[macintologist]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/1248...NlYwN5bmNhdA--


MPAA Expands War on Illegal File Trading

Widening its legal assault on copyright infringement, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed seven lawsuits in U.S. federal courts against search engines and news groups affiliated with peer-to-peer networks.

The suits are the first that the MPAA has filed against these kinds of sites, which may not store copyright films but contain instructions on how to download them, the industry group said this week. The sites are "sophisticated enterprises" that encourage people to download content illegally, according to the MPAA.

Some of the sites hunt for content on widely-used P-to-P platforms such as eDonkey and BitTorrent. They include ***************, which the MPAA says is the most popular site for obtaining content using Torrent software. The site offers 160,000 movies, songs, and TV shows, the MPAA said.

A cursory search at *************** on Friday uncovered the new film release "Walk the Line," about the life of country-music star Johnny Cash, along with a "torrent," or piece of metadata that instructs a downloading program where to receive the file. The install notes read: "Burn and See--Enjoy!"

Another Case
Last week, a 25-year-old man was charged with copyright infringement in the U.S. after MPAA officials duped him in a chatroom into posting "Walk The Line" on a protected server they had set up. The copy of the movie had been intended for an Oscar film awards juror who failed to receive it by mail.

Other affiliates of the Torrent network targeted in the lawsuits include Isohunt.com, BTHub.com, Torrentbox.com, and NiteShadow.com. The MPAA also sued Ed2k-It.com, associated with eDonkey, and three membership-based Web sites: NZB-Zone.com, BinNews.com, and DVDRs.net, it says.

Separately, Swiss authorities on Wednesday arrested the operator of Razorback2, one of the major indexing servers for eDonkey, while Belgian police seized its hardware at a site near Brussels. The shutdown had little effect on the network's traffic, however, as more than 300 index servers remained active, experts say.

[subego]

Why is *************** censored?

Is there a legal reason, or is it a "MacNN frowns on piracy" sort of thing?

[bradoesch]

Here we go again...

I often wonder what things we be like if they had left Napster alone. Would Bit Torrent be popular if most clueless internet users were still happy with Napster?

[Dakar]

How long till they start suing the actors for taking part in movies that people will download?

[ryaxnb]

*************** *************** torrentspy.c-om tor{rentspy}.com
Testing out the censors

[CharlesS]

Oh give me a break. How is it unreasonable for the MPAA to sue sites that are set up for the sole purpose of helping people pirate stuff?

[His Dudeness]

Can I sue the MPAA for churning out nothing but **** and crap movies for the last few years?

[Rumor]

Originally Posted by His Dudeness

Can I sue the MPAA for churning out nothing but **** and crap movies for the last few years?

Perhaps we can do a class action lawsuit for Gigli?

[Kevin]

Take one down, 10 more pop up.

[itistoday]

*************** torrent spy [dot] com
eh... ^-- fairly ridiculous

[His Dudeness]

Originally Posted by Rumor

Perhaps we can do a class action lawsuit for Gigli?

I almost had to poke my eyes out after that one.