While the antipiracy efforts of the top studios, such as Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros., and their trade group, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), have attracted plenty of attention, the impacts of illegal file sharing on indie studios are much more dramatic, according to three indie movie makers who spoke to CNET. Now, some in their ranks have begun to fight back.
About a dozen production companies have filed lawsuits against tens of thousands of individuals they accuse of illegally distributing their movies over the Web. The best known among these studios is Voltage Pictures, producers of “The Hurt Locker,” the war film that won this year’s Oscar for best movie. Over the past two weeks, Internet service providers around the country have received subpoenas from Voltage demanding that they turn over the names of customers who the studio says illegally shared “The Hurt Locker.”
At the same time, other independent film producers are battling illegal file sharing by publicly lashing out at companies, such as Google, that they say profit from the ads posted to sites that traffic in pirated films.
Full story: Indie filmmakers: Piracy and Google threaten us – CNET News
