MPAA extortion campaign exposed
Posted by cabalamat on 2007-Aug-31
The MPAA has set up an extortion website where they demand money with menaces.
First they send emails to people they suspect of infringing their copyrights. The emails direct them to the getamnesty.com website, which says:
If you receive a notice that means that we have evidence of you infringing a copyright holder that we represent. Please stop and consider what such a paper trail could do to one’s future. We understand that this notice may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but we sincerely believe that signing our agreement is in your best interest. By accepting this settlement offer and by paying the specified amount, you will prevent any further legal or enforcement actions, which may be taken against you in respect to the files listed. Acceptance of this offer will also require an agreement by you to cease and desist from all intellectual property infringing activities on the titles listed in the future.
TorrentFreak exposes the extortion campaign:
The MPAA and their fellow anti-piracy organizations send out thousands of infringement notices. Only a fraction of these are played out in court, and those that do make it into court are settled at an early stage. So why not circumvent the whole legal system, and gently coerce people to pay for “amnesty”?
This is exactly what the suits at the MPAA must have thought, because they asked Nexicon to develop a program to convert infringement notices into cash.
The GetAmnesty program is a combination of both enforcement activities and efforts to turn infringers into paying “customers”. It tracks down copyright infringers by using a wide variety of methods. But, instead of sending out the regular infringement notices, they now include links for people to get amnesty. Basically they are asking to pay them an X amount of money, and they promise drop everything and go away.
There are two ways to get rich in this world. You can make something people like, that they’re willing to pay money for; or you can get money by extortion, threatening people unless they do what you want. The MPAA have decided which route they want to go down, and I hope they go bankrupt for it.
