"The motion-picture industry must pursue legal proceedings
against people who are stealing our movies on the internet," said
MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman. "The future of our industry,
and of the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports, must be
protected from this kind of outright theft using all available
means."
The movie industry warned in early November that it would
shortly be following in the footsteps of the music industry, which
has to date filed over 5,000 suits against individual file
swappers.
Although details of these first lawsuits have not been released,
the MPAA has confirmed that the filings seek damages, which may be
as much as $30,000 for each separate movie illegally copied or
distributed by an individual over the internet, and as much as
$150,000 per movie if the infringement is proven to be wilful.
According to reports, there could be as many as 200 actions,
most of which have been filed as "John Doe" suits – where the
identity of the defendant is not known. The first action relating
to these suits will be a request to the courts to order the ISPs
used by the defendants to reveal their customers' identities. Some
of the suits, reports suggest, target individuals who had offered
only one film for downloading.
"Litigation alone is not the solution," Glickman continued, "but
it is part of a broader MPAA effort that includes education and new
technological tools."
Specifically, the MPAA has launched a partnership with the Video
Software Dealers Association to run an anti-piracy ad campaign
called "Rated I: Inappropriate for All Ages," to approximately
10,000 video stores in the US.
The MPAA also announced yesterday that it would shortly be
making available a free program that identifies movie and music
titles stored on a computer, along with any installed peer-to-peer
file-swapping programs, to help concerned users remove the
infringing material.
Information generated by the program, said the MPAA, would be
made available only to the program's user, and would not be shared
with or reported to the MPAA or any other body.
"Our ultimate goal is to help consumers locate the resources and
information they need to make appropriate decisions about using and
trading illegal files," said Glickman. "Many parents are concerned
about what their children have downloaded and where they've
downloaded it from. They will find this tool to be an excellent
resource."
