MPAA Defends ‘Smallest Productions’ in New File-Sharing Lawsuits
The MPAA announced a new round of lawsuits Thurs. against people using file-sharing networks to trade films. Several films nominated for this Sun.’s Academy Awards, such as Sideways and The Incredibles, are mentioned in the group’s lawsuits.
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The “overwhelming majority” of affected films were pirated with camcorders and digitally converted, John Malcolm, MPAA dir.-worldwide antipiracy operations, said in a phone conference. He used to consider “hard goods piracy” -- illegal street trading -- a much larger threat than online sharing, but now “we are confronting two 800-pound gorillas” with online and street availability, Malcolm said. He cited an estimate from Informa Media Group that Internet film piracy costs the industry $858 million each year. MPAA is working with Congress and state legislatures to pass and enforce laws against camcorder piracy, Malcolm said.
MPAA Pres. Dan Glickman said “even the smallest productions are at risk,” especially “offbeat” films that “might not get made if widespread theft is not stopped.” Malcolm said he heard from the director of the Russian film Nightwatch that piracy had cut his film’s revenue and made it harder to get financing for future projects: “I'm quite sure that’s a common tale.”
Malcolm withheld several details from reporters, including the locations of defendants. He said his group was targeting ISPs to find infringing end users. He didn’t disclose how many defendants the MPAA is suing in this or previous rounds of lawsuits: “The numbers to us are largely irrelevant,” and for users who dodge the MPAA’s sights, “there’s a chance we'll get to you the next time around.” He said some defendants had only downloaded or uploaded a single copyrighted film: “We do not believe that a small amount of stealing is acceptable.”
Glickman declined to give out settlement amounts from previous lawsuits, although Malcolm said the group was seeking the statutory damages of up to $150,000 per intentional illegal download. They said they will continue to file suits “periodically.” In response to a question about whether the group will also sue networks, based on position in the Grokster case accepted by the Supreme Court, Malcolm said MPAA will only go after networks with a business model of “willful blindness” in technological design. Glickman said new congressional file-sharing legislation won’t be needed because “we're not planning on losing” Grokster.
Malcolm dismissed the popular BitTorrent (BT) technology, or any other, as having dominance for long in file-sharing: “To call it a campaign against BitTorrent… is a misnomer. We are not attacking the technology.” He said MPAA’s efforts have led to a 40% reduction in BT servers (WID Feb 11 p3). The MPAA hasn’t targeted BT’s creator or other file-sharing software makers, Malcolm said, and encourages the development of legitimate networks such as LegalTorrents.com. Users who trade copyrighted works “stifle creativity and delay that day” when legal file-sharing becomes commonplace, Malcolm said.