"The motion-picture industry must pursue legal proceedings against people who are stealing our movies on the internet," said MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman. "The future of our industry, and of the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports, must be protected from this kind of outright theft using all available means."
The movie industry warned in early November that it would shortly be following in the footsteps of the music industry, which has to date filed over 5,000 suits against individual file swappers.
Although details of these first lawsuits have not been released, the MPAA has confirmed that the filings seek damages, which may be as much as $30,000 for each separate movie illegally copied or distributed by an individual over the internet, and as much as $150,000 per movie if the infringement is proven to be wilful.
According to reports, there could be as many as 200 actions, most of which have been filed as "John Doe" suits – where the identity of the defendant is not known. The first action relating to these suits will be a request to the courts to order the ISPs used by the defendants to reveal their customers' identities. Some of the suits, reports suggest, target individuals who had offered only one film for downloading.
"Litigation alone is not the solution," Glickman continued, "but it is part of a broader MPAA effort that includes education and new technological tools."
Specifically, the MPAA has launched a partnership with the Video Software Dealers Association to run an anti-piracy ad campaign called "Rated I: Inappropriate for All Ages," to approximately 10,000 video stores in the US.
The MPAA also announced yesterday that it would shortly be making available a free program that identifies movie and music titles stored on a computer, along with any installed peer-to-peer file-swapping programs, to help concerned users remove the infringing material.
Information generated by the program, said the MPAA, would be made available only to the program's user, and would not be shared with or reported to the MPAA or any other body.
"Our ultimate goal is to help consumers locate the resources and information they need to make appropriate decisions about using and trading illegal files," said Glickman. "Many parents are concerned about what their children have downloaded and where they've downloaded it from. They will find this tool to be an excellent resource."