April 7, 2006
CANADIAN
court UPHOLDS $468,000 U.S. JUDGMENT AWARDED AGAINST CANADIAN PIRATE
SCAM SITE
Los
Angeles –
Echoing a
judgment handed down in 2005 by a federal judge in the Southern
District of New
York against a Canadian company—Click Enterprises, and its president,
Philip G.
Evans, a Canadian Court this week affirmed that Evans and his company
will be
held accountable for $468,000 in damages owed to major motion picture
studios
for facilitating the illegal downloads of movies through multiple scam
websites. Click Enterprises operated websites that sold
“memberships” to
customers by promising to help them find and download movies from the
Internet
legally. Instead, these sites simply facilitated illegal
downloading via
peer to peer networks.
“This
week’s ruling sends a strong message to pirates everywhere – locating
your
piracy business outside the U.S. does not provide a safe haven from
copyright
law,” said
John G.
Malcolm, EVP and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the
MPAA. “As
the judge in Canada recognized, when illegal activities are conducted
on the
Internet, they have the potential to cause harm anywhere and
everywhere.’”
Evans,
a
Canadian resident, operated a number of pirate scam sites from Canada
that
targeted English-speaking consumers. These sites featured testimonials
from
“happy members” in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United
States.
They were elaborately designed to trick people into thinking the sites
were
legitimate by displaying the film studios’ copyrighted motion picture
images
and marketing materials. Customers were charged a subscription
fee in
exchange for substantial assistance in locating and illegally
downloading
copies of the member companies’ movies from peer-to-peer networks.
“Consumers
need to be on the lookout for these types of Internet scams,” said Malcolm. “Don’t
let
some movie pirate get you involved in copyright theft – there are
plenty of
ways to get movies online legally.”
The
MPAA
and its member companies have a multi-pronged approach to fighting
piracy,
which includes educating people about the consequences of piracy,
taking action
against Internet thieves, working with law enforcement authorities
around the
world to root out pirate operations and working to ensure movies are
available
legally using advanced technology.
A
federal
interagency report published in 2004 estimated that counterfeit and
pirated
goods, including those of copyrighted works,
cost the American economy $250 billion a year. The MPAA estimates
its
member companies lost $3.5 billion last year due to hard goods
piracy. A
Smith Barney study conducted in 2003 said that the movie industry would
lose up
to $5.4 billion in 2005 including Internet piracy. Working with
law enforcement
around the world, the MPAA seized more than 76 million illegal discs
last year.
About the MPAA
The
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) serves as the voice and
advocate
of the American motion picture, home video and television industries
from its offices
in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Its members include: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution;
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.; Paramount Pictures; Sony Pictures
Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Universal City Studios, LLP; and
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
# # #
For more
information, contact:
MPAA
Los
Angeles
Kori
Bernards
(818)
995-6600
MPAA
Washington, D.C.
John
Feehery
Gayle
Osterberg
(202)
293-1966