MPAA sues Movietube

Internet streaming website Movietube faces huge lawsuit

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    Internet streaming website Movietube currently faces a huge lawsuit against them by the MPAA – Motion Picture Association of America. MPAA represents some of the biggest studios in the world, including – Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Studios and Disney, all of whom are in the complaint against Movietube.

    The lawsuit was filed in a New York District Court, and states “Movietube is a streaming video service that provides and promotes copyright infringement”. The complaint involved 29 websites all of which were similar in design and were operated by Movietube have been shutdown, for the time being at least.

     The lawsuit proposes that Movietube should hand over all profits to the Plaintiffs represented by the MPAA, as well as the Plaintiffs being further entitled to their attorney’s fees and the coverage of the entire cost of the pursuit. However should this not be met and damages are not rewarded, the MPAA requested $150,000 for each of the Plaintiffs’ infringed work, with a maximum statutory damage of $2,000,000 for each infringement. This may be due to the supposed idea that the defendants’ actions demonstrating malicious intent to trade on the goodwill often associated with the Plaintiffs’ respective brands. This would mean that in both situations the owners of Movietube would have to pay millions in damages.

    In addition to this, the MPAA also claims that Movietube’s operators are well aware of the infringement caused by their site – the site’s Facebook page claims there is no problem that many of their films are pirated, as they are not bound by US law, “Defenders openly admit that their actions constitute ‘piracy’ and fill a demand for copyright infringing content”. This is in response to the statement made on Movietube’s Facebook page, “Since many movies we linked are pirated movies, we understand you may have this concern…. Our website linked those movies, so have partial responsibility called ‘copyright infringement’ according to US laws. Luckily we are not a US company so we do not need to respect US laws

    However in all of this, one problem remains which is the fact that the actual identities of Movietube’s owners is unknown, and so due to this more money must be spent by the MPAA and the studios they represent, which in turn prolongs the lawsuit. Whichever way the lawsuit turns it will prove to be expensive for both sides, with Movietube facing millions in damages.