MPAA TAKES NEW ACTION AGAINST
TV SHOW THIEVES
Notes Decrease in BitTorrent Activity Since Recent Campaign Began
Los Angeles -- In its ongoing effort to crack down on Internet thieves who steal
the copyrighted creative works of its member studios, the Motion Picture
Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) today announced that it is filing lawsuits
against six highly trafficked BitTorrent websites responsible for the illegal
swapping of millions of dollars of motion picture and television programming.
This is the first time that the MPAA has targeted TV-oriented sites for illegally
swapping TV shows which has become a serious and growing problem. An
Internet-monitoring company called Envisional reported recently that TV show
piracy increased by 150 percent just in the past year.
“Internet thievery of all creative materials is unacceptable and these
thieves need to realize they are not anonymous,” said MPAA President and
CEO Dan Glickman. “There are thousands of people in the entertainment
industry who are working to develop, produce, and promote television
shows. Those shows and those jobs are worth protecting. Every
television series depends on other markets-syndication, international sales
– to earn back the enormous investment required to produce the comedies
and dramas we all enjoy and those markets are substantially hurt when that
content is stolen. On these sites, anyone in the world can download entire
television seasons in a single click.”
MPAA officials said they have been making progress in shutting down many of
the BitTorrent sites that are dedicated to illegally swapping movies. Over 90
percent of the sites that have been sued have been shut down entirely. The
percent of servers that are operating have decreased by well over 40 percent.
On some of these torrent site’s original homepages like Lokitorrent, UK Torrent
and s0nicfreak there now app
ears the MPAA warning message: “You Can Click
But You Cannot Hide.” (
http://www.uk-torrents.com/ http://www.uk-torrents.net/
http://www.s0nicfreak.com/ http://www.lokitorrent.com/ ) MPAA said it hopes to work
with these torrent sites to provide entertainment products legally like it does with
Napster.
“Since we began shutting these sites down, the time that it takes to
download a file on BitTorrent has increased exponentially which means the
experience of downloading copyrighted films and TV shows is not what it
used to be,” said Glickman. “We intend to make it even worse. Protecting
the television industry is essential.”
Below is a list of the six BitTorrent sites being sued by the MPAA. Together,
these sites facilitate the illegal swapping of copyrighted material to over
100,000 people daily.
ShunTV [
www.shuntv.net] ShunTV specializes in distributing recent television
shows. It has around 10,000 registered users. A regular team of users (dubbed
"TeamTV") appears to upload content on a daily basis as shows are broadcast.
The site even includes a "Calendar" of television programs showing the date of
broadcast and whether a copy is available on the server.
Zonatracker [
www.zonatracker.com] Zonatracker is mostly in Spanish and has
over 2500 users. It offers hundreds of popular movies, including many movies
still in theaters. The Zonatracker tracker is also used by another Spanishlanguage
torrent site, Zonadivx.com.
Btefnet [
www.btefnet.net] This torrent site and the eight associated servers
specialize in distributing television shows. The torrent site shows that there are
over 48,000 registered users seeding files on the servers.
Scifi-Classics [scifi-classics.net] This site is designed to distribute science fiction
content. Torrents are posted in the forum section and tracked by the associated
server. There are over 1600 registered users in the forum section.
CDDVDHeaven [cddvdheaven.co.uk] This site has over 8000 registered users,
and averaged over 1500 visits a day in March 2005 according to statistics
posted on the site. It currently lists over 100 torrents for a variety of movies and
televisions shows. The site profits by giving privileges to users who make
monetary contributions to the site, allowing them faster downloading speeds
without requiring them to upload torrents.
Bragginrights [
www.bragginrights.biz] Bragginrights has over 12,000 registered
users and a wide variety of torrents, including those for films currently in
theaters. It solicits donations to make money.
About the MPAA:
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) serves as the voice and advocate of the
American motion picture, home video and television industries from its offices in Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C. These members include: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution; Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer Studios Inc.; Paramount Pictures; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century
Fox Film Corporation; Universal Studios from Universal City Studios; and Warner Bros.
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Originally Posted by Dave
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