| MPAA Companies Take Action Against Torrent, |
 |
 |
|
encourage people to traffic in copyrighted motion pictures, televisions shows, music, software and games. Torrentspy.com and Isohunt.com are two of the most popular sites used for finding pirated content. By taking action against these sites today, MPAA aims to build on its effort to shut down major pirate networks by thwarting their supply of illegal materials and their means of distribution. Website operators who abuse technology to facilitate infringements of copyrighted works by millions of people are not anonymous they can and will be stopped, said John G. Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA. Disabling these powerful networks of illegal file distribution is a significant step in stemming the tide of piracy on the Internet. These sites are sophisticated enterprises designed to make vast quantities of illegal content available with a single click of a mouse. Torrentspy.com boasts over 48,300 files of movie and television shows available to users, and divides its available movie content by genres, and even includes movies illegally camcorded in a theater (cam) as a subcategory. Torrentbox.com, working in conjunction with Isohunt, boasts of enabling over one million illegal downloads of Fantastic Four and over 4.4 million downloads of Alien 2. Todays lawsuits mark the first time the MPAA is taking action against sites that enable users of Newsgroups to easily find and download illegal content. Newsgroups are electronic bulletin boards which in recent years have become a major source of pirated content as users are able to attach movie, music and games files to their messages. The following is a list of the sites being sued by the MPAA and its member companies. Torrent Sites: Isohunt.com, BTHub.com and TorrentBox.com: These related Torrent sites facilitate downloads of over 140,000 content items, including popular movies and television shows such as Wedding Crashers, Lost and Desperate Housewives. TorrentSpy.com is the worlds most-visited site for obtaining infringing content using Torrent software. The site offers over 160,000 content items including 27,182 movies, 21,130 TV shows and over 45,000 music items. NiteShadow.com has over 24,000 registered members and offers over 1,000 sciencefiction TV and movie content including Battlestar Galactica, Quantum Leap, Sliders, Stargate, Babylon 5 and multiple Star Trek series. eDonkey: Ed2k-It.com is a leading eDonkey site, with over 46,000 registered site members. eDonkey sites provide easy one-click access to specific content items on their peer-topeer network. Newsgroups: NZB-Zone.com, BinNews.com and DVDRs.net are membership-based websites that enable users of Newsgroups to initiate easy downloads of infringing content. NZB-Zone offers over 3.3 million files, including Star Wars Episode III, Wedding Crashers, Chronicles of Narnia, 40 Year-Old Virgin and King Kong; BinNews.com offers files for over 3,000 movies; and DVDRs.net has over 37,000 members. Todays lawsuits are part of MPAAs international campaign against online piracy which has experienced some significant victories as of late. Last week the server facilitating one of the largest Torrent sites in the Netherlands, Dikkedonder, was shut down and on Monday, Belgian and Swiss authorities shut down Razorback2 -- the number one eDonkey server in the world which facilitated the illegal file swapping by approximately 1.3 million simultaneous users. The MPAAs strategy focuses on all levels of Internet piracy to cut off the major suppliers of illegal files and at the same time curtail facilitation of illegal file swapping by peer-to-peer networks. Approximately 75 Torrent and eDonkey sites have been shut down in the last year as a result of these efforts. The MPAA and its member companies have a multi-pronged approach to fighting piracy, which includes educating people about the consequences of piracy, taking action against Internet thieves, working with law enforcement authorities around the world to root out pirate operations and working to ensure movies are available legally using advanced technology. The MPAA estimates that the film industry lost approximately $3.5 billion to movie piracy in 2004, a total that does not include losses due to Internet piracy. According to a study by Smith Barney, predicted losses were $5.4 billion in 2005 when including Internet piracy. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites          Add your comment
|
||||
