The first lawsuits will be filed Tuesday against people who illegally download movies from file-sharing services, the Motion Picture Association of America announced Nov. 4.
"People who have been stealing our movies believe they are anonymous on the Internet, and wouldn't be held responsible for their actions," MPAA president and CEO Dan Glickman told The Washington Post. "They are wrong. We know who they are, and we will go after them, as these suits will prove."
The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the music industry, has sued thousands of people who illegally download music as part of its quest to end illegal downloading.
Justin Perillo, an attorney with AU's Office of General Counsel, said the MPAA would probably use special software that can identify the IP addresses of AU students who download movies illegally. IP addresses can be used to identify individual computers.
"It most likely uses software that scans the search directories of a peer-to-peer network in order to find copyright infringement," Perillo said. "When the software finds a user who is offering to distribute unauthorized copyrighted files, it downloads some of the infringing files, along with the IP address and the date and time it accessed the files."
The MPAA plans to use this data to inform the downloaders' Internet service providers that someone has illegally downloaded copyrighted material on their network. The ISP can then identify the downloader by name.
"In most cases, copyright owners, such as MPAA, have allowed ISPs to internally resolve these matters," Perillo said.
There are many Web sites that offer software to download movies for free. Others allow people to download movies legally, charging a membership fee. One, MovieFlix, has free basic membership and a paid membership, which allows users unlimited access, said MovieFlix co-founder Robert Moskovits.
Filmmakers receive proceeds from the membership fees MovieFlix charges, and the movie industry has also been involved with the basic membership aspect of the site.
"The free movies are free because of the licensing terms we have arranged," Moskovits said.
The University will work with the MPAA, as it has done with copyright owners such as the RIAA in the past. In previous cases, the University has been able to solve these issues internally.
"In the last year, our office, working with e-Operations, responded to over 250 complaints from the music, computer and film industry," Perillo said.
There has been an increase over the last few years of University network users downloading copyrighted movie files, he said.
When copyright owners detect an illegal download on AU's network, they contact the Office of General Counsel with a written complaint that contains information about when the download took place, a description of what was infringed and an IP address, Perillo said. The complaint is then forwarded to e-Operations for an investigation.
"If the investigation reveals that copyrighted material is being improperly shared, we contact the user, require that they remove the material, and have the user review the computer use and copyright policy, as well as acknowledging that they will not do it again," Perillo said.
Further violations of the computer use and copyright policy may result in the suspension of computer privileges for the violator.
