MPAA Sues Hotfile for 'Staggering' Copyright Infringement

The lawsuit, filed by the MPAA against Hotfile, is on behalf of 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Brothers. "The MPAA argues that Hotfile not only encourages its users to upload illegal content, but actively discourages them from uploading files for personal use, because the site offers incentives for users to upload the most popular files (which invariably end up being copyrighted movies). And because the site charges membership fees before people can download the content uploaded by others, the MPAA says Hotfile 'profits richly while paying nothing to the studios' for the bootleg files."

Re:Incentive structure discourages noninfringing u

[lostmongoose]

They have a DMCA form for copyright holders to use. If the MPAA doesn't wanna use it, tough shit. It's why the safe harbor clause exists. They have a way to get the files taken down, and are choosing not use it and instead are doing an end run around the law plain and simple.

Re:Incentive structure discourages noninfringing u

[rudy_wayne]

As far as I can tell, the DMCA does not protect Hotfile with the safe harbor clause. The safe harbor clause gets voided when you directly profit off of the infringement.

Hotfile doesn't directly profit from the infringement -- i.e., they aren't selling you copies of movies. They charge you for access to their system. What you do with that access is none of their concern. If people are uploading improper content then send Hotfile a DMCA takedown notice.

Hotfile is no more "directly profiting" than Youtube, which makes many millions of dollars every year. When Viacom tried to sue Youtube they lost because Youtube demonstrated that they have a policy in place to properly deal with DMCA takedown notices. As long as Hotfile takes stuff down when notified of infringement then I see no difference between them and Youtube.

a funny thing happened on the way to the internets

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm obviously going against the mob here, but i think Hotfile.com is just a GENERAL service provider... No more responsible for "copyright infringement" than your ISP.

I personally don't think they deliberately set out to achieve "staggering copyright infringement", just like I don't think the guys who hacked together the first BitTorrent client and tracker, the first Gnutella servent, and the first 'Internet' were "out-and-out" encouraging copyright infringement (well, at least publicly... I certainly can't speak for their personal views.) I think the coolness of these technologies speaks for itself, and I for one have used ALL of them for copyright-irrelevant tasks, Hotfile included, and was glad to have them. I don't think anyone would sue the inventors of the Internet for "staggering copyright infringement" because of the irrefutable FACT that a LARGE portion of the content available on it infringes someones's copyright. But maybe I'm wrong... Maybe that's the next step. (Heads up guys...)

FWIW, Hotfile.com has a usage policy forbidding illegal uses (of course), INCLUDING copyright infringement (of course), and an easy-to-find DMCA-takedown page (of course; 2 clicks in, at http://hotfile.com/reportabuse.html). How else is the Internet supposed to work?

The truth of the matter is that the people USING Hotfile.com are uploading copy-written content, not (to my knowledge) the operators. This fact stands in stark contrast to the general consensus here, and the obvious paradox leads (me at least) to some interesting conclusions. One is that people (here, there, and everywhere) are incredibly two-faced about the whole situation, and another is that people are glad to have a commercial scapegoat to take the heat.

Looked in a mirror lately?