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For the first time, a group of Hollywood film studios have filed a copyright lawsuit against a cyberlocker.
Hotfile, a file-hosting service has made a business out of offering a stash box for people to store their pirated movies, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has claimed in its suit against Hotfile.
"In less than two years Hotfile has become one of the 100 most trafficked sites in the world," the MPAA said in a press release issued today. "That is a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes."
According to the MPAA, Hotfile is operated by Florida resident Anton Titov.
A growing number of digital-locker services have come under fire lately by copyright owners. Liberty Media, the company with financial stakes in QVC, Starz and Sirius XM radio, last month also filed a copyright suit against Hotfile. On the music side, EMI, the smallest of the four record labels, is suing MP3tunes.com, a digital locker specializing in the storage of songs.
The cyberlockers are an alternative to BitTorrent file-sharing services and growing in popularity. There's no need to download any software. A user logs on to a locker service and watches whatever film or TV show stored there.
The MPAA was careful to make the distinction that not all cyberlockers are unlawful. The trade group for the top film studios said Hotfile "openly discourages use of its system for personal storage. Hotfile's business model encourages...users to upload files containing illegal copies of motion pictures and TV shows to its servers and to third-party sites."
According to the MPAA's suit, Hotfile is no free-information advocate. This is straight-up piracy for profit, the trade group said. Hotfile collects revenues by charging a monthly fee.
More to come
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Hotfile, a file-hosting service has made a business out of offering a stash box for people to store their pirated movies, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has claimed in its suit against Hotfile.
"In less than two years Hotfile has become one of the 100 most trafficked sites in the world," the MPAA said in a press release issued today. "That is a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes."
According to the MPAA, Hotfile is operated by Florida resident Anton Titov.
A growing number of digital-locker services have come under fire lately by copyright owners. Liberty Media, the company with financial stakes in QVC, Starz and Sirius XM radio, last month also filed a copyright suit against Hotfile. On the music side, EMI, the smallest of the four record labels, is suing MP3tunes.com, a digital locker specializing in the storage of songs.
The cyberlockers are an alternative to BitTorrent file-sharing services and growing in popularity. There's no need to download any software. A user logs on to a locker service and watches whatever film or TV show stored there.
The MPAA was careful to make the distinction that not all cyberlockers are unlawful. The trade group for the top film studios said Hotfile "openly discourages use of its system for personal storage. Hotfile's business model encourages...users to upload files containing illegal copies of motion pictures and TV shows to its servers and to third-party sites."
According to the MPAA's suit, Hotfile is no free-information advocate. This is straight-up piracy for profit, the trade group said. Hotfile collects revenues by charging a monthly fee.
More to come
Powered By WizardRSS