View & Download Movies & Trailers From Official Artists
New Movies In Theaters This Week!
New DVD Movies Now Available This Week!
|
|
INTERNET MOVIE NEWS
Music Industry, Internet Firms Face Off Over Piracy Case by Drew Clark Senior Writer, National Journal's Technology Daily
According to the article:
"The recording industry and Internet companies are squaring off again in court on opposite sides of a lawsuit pitting the one-man Web site InternetMovies.com against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
The Web site is devoted to information about forthcoming movies and includes hyperlinks to movie studio "trailers," and the site's creator, Michael Rossi, is now suing the MPAA for demanding that his Internet service provider (ISP) remove his site under a provision of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The MPAA became suspicious that the site was engaging in piracy when its automated search program "Ranger" found language on the site declaring, "Join to download full-length movies online now." Although InternetMovies does not violate copyrights, the ISP removed the site for three days in 2001 before Rossi could demonstrate that he had no infringing material on the site.
Based in Kahului, Hawaii, Rossi sued for damages but lost in federal district court in April 2003. Rossi has appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and last month some of the leading technology firms and ISPs filed a "friend of the court" brief seeking to rein in the entertainment industry's power under the 1998 law.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) also has said it will file an amicus brief seeking to sustain the MPAA's victory on appeal, Rossi said.
"They have labeled me a pirate, and it has tarnished my reputation for the Web site," Rossi said in an interview. He said he was pleased that his lawsuit "might be setting a precedent to change the 'good faith' procedures" in the DMCA.
The Internet Commerce Coalition (ICC) filed the brief, and AT&T, BellSouth, the Competitive Telecommunications Association, eBay, MCI, SBC Communications, the U.S. Telecom Association and Verizon Communications joined it. NetCoalition, which includes Yahoo, Lycos and Verio, co-filed the brief.
Time Warner, which is a member of both ICC and the RIAA, did not join the brief.
Unlike a ruling in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that ISPs need not obey "takedown" notices about peer-to-peer users, the InternetMovies case involves the proper standard for entertainment companies filing takedown notices. According to the DMCA, copyright holders only need to cite a "good-faith belief" that copyright infringement is occurring.
"I could be crazy and believe in good faith" that someone is an Internet pirate, said ICC attorney Jim Halpert of the Piper and Rudnick law firm. "The question is whether I have done sufficient research to be able to have an objectively reasonable good-faith belief."
(Read More)
MIT Lawyers to Respond To Subpoena Over Tupac
According to the article:
"Tupac may be dead, but his lawyers are not. On Dec. 10, MIT received a subpoena from Paramount Pictures asking who is responsible for an MIT computer that allegedly distributed illegal copies of the film “Tupac: Resurrection.”
The Internet address provided by Paramount belongs to a computer at the headquarters of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The studio said it was able to download an unauthorized copy of the film at 1:40 a.m. on Dec. 4, and has asked MIT to identify the person responsible."
(Read More)
British music industry, P2P and suing the kids
According to the article:
"On Tuesday, the Director General of the BPI, the UK's equivalent of the RIAA, took on the former CEO of Grokster before an audience of MPs and industry representatives in the country's first Parliamentary Advisory Forum on P2P technology.
The Westminster debate was anything but dull. "These guys really hate each other," concluded one observer. The individuals probably don't – but their respective businesses certainly do. Hackers and security experts can find a modicum of mutual respect through shared enthusiasm for technology; but the gloves come off when the music and P2P representatives enter the ring"
(Read More)
Entertainment industry hits enterprises with legal threats
According to the article:
"Enterprises better brace for copyright infringement court battles. The music and movie industries recently sent notice to about 300 companies that they intend to sue, claiming they have evidence that employees downloaded illegally obtained content at work.
The announcement marks a new, if predicted, target for the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America. The RIAA last year vigorously launched Internet-based piracy against hundreds of home users. Then a judge took issue with how the media groups gained those names from ISPs. Now, the entertainment industry is going after deeper pockets."
(Read More)
Illegal downloading seems to be dropping off, at least in U.S.
According to the article:
"The music industry’s fondest hopes might actually have come true: The much-publicized lawsuits against those who illegally “share” copyrighted music have slowed online music piracy, say the authors of two independent studies released this week.
The first, from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, is dramatic, though it comes with an asterisk. It required respondents to be honest about an activity that most now understand is unlawful. And, for legal reasons, Pew researchers did not include data from minors, though studies say most school-age kids see nothing wrong with filching tunes."
(Read More)
Senator Plans P2P Summit
According to the article:
"U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman plans to convene a peer-to-peer (P2P) summit within the next two months in hopes of avoiding a federally mandated response to online piracy. The Minnesota Republican said the answers to protecting copyrighted material are more likely to be found through technological innovation rather than passage of more laws."
(Read More)
Oscar preview films appear on net
According to the article:
"Copies of two new films starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson that were sent on video to Oscars voters have been found to download on the internet."
(Read More)
New Anti-Swap CDs Hit Shelves
According to the article:
""Watch out for the new Anthony Hamilton CD, Coming From Where I'm From. The CD has two sets of tracks: one set of "encrypted" songs that can be handled by CD players but cannot be ripped, and a duplicate set of tracks in WMA format. In CD players, the disc plays normally (in theory). When put into a computer, the disc installs software to keep the music secure, but allows you to copy some or all of the Windows Media tracks to your hard drive. What a shame that I'm running Linux and my portable MP3 player doesn't support WMA.""
(Read More)
CyberLink PowerDVD Ups Protection of Recordable Media
According to the article:
"CyberLink Corp. announced its flagship product, CyberLink PowerDVD, is the world's first DVD software to support Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) on the PC. Users will now be able to watch their CPRM-standard discs on their computers using PowerDVD."
(Read More)
The answer to video piracy?
According to the article:
"Stop me if you've heard this one: A novel form of media distribution is promising to launch lucrative new content services, but the industries involved can't agree on how to protect them from theft or how to split the revenues they generate."
"So why aren't PC makers pushing for video on demand? Because they, like the broadband service providers, worry that consumers will resist products with built-in security measures, such as embedded chips that prevent the copying of films or songs without the copyright holder's permission."
(Read More)
Congressional leaders promise action on tech
According to the article:
"Debate was more unified on intellectual property issues, with lawmakers saying that while Congress will continue to support strong copyright protection, media industries need to come up with their own solutions to file-swapping and other issues.
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., joined others in criticizing the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for suing alleged music swappers, calling the RIAA's legal tactics heavy-handed and against the intent of U.S. copyright laws, including the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
"The fundamental problem with the approach of the RIAA took is that it was based on legislation that created special property rights," Sununu said. "Suddenly, you had a private entity that's able to issue subpoenas, which is unprecedented."
"That's not what the DMCA was intended to do," he said. "We can't be writing legislation that gives holders of certain types of intellectual property special rights...We can't carve out special legislation to give special powers to certain types of content.""
(Read More)
A Hollywood nightmare
According to the article:
"Associated Press report here, thin was in at Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.
And that included a digital camcorder roughly the size of a Pez dispenser from Philips, complete with a 1.5-gigabyte hard drive able store up to 24 minutes of video.
During the same show Toshiba introduced a teeny hardrive.
Plug a video recorder such as Philips' into a drive such as Toshiba's and you've got a camcorder that'll give Hollywood nightmares."
(Read More)
The myth of online piracy
According to the article:
"They're highly exclusive, and extremely reclusive. Their names and locations change frequently - very frequently - and the only way you find them is if you're on a list or chat, also ever-changing. Or you get a phast phone call or a heavily encrypted email."
(Read More)
|
|
© 1997-2004 InternetMovies.com Inc.™
|
|
