Hollywood Sues BitTorrent Server Operators

Found on CIO Today on Saturday, 18 December 2004
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The latest MPAA copyright infringement suits expand on a new U.S. film industry initiative that first targeted individual file-swappers. This time, the defendants are operators of servers supporting BitTorrent, the program of choice for online sharers of large files.

Hollywood movie studios on Tuesday sued scores of operators of computer servers that help relay digital movie files across online file-sharing networks.

"Today's actions are aimed at individuals who deliberately set up and operate computer servers and Web sites that, by design, allow people to infringe copyrighted motion pictures," said John Malcolm, head of the Motion Picture Association of America's antipiracy unit.

"These people are parasites, leeching off the creativity of others," Malcolm added. "Their illegal conduct is brazen and blatant."

The suits target computer servers that index movies for BitTorrent users, but Malcolm said the MPAA is eyeing similar action against other servers as well.

"By bringing these suits, the MPAA runs the risk of pushing the tens of millions of file sharers to more decentralized technologies that will be harder to police," von Lohmann said.

If it wasn't clear until now: I hate the entertainment industry. Not because I cannot download movies (something I don't do since current productions are not worth a cent anyway), but because of their constant fights. They do make money. A lot, in fact. I didn't see a Hollywood actor going bankrupt. Those moves only make users (read: customers) angry and push the development of better P2P applications. They have to re-think their business model. Until then, I will not buy a single CD/DVD.