Movie Industry Preparing Suits on File Sharing

[Ham n Cheese]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/bu...Y6SVSNOKR7EiJw

Hoping to head off the kind of rampant online piracy that has plagued the record industry, Hollywood's major movie studios said yesterday that they would begin filing lawsuits this month against people who make copyrighted films available for downloading over the Internet.

The lobbying group for Hollywood's seven major studios said the companies decided on the aggressive strategy after concluding that record companies suffered financial consequences because they waited too long to combat people who were sharing digital music files.

The move is the first major initiative for Dan Glickman, the former congressman and agriculture secretary in the Clinton administration, who in September became president of the Motion Picture Association of America. At a news conference at the U.C.L.A. School of Theater, Film and Television, Mr. Glickman said that after examining the issue of Internet piracy of films he concluded, "if we didn't act now, this behavior would become more and more common in American life."

Mr. Glickman, who was surrounded by leaders of Hollywood's labor unions, added that "the longer we waited, the worse it would be." Movie executives involved in the litigation said they expected as many as 230 lawsuits to be filed. Mr. Glickman would not confirm any figure.

The movie industry's decision to sue individuals adds more tension to the already uneasy relationship between the owners of intellectual property and the legions of music, movie and book fans who use the Internet to share copyrighted files.

After suing the makers and distributors of the file-sharing software programs, the record industry last year began to take aim at people who share music files. Since September 2003, the industry has sued 6,191 individuals, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

None of the music suits have gone to trial. But there have been more than 900 settlements, averaging $3,000 in damages paid to record labels, the industry group said. It asserts the lawsuits are helping reduce piracy. But by the industry's own accounting, more than 2.5 million people a day continue to trade music files on FastTrack, which the industry group says is the largest file-sharing, or peer-to-peer, network.

Independent experts, however, remain unconvinced that litigation works. Jonathan Zittrain, an expert in Internet law at Harvard Law School, said the lawsuits had had "an insubstantial effect," given the millions of people still downloading copyrighted music.

By comparison, the sharing of movie files is still quite limited. BayTSP, a company that tracks file-sharing for record labels and movie studios, reports that tens of thousands of copies of popular movies are available for downloading from file-sharing networks.

Just how many people download movie files is harder to determine, according to BayTSP and movie executives, who say they do not have an estimate of the size of the problem.

What is clear is that it currently takes significantly more time and computer power to download movies than to download songs because movies are much larger files.

Even with a high-speed Internet connection, it can take two hours to download a film, said Jim Graham, a spokesman for BayTSP. Also, the quality of the movies can be poor, according to Mr. Graham, because at least in the case of new releases, the files are created from bootlegged copies shot by people who have taken a camcorder into a theater.

Mr. Graham said that people of all ages appeared to be sharing movie files. But he said that a high percentage of people downloading files appeared to be college students, because file-sharing activity drops by 20 percent to 25 percent during summer vacation and winter holidays.

The motion picture association did not say who would be sued, nor would it say whether it would go after heavy file sharers or people who have downloaded only a handful of films. Studios are entitled to damages of up to $30,000 for each illegally downloaded film under copyright law, but in cases where intent could be proved, damages could rise to $150,000, said Simon Barsky, the association's general counsel.

Mr. Glickman acknowledged that the record industry lawsuits generated ill will among consumers, a result that concerns some movie studios, with Walt Disney voicing the most reluctance about pursuing legal action. Twentieth Century Fox and MGM have been most eager to pursue the strategy, according to studio executives involved in the issue.

Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a public-interest advocacy group that focuses on intellectual property and copyright policy, said the industry risked a public relations headache if it sued "grandmothers and 12-year-old girls."

Ms. Sohn said she also believed that the movie industry could curb piracy by offering alternatives to downloading pirated files.

At the moment, there is no convenient way to download movies legally. Part of the solution to piracy, Mr. Glickman said, will be finding a commercial structure, similar to the dollar-a-song online music stores, that can "get movies to young people."

[Fadaar]

I for one do not care, thank you and good day.

[Cybsled]

The main problem is NEW movies. Netflix and whatnot already offer options for people who want to get movies for their collections. But obviously a film that will not hit DVD for 5-7 months because it will be in theatres is not going to be offered in a legal fashion online.

Personally I think pirating movies in the theatre is really fucking lame. Seeing it in the movie theatre is part of the fun. Just go really early in the morning when there isnt alot of people there if you dont like crowds. Plus movies seem funnier when you see them in groups ;p

[Tuco]

Am I the only person who has never heard of FastTrac?

[Vorph]

FastTrack = Kazaa.

[Tuco]

Oh, heh.

I wonder if they'll try going after bittorrent.

Anyone who knows how bittorrent works on a low level: How hard would it be for someone to find your ip if you used bittorrent?

[Shogon]

Are you kidding? Open up a torrent, hit advanced. Voila...

[Fadaar]

Could probably spoof the IP I'm sure. I also never pirate movies in the theater, if I want to see it I'll pay to see it on the big screen with good quality.

[Dokomo]

How did Dan Glickman become th MPAA President? He's been a congressman from KANSAS, and AGRICULTURE Secretary. Seriously, finding old politicians to fill lobbying shoes has gone too far these days.

[Malakriss]

Oh, heh.

I wonder if they'll try going after bittorrent.

Anyone who knows how bittorrent works on a low level: How hard would it be for someone to find your ip if you used bittorrent?

Finding your IP is never a problem, since most P2Ps haven't evolved yet into using High Anonimity proxies. It's proving you did something illegal in court, or being cost effective at suing people in court. With audio files they can do a search on Kazaa or Edonkey, download all 4 MB of a song from one person and prove he had/sharing the whole thing. With Bittorrent however, all the major new releases you can have upwards of hundreds or even thousands of people on one file.

Problem is, no one person sends a complete file to another person, you have a couple hundred or thousand pieces that every other which person sent to you. So all they have a record of is hundreds of different packets from different people, none of which constitutes a whole file. Even worse still, you'd have to sue ALL those people for losses over ONE FILE, something you can't claim a lot of damages from.

Then again, there hasn't been a single one of these lawsuits that have gone to court.

[Tripamang]

Move to Canada.. =/

[Eomer]

It's a myth that file sharing is legal here, by the way. A bunch of people read a few sections of law about our "Fair Use" act or policy or whatever, took it out of context, and declared that you can happily share with whoever you want whatever you want. It's still rolling around in the courts right now, and the last judge declared that file sharing was no different than a photocopier in a library, so that's a judgement in favor of file sharing. However I doubt it will stand, because that judge was either ignorant or retarded.

The second you can put a full book on top of a photocopier and it instantly shits out an identical copy, then that judgement will hold water. However, in reality it's retarded.

For those of you considering what you want to do for a career, consider looking into Intellectual Propery law. There's going to be a ton of changes in laws and regulations over the next few decades, it will be in high demand for sure. It's going to be interesting.

*edit*

I will explain a bit more about the "fair use" shit. I don't remember how it's interpreted in terms of file sharing, to be honest. However there was an example given by a University professor in terms of copying CD"s or tapes.

According to Canadian law, it is lawful and alright to make a backup or copy of digital media if that media is in your possession (basically). You make a copy for yourself? Fine! Here's where it gets goofy, because the law never really took into account CD burners and P2P networks and everything else. If you lend that CD to a friend, and he then makes a copy, that's legal too (I can't recall what the status of your own backup is, sorry, ask a lawyer). HOWEVER! If you make a copy of it and give it to a friend, that's breaking the law.

So yeah, it's convulted and fucked up!

Also, as part of that legislation, they also created a body that administers levies on ALL blank media. The basic idea is that the blank media is, chances are, being used to copy copyrighted material, so they add a few cents or dollars or whatever to the price, collect that money, and then re-distribute it. Problem is that they've been collecting this money for years, and barely any has gone to any artists. Also, being that this is being done in Canada, collected from Canadian citizens, should the money only go to Canadian artists and labels? Or American ones too? Also, how fair is it that I personally have to pay these levies (it's invisible, just included in the sticker price) when I have made a point of buying every CD that I listen to (250 and counting). The answer is not very. Also, because politicians are idiots, when flash players first started coming out they wanted to place levies on them as well. They worded it such that ANY memory based music device would have to pay so much a megabyte or gigabyte. Problem is, these changes move so fucking slow that technology moved ahead. One second the biggest mp3 player was 64mb and they were thinking that a few bucks a megabyte was appropriate. Then they started to get bigger and bigger, and they decided that 20bucks a gigabyte would be fine. Fine my ass, my Archos piece of shit would have doubled in price.

In the end the levy hikes were suspended only temporarily. I am not entirely sure what ever happened, I am pretty sure they at the least jacked them up on CD-Rs and such, not sure about memory based mp3 players.

So yeah in short, the situation up here is every bit as fucked up and convoluted as it is down there, and as usual the only ones making any money or deriving any benefit are the lawyers.