CHICAS PRODUCTIONS: Internet piracy

Friday, October 12, 2012

U.S. Judge Denies Megaupload's Motion to Dismiss Copyright Case..

U.S. District Court Judge Liam O'Grady has rejected Megaupload's attempt to escape prosecution for allegedly committing massive copyright infringement.

Hollywood Docket: Megaupload Wants Dismissal; News Corp. Sued by Shareholders
Attorneys for Megaupload argued that the company was foreign-based and that the U.S. government was unable to satisfy the correct procedures to properly serve a summons.

THR COVER: Megaupload's Kim Dotcom: Inside the Wild Life and Dramatic Fall of the Nerd Who Burned Hollywood

Federal prosecutors reacted to this argument by telling Judge O'Grady this "line of reasoning leads to the incredible conclusion that foreign corporations can commit crimes in the United States without risk of being brought to justice here."

Point goes to the U.S. government.
In a decision on Friday, the federal judge terms Megaupload's dismissal demands to be "extreme" and denies the request.

In January, federal prosecutors brought criminal action against seven Megaupload employees, including founder Kim Dotcom. Along with charging specific individuals with crimes including criminal copyright infringement, racketeering, money laundering and fraud, prosecutors are also attempting to hold criminally liable Megaupload as a corporation.

In asking for a dismissal, the company's lawyers pointed to Rule 4 of Criminal Procedure, which indicates that a summons be mailed to the company's "last known address within the district or to its principal place of business elsewhere in the United States."

STORY: Inside the World of Cyber-Lockers

The U.S. government attempted to deliver summons to Megaupload's address in Hong Kong, and told the judge that Megaupload was clearly aware of the proceedings.
The criminal proceedings against Megaupload won't end because the judge doesn't think that the remedy for any defective summons service is dismissal.
"Rule 4 does not require a result so extreme as dismissal, and to this Court's knowledge, no court has ever dismissed an indictment for failure to meet Rule 4's secondary mailing requirement," the judge writes in his order.

Judge O'Grady echoes the government's belief that the rules weren't intended to be interpreted for the evasion of foreign defendants. He writes, "It is doubtful that Congress would stamp with approval a procedural rule permitting a corporate defendant to intentionally violate the laws of this country, yet evade the jurisdiction of United States' courts by purposefully failing to establish an address here."
The judge goes onto to make his own interpretation of Rule 4, saying that mailing a summons to the address of corporation's alter ego is the same as mailing the summons to the corporation itself. Often, that means mailing it to the domestic subsidiary of the foreign company; here, it could mean Kim Dotcom if he's ordered to be extradited at a later point.

"So long as the government could prove that an individual defendant is an alter ego of the corporate defendant, the government could satisfy Rule 4's mailing requirement by mailing a copy of the summons to one of the individual defendants once that defendant is extradited to this district," writes the judge.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter

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Weinstein praises Gallic anti-piracy laws...

He urges other countries to follow suit
By ROBERT MITCHELL

Weinstein

LONDON
Harvey Weinstein called on the U.K., U.S. and other governments to follow France in enacting stricter anti-piracy laws to protect filmmakers as he delivered the keynote address to an industry audience at the start of the 56th BFI London Film Festival's Industry Program Thursday night.

He encouraged the global film industry to unite to change piracy laws, to oppose broadcaster consolidation and to preserve film heritage.

Following a reel of Weinstein's pics, including this year's "Silver Linings Playbook," "The Master" and "Django Unchained," BFI chief executive Amanda Nevill introduced Weinstein as "the godfather of the sort of film the BFI stands for. Harvey all but created the world of modern independent cinema."

Weinstein talked to the audience about three problems he felt were facing the film industry.

He attacked Internet piracy. "Our business is much more robust than we are feeling right now, but the benefits are going to other people," said Weinstein, saying unauthorized online use of film and film clips denied actors, directors, composers and other filmmakers of their rightful returns.

"It's like going into a clothing store, taking a few shirts and saying 'I believe in free shirts."

He praised the tough stance in France, signed into law in May 2009 by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, where government agency Hadopi (Haute Autorite pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet) has the authority to cut users' Internet connections before taking them to court.

"It works in France, they shut you down. People are disincentivized to steal. We need to emulate the French laws in the U.K., the U.S. and around the world," said Weinstein.

Next he addressed the growing consolidation of TV companies leading to reduced competition for movies.

"We will end up with six companies owning 500 channels. There will be no diversity. The world will get smaller and smaller and smaller," said Weinstein. "They say 'we have six networks so we'll put one president and one buyer in charge of all and fire five presidents and five buyers as it's more economical, but then filmmakers, writers, actors and composers get less.

"I am worried about the regulators not being smart enough to handle the problem."

He called for the global film industry to highlight the problem reduced competition has on filmmakers.

Finally he addressed what he called the "threat against the heritage of cinema," raising a concern that too many film executives do not watch and understand "the rich history" of cinema.

He used clips from a series of classic movies by F.W. Murnau, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Charles Chaplin, King Hu and John Huston to illustrate the debt modern filmmakers owe to their predecessors and to suggest that filmmakers should learn from them.

"We have to put some of our own time in to remind us what we love about the movies, to understand how we profit from the past."

Asked by London fest director Clare Stewart whether he perceived a threat to originality in Hollywood with the proliferation of sequels and remakes, he praised Joss Whedon's summer blockbuster "The Avengers" as an example of smart filmmaking, but criticized the studios for being too happy to put out inferior product where they know an audience will turn out regardless.

"These giant companies produce movies for profit. We want to be profitable too, but we want to do something worthwhile and innovative. I haven't gone there yet but there's always a strong possibility I'll be selling out shortly," he joked.

Reflecting on the recent shootings at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," Weinstein revealed he is planning to assemble a panel for next year's Sundance Film Festival to discuss the issue of violence in cinema.

"I don't know how violence effects audiences. I want to do a panel about that at Sundance with people that have studied it. I have no answers and I've made a lot of very violent movies."

Thank you Variety