as convenient and valuable to users.
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Movie studios and record labels on  Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that  Internet "peer to peer" networks cannot be held liable when  their users copy music and movies without permission.