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MPAA Reining In Illicit Movie Sites, Downloading Unabated

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

The 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.

The latest copyright infringement lawsuits target U.S.-based campusist.com(.pdf), movies-on-demand.tv(.pdf) and sswarez.com(.pdf) ? generally accusing them of indexing to unauthorized copies of movies on the internet.

The MPAAis 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 illegal downloadingis skyrocketing.

Interesting 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 MPAA has been winningvia default judgments or settlement agreements, and racking up millions in fines, paid or unpaid.

The Supreme Court hasn't even come close to deciding the issue. Grokser(.pdf) and Napsteraren't on point.

A pending and contested case in Los Angeles federal court against IsoHuntcould bring an answer.

Google's search engine, which can also point to illicit movie sites, has not been sued by Hollywood. But Google's YouTube site has been sued by Viacomfor allegedly allowing wanton infringement on its video-sharing site. The case is pending.

Still, an untold number of freebie sites also exist overseas, including the world's largest, The Pirate Bay. 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 copyright czar.

That is also why the MPAA is urging the incoming Obama administration to embrace internet filtering.

See Also:

• MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits ...
• MPAA Already Lobbying Obama
• MPAA Urges Obama to Embrace Internet Filtering
• RIAA, MPAA Converging on Political Conventions
• MPAA, RealNetworks Wage Court Battle Over DVD-Copying Software ...
• Imagine RIAA, MPAA in Control of Handbag Industry
• MPAA Helped Cops Nab Hundreds of Movie Pirates
• Torrentspy Dinged $111 Million in MPAA Lawsuit

Full post as published by Threat Level on December 17, 2008 (boomark / email).