MPAA Reining In Illicit Movie Sites, Downloading Unabated
By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets
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img width="350" height="194" border="0" src="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/images/2008/12/17/mpaa.jpg" title="Mpaa" alt="Mpaa" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; float: right;"/img
/aThe Motion Picture Association of America sued three allegedly illicit movie sites on Wednesday, bringing to 13 the number of MPAA lawsuits since 2007 challenging downloading sites./p
pThe latest copyright infringement lawsuits target U.S.-based
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/campusist_complaint_20598572.pdf"campusist.com/a(.pdf),
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/moviesondemand_complaint_20598392.pdf"movies-on-demand.tv/a(.pdf) and
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/sswarez_complaint_final_121708_2_2062582.pdf"sswarez.com/a(.pdf) ? generally accusing them of indexing to unauthorized copies of movies on the internet./p
pThe
a href="http://www.mpaa.org/"MPAA/ais often successful in its piecemeal legal approach to combat the underground trade of its intellectual property. U.S. judges have shuttered at least four sites since March -- although
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/pirate-bay-seek.html"illegal downloading/ais skyrocketing./p
pInteresting enough, a U.S. federal judge has never ruled on the merits of an MPAA lawsuit against a BitTorrent tracker or an indexing, search-engine-like website? leaving unanswered the central legal question of whether such sites violate U.S. copyright law. The
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/hollywood-court.html?referer=sphere_related_content"MPAA has been winning/avia default judgments or settlement agreements, and racking up millions in fines,
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/torrentspy-ding.html#previouspost"paid or unpaid/a./p
pThe Supreme Court hasn't even come close to deciding the issue.
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/groksterpdf.pdf"Grokser/a(.pdf) and
a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/06/26/BU153121.DTLamp;type=business"Napster/aaren't on point./p
pA pending and contested case in Los Angeles federal court against
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/isohunt-founder.html"IsoHunt/acould bring an answer./p
pGoogle's search engine, which can also point to illicit movie sites, has not been sued by Hollywood. But Google's YouTube
a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=tamp;source=webamp;ct=resamp;cd=4amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.wired.com%2F27bstroke6%2F2007%2F10%2Fgoogle-unveils-.htmlamp;ei=pJxJSdyYB4niepeM4IYBamp;usg=AFQjCNG_oubvFBb78EgL4W-dzo8gsomA-wamp;sig2=5DiWBIpye2iofdBabhFuFA"site has been sued by Viacom/afor allegedly allowing wanton infringement on its video-sharing site. The case is pending./p
pStill, an untold number of freebie sites also exist overseas, including the world's largest,
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/12/pirate-bay-torr.html"The Pirate Bay/a. While The Bay, a torrent-tracking service, is facing copyright charges in a Swedish court, online piracy is running rampant, so much so the U.S. government just created a
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/bush-signs-law.html"copyright czar/a./p
pThat is also why the MPAA is urging the incoming Obama administration to
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/mpaa-urging-oba.html"embrace internet filtering/a./p
p
strongSee Also:/strong
/p
ul
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mpaa-says-no-pr.html#previouspost"MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits .../a
/li
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/mpaa-already-lo.html#previouspost"MPAA Already Lobbying Obama/a
/li
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/mpaa-urging-oba.html#previouspost"MPAA Urges Obama to Embrace Internet Filtering/a
/li
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/riaa-mpaa-conve.html#previouspost"RIAA, MPAA Converging on Political Conventions/a
/li
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/mpaa-realnetwor.html#previouspost"MPAA, RealNetworks Wage Court Battle Over DVD-Copying Software .../a
/li
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/imagine-riaa-mp.html#previouspost"Imagine RIAA, MPAA in Control of Handbag Industry/a
/li
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/mpaa-helped-for.html#previouspost"MPAA Helped Cops Nab Hundreds of Movie Pirates/a
/li
li
a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/torrentspy-ding.html#previouspost"Torrentspy Dinged $111 Million in MPAA Lawsuit/a
/li
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