MPA has a giant plan to crack down on film piracy once more

The Movement Image Affiliation (MPA) is beginning piracy once more. Throughout CinemaCon in Las Vegas, MPA CEO Charles Rivkin introduced that the group plans to work with Congress to cross rules blocking web sites containing pirated content material.

The MPA is a commerce affiliation representing the Hollywood studios, together with Paramount, Sony, Common, and Disney (it's additionally behind the scores board that always provides you an R for swearing). It has lengthy lobbied for anti-piracy legal guidelines, nevertheless it appears the combat is heating up once more. In his speech on Tuesday, Rivkin highlighted that piracy has develop into a significant downside within the US, saying it prices “lots of of 1000’s of jobs” and “over a billion in misplaced theatrical ticket gross sales.”

The answer to stopping piracy, at the very least in Rivkin's eyes, is to forestall customers from accessing pirate web sites altogether. “Web site-blocking is a focused, authorized technique to disrupt the connection between digital pirates and their supposed viewers,” says Rivkin. He additional mentioned that the perfect course of would permit creatives from the movie, TV, music and ebook industries to method the courtroom, the place they might request that Web service suppliers block entry to web sites containing pirated content material.

If MPA's plan sounds acquainted, it's as a result of it's tried it earlier than. It helped draft the Cease On-line Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2012, which might have restricted entry to web sites containing pirated content material. Nevertheless, the invoice was dropped after going through heavy criticism on account of issues that it will violate freedom of expression. “On the time, we heard issues concerning the potential use of site-blocking to stifle free speech,” Rivkin mentioned, referring to SOPA. “However then, real-world expertise proved these dire predictions incorrect. “Cases of violation of freedom of expression are virtually non-existent.”

Nonetheless, regardless of the MPA has in retailer is not going to sit nicely with customers on the Web. A number of widespread web sites have been shut down in protest towards SOPA in 2012, and protests may erupt once more if the group's plans progress that far.