p2pnet.net News:- InternetMovies.com owner Michael Jay Rossi’s New Year resolution for 2005 is take the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to the US Supreme Court.

He wants it to review Rossi vs MPAA, claiming the MPAA was responsible for the wrongful shutdown of InternetMovies.com in 2001 and that the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is unconstitutional.

The MPAA accused him of pirating Lord of the Rings - Return of the King.

Acting on information provided through ‘Ranger’ detection software, it said Rossi made Return of the King available for illegal download, and had his site shut down for alleged piracy and copyright violation under the DMCA.

Good collar, as they’d say in the UK?

Unfortunately, this happened nine months before the first in the Ring series had even been completed.

Rossi filed a complaint against the MPAA in April 2002 for the wrongful closure of his site. The United States District Court of Hawaii ruled in favor of the MPAA in May 2003.

“The Ninth Circuit Court ruled good faith belief under the (DMCA) is subjective and not objective,” says Rossi, going on:

“The MPAA stated, under penalty of perjury, that in 2001 www.InternetMovies.com made available for illegal download the third installment of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ which was not actually finished until 2003.

“The MPAA issued a cease and desist order to InternetMovies.com’s ISP to shut down the site.”

According to Rossi, “MPAA communications with my ISP were unreasonable and outrageous and without just cause or excuse and beyond all bounds of decency - violating the DMCA. The courts must have overlooked that I could not have made a movie downloadable 3 years in the future, which shows that the MPAA was not within the boundaries of decency and that the court should not have ruled in favor of the MPAA.”

On his web page outlining events in Hawaii, on May 4, when he arrived at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, “The MPAA told the court that they sent out over 30,000 cease and desist (C&D) letters that year and I was the only one to fight back,” says Rossi.

“Well Ya! Who has the money and the time to fight back? It is damn scary to fight the MPAA! I know it took me one year to get over the fear of being killed and saying to my self: ‘I will die before they take my rights away from me’.”

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See:-
‘Ranger’ detection software - MPAA claims movie was pirated, p2pnet, December 6, 2003
good faith belief - MPAA Shakes In Their Boots At Oral Arguments At Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals In Hawaii; A Personal Account of Events, Michael Rossi

This entry was posted on Friday, December 31st, 2004 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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