$4M MPAA ShowStash, Cinematube, judgments
p2pnet news | MPAA News:- Still flushed after its Torrentspy win, Hollywood is claiming two more victories following multi-million dollar judgments against Showstash.com and Cinematube.com.
A federal judge in Los Angeles yesterday issued a judgment against Showstash, ordering it to pay the studios $2.7 million for the alleged infringement copyrighted movies and TV shows.
Earlier in the month, Cinematube was ordered to pay $1.3 million.
“ShowStash and Cinematube infringed the studios copyrights by actively searching for, identifying, collecting, organizing, indexing, and posting on their websites links to illegal copies of motion pictures and television shows, which had been posted on third party websites, allowing Internet users to locate and view the content,” says the MPAA, adding:
“The judgments prohibit the defendants from engaging in any other activity that would infringe the studios’ copyrighted works.”
Before its demise, “Showstash is a cool site because it has a ton of recent movies that you can check out,” it said, going on:
“Sure, the quality is going to be a little less than perfect in most instances and it is no substitute for watching a movie on the big screen or on HDTV, but come on it’s free. You can get a nice taste for how good a movie is without yet purchasing it. But if you find a movie that you enjoy, you probably are going to go out and rent or buy it so you can watch it in all it’s glory. Everybody wins.”
Torrentspy says it’ll appeal the $100 million judgment against it.
“What is really going on here is a Hollywood public-relations stunt,” said TorrentSpy lawyer Ira Rothken.
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.Stumble It!
Torrentspy win – `$100 million judgment PR stunt`: TorrentSpy
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May 21st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
posting links!
May 21st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Thier own fault for hosting in a fascist country. They should have hosted it in a Democratic country instead.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Are either of these sites hosted in the US or are we seeing default judgements made with plaintiffs only present ?
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:40 am
“links to illegal copies”
Since when is linking illegal? And what is an illegal copy?
This court decision means that all linkers in California (in another American court district the rule may be different) a have to research each linked site to insure that all images, video and sound files are “authorized”, (each day, just in case the linked site is changed).
There is no way that anyone with a web site can check linked sites to make sure the site is legal in accordance with the law and jurisprudence and customs of the linked site’s country. It would be too much of a burden and another court district, one without a movie industry, may agree and the copyright law confusion will further grow in America.
An advise, throw the bum judges out.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 am
Yes, linking to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link is illegal didn’t you know?? rofl, these countries are collapsing under their own absurdity.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Does not matter.
They can sue the entire world it is not make us go and buy RIAA/MPAA crap anymore period!
They are wasting their time and money.
That’s all.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
has this judge ever read the DMCA?
by this logic, google is on the hook for 98% of everything hosted on megaupload, rapidshare et al.
is there some special law that says it’s only illegal when you ‘organize’ your links to pirated movies on third-party sites, or maybe when you advertise your site with a pirate-sounding name?
maybe the mpaa plan is to win a couple of judgments against small guys that don’t have money to appeal, to fool somebody into thinking some kind of DMCA-trumping no-link precedent has been established.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I’m still waiting for Google to be sued
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
>maybe the mpaa plan is to win a couple of judgments against small guys that donât have money to appeal, to fool somebody into thinking some kind of DMCA-trumping no-link precedent has been established.
I think you might be on to something.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
This is ridiculous. That’s like suing bloggers who link to file storers. They may not have even uploaded files themselves. If I provided a link to Jamendo would that be illegal? Even though the music is free, it would have a copyright.
These sites, which I’d never heard of till now, do NOT infringe copyright. They are not involved in distribution. They do not host the files even. Even if they did, it doesn’t prove anyone has downloaded them.
Since these movies offered are in a vastly different format to the originals, perhaps they are derivative works not subject to copyright.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Perhaps it’s not so much what they’ve done, but that they seem to agree with file sharing. The thought police are on their way
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:11 am
“maybe the mpaa plan is to win a couple of judgments against small guys that donât have money to appeal, to fool somebody into thinking some kind of DMCA-trumping no-link precedent has been established.”
Win a couple of judgements? No, buy a couple of judges is the more likely strategy. Here, for the benefit of the naiive, this is how to do it:
1. Get a lawyer that is good at buying off judges. They are found mostly a large law firms (how do you think they got large?).
2. File a lawsuit in a district where judges are for sale.
3. Pay to have a corrupt judge hear the case. The case assignment system is very corrupt, so this step is easy.
4. If the above does not work, remember the skeleton in the closets of most judges. After all, they did a lot of stupid things when they were lawyes defending drug dealers and corrupt clients. The closet skeletons are very useful when the judge knows the plaintiff lawyer knows.