Linking to movies leads to $4 million in fines

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: ken <ken () nextgencommunications net>
> Date: May 25, 2008 6:24:54 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Linking to movies leads to $4 million in fines

> Dave,
>
> I would like to suggest that this story might make for an interesting
> discussion on your list. If I understand the full ramifications of  
> this
> verdict, anyone (theoretically) could be held responsible if they  
> linked
> to a site that had pirated material.
>
> Ken DiPietro/CEO
> NextGenCommunications
> Home/Office (301)789-2968
> www.NextGenCommunications.net
> Communication without Concession
>
>
> Linking to movies leads to $4 million in fines
>
> Hollywood has been granted another victory in its war against piracy,
> this time at the expense of two linking sites that the Motion Picture
> Association of America believes profited from enabling copyright
> infringement. Both ShowStash.net and Cinematube.net have been hit with
> multimillion dollar judgments recently for copyright infringement of
> various movies and TV shows.
>
> Even though ShowStash and Cinematube didn't host any of these files,
> both were found guilty of contributory copyright infringement,  
> according
> to the judges' opinions, because they searched for, identified,
> collected, and indexed links to illegal copies of movies and TV shows.
> Aside from monetary damages, both sites are now prohibited from  
> engaging
> in further activity that would infringe upon the studios' work.
>
> The damages totaled $2.7 million for ShowStash and $1.3 million for
> Cinematube, neither of which were particularly well-known to the  
> general
> Internet community. The MPAA doesn't seem to care much that it gives
> free publicity to these tiny sites when it makes announcements of its
> litigation plans, however. The organization apparently hopes that  
> others
> will merely feel threatened by the prospect of paying out millions of
> dollars and shut down voluntarily.
> [snip]
>
>
> At the risk of incurring the MPAA's wrath, the full story is available
> through the link below:
> http://shrinkify.com/7eo



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