Movie Studios Start Suing Web File Swappers
Tue Nov 16, 2004 02:34 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood film studios filed suit against online video file swappers in federal courts across the United States on Tuesday, making good on a promise to punish computer users they claim are violating copyright laws.
The move against people who copy and trade illegal copies of movies and TV shows is part of broad effort by the industry's chief lobbying group to stem copyright piracy it says costs studios billions of dollars annually.
A Motion Picture Association of America spokesman said suits were filed across a broad spectrum of the United States, but declined to say how many.
Earlier this month, when the MPAA announced it would begin filing individual "John Doe" lawsuits, the number of expected suits was widely reported to be in the hundreds.
The film industry is using the "John Doe" method, identifying swappers by numerical Internet addresses, because an earlier court ruling said Internet service providers did not have to provide names of their customers.
The MPAA said illegal file swapping could cost a person found guilty up to $30,000 in fines for each film.
The music industry has sued more than 5,000 people in their efforts to stem illegal downloading, copying and sharing of digital music files online via peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks.
The movie industry has been slower to use the courts than the music industry. Films and TV shows require huge digital files that take a long time to download, and few consumer homes have the necessary high-speed hardware.
However, as more broadband cable and telephone lines are installed to households, the threat increases. Already, the MPAA claims that illegal copying of videotapes and DVDs for sale in black markets worldwide costs it more than $3.5 billion annually.
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