MPAA targets TV download sites
By
John Borland, CNET News.com
Published on
ZDNet News: May 12, 2005, 12:47 PM PT
Continuing its war on Internet file-swapping sites, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it has filed lawsuits against a half-dozen hubs for TV show trading. The trade association said that piracy of TV programming is growing quickly online, and that shows are as important to protect as big-budget films. This is the first legal action from the group that has focused most heavily on TV content.
"Every television series depends on other markets (such as) syndication and international sales to earn back the enormous investment required to produce the comedies and dramas we all enjoy," MPAA Chief Executive Officer Dan Glickman said in a statement. "Those markets are substantially hurt when that content is stolen."
The latest round of suits retains a focus on BitTorrent technology, which has been widely used online to distribute movies and films.
The suits are focused on the sites that serve as traffic directors for BitTorrent swaps, rather than on individual computer users uploading and downloading content. The MPAA also has sued individuals, but has not said how many people have been targeted.
The six sites sued Thursday include ShunTV, Zonatracker, Btefnet, Scifi-Classics, CDDVDHeaven and Bragginrights
Thursday, May 12, 2005
MPAA Suing TV Sharers
Just to make sure I have not missed anything... I can buy a VHS tape from the grocery store, Best Buy, even Wal-Mart, then I could tape a TV show and show that tape to my friends and copy it as many times as I would like... but if I download that TV show off Bittorrent I am infringing upon a copyright?
What?!? Am I missing something?
I have been turned on to numerous shows that I have missed by downloading episodes from bittorrent (24, Lost, Penn & Teller Bullshit). I have never waited for a show on bittorent that I could watch as it is fed to my home initially. So, why is the MPAA shutting down bittorrent websites? Do they want people to not have an easy and free introductory medium to their shows? Do they think that TV that is encoded in XVID or DIVX is comparable to a full-featured DVD release?
Bittorrent allows people the ability to begin watching a show at any time in the season, not just the beginning. This increases the TV Network's viewership... then increasing profits.
I must say that the MPAA is out of line. I will admit that copyright infringers of DVD releases do lessen the profit margins of MPAA properties (I will admit I have never downloaded a movie), but TV sharing is something that is over the airwaves (and realistically just a copy of something they can get in their home for free) and allows the casual viewer the ability to catch-up and become an everyday viewer of their TV program.
I imagine that a statistical analysis of this data would show that TV filesharing does nothing but increase the viewership of programs. Idiots...
Read about this
here... or
here... either way, you will be sickened by the MPAA. Why not throw in the unwashed's
Slashdot talkback as well to see how the trolls and unthinking view this issue...
Categories:
tv,
censorship,
mpaa,
p2p
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