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Los Angeles – The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on behalf of several of its member studios today filed a lawsuit against the operators of the download hub service Hotfile (www.hotfile.com) for copyright infringement. Hotfile facilitates the theft of copyrighted motion picture and television properties on a staggering scale and profits handsomely from encouraging and providing the means for massive copyright infringement.
“In less than two years Hotfile has become one of the 100 most trafficked sites in the world. That is a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes. Everyday Hotfile is responsible for the theft of thousands of MPAA member companies’ movies and TV shows – including movies still playing in theaters – many of which are stolen repeatedly, thousands of times a day, every single day,” said Daniel Mandil, General Counsel & Chief Content Protection Officer for the MPAA. “The theft taking place on Hotfile is unmistakable. Their files are indeed ‘hot,’ as in ‘stolen.’ It’s wrong and it must stop.”
Sometimes referred to as cyberlockers, download hubs like Hotfile bear no resemblance to legitimate online locker services. In fact, Hotfile openly discourages use of its system for personal storage. Hotfile’s business model encourages and incentivizes users to upload files containing illegal copies of motion pictures and TV shows to its servers and to third-party sites, so unlimited users can download the stolen content – in many cases tens of thousands of times. Hotfile profits from this theft by charging a monthly fee to users who download content from its servers. Hotfile also operates an incentive scheme that rewards users for uploading the most popular files – which are almost exclusively copyrighted works. Hotfile profits richly while paying nothing to the studios for their stolen content.
Hotfile is operated by Anton Titov, a foreign national residing in Florida. The studios are suing Hotfile and Titov for direct infringement for unlawfully distributing copyrighted works, inducement of infringement, contributory infringement and vicarious infringement, for actively promoting, enabling and profiting from their users’ copyright infringement. A civil lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida for damages and injunctive relief for violations under the United States Copyright Act of 1976.
“Digital theft is not just a Hollywood problem. It’s an American problem,” Mandil said. “More than 2.4 million hardworking, middle-class Americans spanning all 50 states rely on the motion picture and television industry for their livelihoods. For all these workers and their families, digital theft means declining incomes, lost jobs and reduced health and retirement benefits.”
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Yeah, keep fighting the future by suing people. Meanwhile, files and their names will be obfuscated and it will all continue while you grow an aneurysm.
And your suggestion? Should we all just give up on making quality (expensive) programming? I’m guessing you’re more of a downloader, enraged at the thought of having to pay for what you watch, than you are a creative type – no?
Just like the MPAA, you attack the poster instead of the problem. Meanwhile you get to lose your war and go down in self-righteous flames. Doesn’t matter if he’s a downloader or not, you’re not gonna take down bootlegging by getting indignant on a message board or by suing websites like Hotfile. Movie guys: change your business model and suck it up. Get creative or die. Alot of people made alot of speeches when prohibition failed and in the end, they stopped trying to shame the bootleggers and the consumers and just caved.
Clearly you have this business model which will allow high-quality content to be produced, and for everyone involved to continue making a living. Since no one else has hit on it yet, whenever you’re ready, feel free to share it with us.
High quality content will just have to become less synonymous with highly expensive content. There are creatives all over the globe breaking their balls for crumbs who would gladly fill the shoes of the overpaid, for the same cash they’re earning right now.
Personally I want more film and less industry. Imagine that, a world where creatives make films for the sake of making films, where actors aren’t getting paid $20m dollars for a single movie, oh the horror….Most of us who are lucky enough to be employed work jobs we hate and don’t reap handsome rewards, we scrape by, but we’re supposed to break out the violins for the entertainment industry? Spare me please.
I am not certain I understand your point. It appears you advocate THEFT. I am all for this lawsuit because I, like many other people, rely on the production and distribution of copyrighted material for my livelihood. When people STEAL IT, I ultimately get LESS PAY or am not paid at all.
You’re drawing a lot of conclusions that aren’t necessarily supported by evidence. For starters, a lot of people willing to click and watch substandard versions of movies for free are NOT people who would be willing to pay to watch that same movie in a “legitimate” form. They’re doing it because it’s free and relatively convenient. Take away their ability to watch crappy handycam versions of movies for free, and they won’t start paying for them, they’ll stop watching altogether.
Secondly, a huge percentage of people who watch pirated movies online actually WOULD be willing to pay a reasonable amount for a high-quality streaming/downloadable version, but they simply do not have that option. The studios are doing their damndest to keep people trudging out to Blockbuster and the shelves of WalMart to purchase their product. It’s insane.
Look at iTunes in the post-Napster age and the BILLIONS it’s bringing into the music industry. People are willing to pay to consume content when they have a convenient way to do so.
The studios are still fighting wars at the brick-and-mortar level (Blockbuster, Redbox, WalMart), and are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. They need to adapt or die.
The lessons of the recording industry are SO painfully apparent, it’s sad to see corporate monoliths acting like corporate monoliths and learning nothing from that experience.
What the fuck are you talking about? Apple’s iTunes owns over two thirds of the download-to-own and Internet video-on-demand markets, and they are currently selling SOCIAL NETWORK, LET ME IN, CONVICTION, etc. The studios have already adapted this model.
The problem is that consumers are very picky these days about spending money they either don’t have, or may not have in another 6 months. Those that do pirate movies don’t do it to add to their collections obviously as the visuals are of course crappy.
Many (likely most) of them pirate in order to evaluate whether they’d like an actual copy of the film that isn’t crappy. If the story sucks, they won’t bother.
I’ve personally seen my budgets go down about 40% on productions because file sharing/pirating/illegal downloads greatly decreases our projections compared to numbers from 5/6 years ago.
What amazes me is that the people who love these movies/anime/etc are directly affecting the quality and quantity that they love so much they will break the law to steal for free.
Eventually, the content they want to see won’t be made anymore and they’ll have nothing to download except crappy/youtube quality content.
It will serve them right if all they can download is LAME You Tube content. I have looked at You Tube a grand total of 3 times my entire life.
Thank you Karen for the comment about how YouTube is so lame. We post our newscasts on YouTube so we can get our message out to the American people and military overseas. Not all YouTube posts are copyright infringements or “lame” crap. Please educate yourself before you open your mouth and bash something you obviously know nothing about.
One answer is to listen to the audience: It’s screaming that it has no patience for theatrical distribution windows and won’t even wait three hours to see a prime-time show on the west coast when the off-shore uploaders have already placed the east coast airing online.
The solution to that would be to place everything immediately online, no waiting until after x weeks in theaters or x days/hours after network airings. Of course, the problem with that solution is it badly hurts theatrical distributors and television affiliates.
And where’s the revenue stream? Unfortunately, it’s going to have to come from ads, because an entire generation is growing up on high bandwidth and the belief that “information wants to be free!” and never mind that mortgages need to be paid.
Here’s an example of something that *might* work: Pandora radio originally offered unlimited free listening with ads or by subscription without ads. The subscription was only $36 a year and according to their CEO, almost no one subscribed. Finally, Pandora sent around a letter to its users advising them that it was limiting usage to non-subscribers. At the same time, it had also introduced far more intrusive ads. Suddenly subscribing was a win-win. Maybe that sort of get ‘em addicted and threaten to cut ‘em off model might work. A cautionary tale: It didn’t work for the New York Times. (I don’t know how the Hulu “you can get more!” subscription model is working.)
In short, it’s a mess, but we’ve got to figure it out and soon.
With respect to madathackers excellent point, I should have written, “mortgages and *production costs* need to be paid.”
More big-screen remakes of ’80s TV shows! No, wait, we’ve pretty much exhausted that one. How about big screen remakes of ’70s TV shows! When we’re done with that, we can raid the ’60s! Then the ’50s! Then the ’40s! When we’re through cannibalizing our film vaults, we can start cannibalizing the comic book — wait, no, that’s almost gone too. Um, let’s make movies based on YouTube videos? Yeah, that’s the ticket!
How about having films available for download (at a price) IMMEDIATELY.
Okay, so the theater owners lose some money – but the production team earns theirs.
Ebooks are now selling more then their counterpart hard-cover-copies and bookstores are feeling the pinch, but writers get paid.
Why should today’s consumer pay for real-estate and after all isn’t that what theater owners and bookstore owners provide?
papa
stas
All models are moving in this direction. What we’re doing now with regard to theaters (3D) is only staving off the eventual collapse.
The problem here is that it’s not only Hotfile that host stuff like this, there are literally dozens – if not hundreds – of websites who offer these services. Many of which reside in countries that would simply ignore anything the MPAA advises them (in the strongest possible language) to do. So even if the MPAA succeed in stopping Hotfile doing this, like they did with the Mininova bit-torrent website a few years ago, there are still other websites out there just as there are still other bit-torrent websites out there. And the practice will still go on, no matter what those of us who are against it can do about it.
As my fellow writer has already said, another solution needs to be found to the current challenge of people not wishing to wait even a few hours to see their favourite shows. Showing even more adverts is one idea but the thing is, it’s not the consumer who needs to find the solution, it’s the industry itself. So because the consumer wants this stuff online immediately when they’re ready for it, I feel the industry needs to adopt an iTunes/Amazon type model but make the prices much cheaper than iTunes and Amazon.
I feel the only way to stop piracy is to make it not worth the pirate’s while by offering legal downloads quicker than the pirates can deliver them. The only question then is how much to charge for this service? And then a further question is do you open this up to the rest of the world who can’t wait weeks, months or years until their favourite show is shown in their country? Food for thought, my colleagues. If the consumers won’t change, it’s we who must change.
There will always be people who will try to get things for free if it is offered free. Not sure about your idea of offering the content cheaper than it is now (this devalues the content, studio libraries and thus lowers salaries – there is a dangerous domino effect here).
However, even if such content were available immediately – this would not stop those users who refuse to pay in any way if they CAN get the content for free.
I do not believe there is currently a way to seek out and detect illegal downloaders, only the uploaders sharing the file(s). Past that, this is a no-win situation for the studios.
“Pirate” is the polite word for “stealing”. When you steal property and do not pay for it you are a thief. If you get into my home and take some of my belongings and then give some of the takings to your friends, you are sharing with them but you are stealing from me.
But after saying that – the most precious possession of a creator is the concept, the outline, the idea – and how many times have industry people taken meetings and listened to some hopeful producer or writer pitch their proposal, say they have to pass on it and then turn over the key points to be developed by friends and family in the industry? Skimming other peoples ideas is the same as helping yourself to the household goods. Maybe worse.
“Digital theft is not just a Hollywood problem. It’s an American problem,” Mandil said. “More than 2.4 million hardworking, middle-class Americans spanning all 50 states rely on the motion picture and television industry for their livelihoods. For all these workers and their families, digital theft means declining incomes, lost jobs and reduced health and retirement benefits.”
First of all, digital theft does NOT mean declining incomes – the unions will see to this. Unions negotiate incomes and, since they do not rely on profits from films and, therefore, are not financially affected by digital theft, this statement is merely a faux sympathy card. This applies to “reduced health and retirement benifits”, too.
Secondly, digital theft only means lost jobs when those thieves are discovered amongst the ranks of the studios themselves. Why else would someone lose a job simply because people are stealing product? If they lose their jobs because the studios have to cut back on budgets, blame the economy; blame the low quality of product that brings in minimal profits, if any; blame the bloated budgets of union projects; blame the outrageously high salaries of A-list actors; blame yourselves for spending so much money on catering, parties, gifts, swag, etc; but don’t put all the blame on digital theft.
“digital theft does NOT mean declining incomes – the unions will see to this.”
Unions negotiate MINIMUMS, not every single salary paid to every single union worker. So yes, if studios forecast a decline in revenues due to this or that, they CAN cut back on your paycheck (unless you’re on a contract). It happened throughout the height of the recent financial collapse.
“Secondly, digital theft only means lost jobs when those thieves are discovered amongst the ranks of the studios themselves.”
I believe a poster further up said “digital theft” was a contributing reason for a cut in certain budgets he or she had been used to working with, which does translate to job cuts.
Hollywood is fighting a losing battle. Hotfile may dissipate but that won’t stop the 100′s of other sites that offer the same service. They simply can’t do anything to stop piracy. They need to adapt or die. It’s their own fault if they fail to do so.
Since Napster and the other many programs came out years ago the music industry has been hurting. Sales have dropped big time. On the other hand in the movie industry 2009 was the biggest year for movies EVER!! And the movie industry has the same problem as the music industry with piracy.
So what is the movie business doing that the music business is not? I’m not saying in any way that piracy is okay, it is not. But even with movie piracy there still seems to be at least 2 movies every year that gross over 1 billion dollars and many more than come close.
I believe the real reason why movies aren’t making even more money is because tickets are too high and the economy we all live in is still terrible. Who is going to pay 10 to 20 dollars for a movie ticket(price depends on if it is 2D, 3D, or IMAX 3D) every week? It just is not going to happen.
Every suit just drives them deeper underground. Face it, they are smarter and you raised them with no moral sense. Your films are mostly crap, DVDs overpriced by half and theater ticket prices are a joke in age where people are getting most of their entertainment on their phone or laptop. Chickens. Roost. Figure it out.
I hate how shrill the MPPA sounds when they talk about this problem. A problem the studios should be embarrassed they can’t figure out. Hint: movie/TV downloading a symptom, not the disease.
Shrill and embarrassing. That’s how Mandil sounds.
A quote from an article a few years ago about Hollywood or someone suing a filehost;
“The piracy community is a bit like Doctor Who – as soon as the waters get choppy, it rolls around on the floor for a bit before growing a new face and getting on with what it was doing.”
How about giving us what we want at a cost? Why would I download a song from Hotfile when I could buy it from iTunes and not worry about it? Wish I could buy episodes of Boardwalk Empire or others shows right away, and would if I could.
There is nothing to “adapt” to that won’t also involve drastic decreases in revenue for all involved.
Viable, industry sustaining “new business models” DO NOT EXIST. Even a decade after Napster we are still no closer to a workable solution. I invite anyone who disagrees to proffer evidence to the contrary. And no, Itunes does not qualify (unless your idea of progress is exchanging analog dollars for digital dimes).
Companies like Hotfile are ethically indefensible. The majority of their income is derived from facilitating copyright infringement through ads, subscriptions, and affiliate programs (the affiliate program being the most vulgar of that trio). It’s a digital feeding frenzy that the DMCA is powerless to stop which obviously necessitates amendments to that hopelessly out of date legislation. As it stands now, the DMCA protects pirates a hell of a lot more than it protects content creators.
Good movie like Avatar makes millions, bad movies make peanuts blame piracy, See whats going on here………
I’m seeing a lot of people talking and a majority of them haven’t thought critically about this issue.
These people include Mandil, with his comment:
“Digital theft is not just a Hollywood problem. It’s an American problem. More than 2.4 million hardworking, middle-class Americans spanning all 50 states rely on the motion picture and television industry for their livelihoods. For all these workers and their families, digital theft means declining incomes, lost jobs and reduced health and retirement benefits.”
While these losses to the American people are certainly possible, they must be laid at the feet of the corporations, not pirates. Does anyone want to look at how much actors, pop singers, and the higher ups at these corporations are making? I guarantee you that after those nice big “bonuses” they give themselves they’re doing fine. Maybe we (as a culture) should be more focused on the ethics of the industry corporations.
Secondly, a movie pirates does not in any way equal a sale lost. First of all, these people ARE selling the rights to numerous companies to legally profit from the material. Essentially those people could claim losses as much as anyone else. Also, most of what gets pirated people wouldn’t buy themselves. The argument could be made libraries are hurting book sales, but nobody is saying we should get rid of libraries.
Pirates do buy movies and television shows they like, they may watch it online or something, but if they really enjoy it and are going to be re-watching it and enjoying it a lot of them will (of course) buy the material. Also, to assume these are just immoral people is incredibly short-sighted.
Someone made a good point about this lawsuit (although they didn’t understand the point they were making)–the actual operations of Hotfile aren’t explicitly illegal by anything in current law (and laws can’t be made retroactively in the United States). That said, it is looking like Hotfile’s going to be getting a pretty good spanking (the system isn’t perfect and scaremongering seems to be working).
How anyone can say the DMCA is protecting pirates is beyond me…
The big picture is artists, actors, and executives are making heaping piles of money (more than they have in the past). While piracy does lose the industry some sales, it also gains them sales. People buy movies because they could watch them pirated, they buy CD/DVD boxset/singles, they go to the next _____ in theatres/concert because they got to see the last one. They go to the musician’s concert because they like the music. Don’t fall for the scaremongering, don’t get caught place all the blame on cyberlockers, recognize the issue for what it is.
what a noob.
they think that they can stop piracy of movies tv shows and games no way.
what about other hosting sites.
ha ha ha idiots…