Squeeze on movie downloads
2004-11-04 08:47
Los Angeles - Taking a cue from recording companies, Hollywood movie studios are preparing to file copyright infringement lawsuits against computer users they say are illegally distributing movies online, a source familiar with the studios' plans said on Wednesday.
The lawsuits will target movie fans who share digitised versions of films over peer-to-peer networks, with the first wave of litigation planned for as early as Thursday, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Like the recording industry, which began suing individual music file-sharers last year, the movie studios plan an ongoing litigation campaign, the source said.
The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major film studios, declined to comment on Wednesday.
But the organisation issued a release saying its chief executive would be making "a major announcement regarding illegal file sharing of motion pictures on peer-to-peer networks" early on Thursday.
The movie studios were still finalising how many lawsuits would make up their initial filing, but it would probably be around 200 or so, the source said.
Loses more than $3bn annually
Videotaped copies of films in theatres often are digitised or burned off DVDs and then distributed on file-sharing networks accessed with software programs like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster.
The MPAA claims the US movie industry loses more than $3bn annually in potential global revenue because of physical piracy, or bogus copies of videos and DVDs of its films.
The MPAA doesn't give an estimate for how much online piracy costs the industry annually, but claims the health of the industry is at stake as the copying and distribution of movies online continues to grow unabated.
Along with the recording industry, movie studios have tried to shut down companies behind file-sharing software through litigation, but have had little success.
The movie industry also has tried to battle piracy by running ads in movie theatres and elsewhere designed to dissuade people from file-sharing films by stressing the risks of identity theft and liability.
Up to this point, the studios have stopped short of taking legal action against individuals.
While the campaign may thwart some computer users from downloading movies online, it's not likely to make much of a dent on file-sharing, said Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property attorney who represented software distributor StreamCast in a copyright infringement case against film and recording companies earlier this year.
"This won't do any good," Von Lohmann said. "The recording industry lawsuits don't appear to have reduced file-sharing to any meaningful degree."
- AP