MPAA sues grandfather for $600,000 over 4 illegal movie downloads |
Fred Lawrence, 67, of Racine, Wisconsin didn’t download the four movies, but admits that his 12-year-old grandson did. In April the MPAA contacted him and offered to settle for the illegal download for $1,000 per movie. Lawrence refused to pay the $4,000 and the MPAA brought out the big guns and sued for $600,000.
Lawrence said his grandson, who was then 12, downloaded “The Incredibles,” “I, Robot,” “The Grudge,” and “The Forgotten” in December, without knowing it was illegal to do so.The Racine man said his grandson downloaded the movies out of curiosity, and deleted the computer files immediately. The family already owned three of the four titles on DVD, he said.
We saw these lawsuits happen with music and it ultimately spawned a lot of legitimate movie services. Legitimate services for movies exist like Movielink and CinemaNow, but so far no unlimited rental movie services online.
Let’s not forget that only 1 year, one freaking year, in the last 15 years box office sales have not increased. Over that time VHS, followed by DVD have made the MPAA bucketloads of money. The MPAA needs to figure out the online market and maybe Steve Jobs and Apple can help show them how.
What this 12 year old did was wrong, but sueing grandparents for absurd sums of money isn’t the answer. Wasn’t the solution with music, nor will it be with movies.
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You know, I’ve almost stopped blaming the still-evil/clueless entertainment industry greedbags, and have remembered an old saying from high school: “Hate the game, not the playa.”
In short, if our Congresscritters would actually [gasp] serve their personal constituents, not just their “corporate constituents,” we’d get copyright laws fixed in a jiffy. If anything, downloading a small handful of movies should trigger a few hours of community service, or a $79 fine or whatnot. Triad pirate gangsters in Asia? Okay, that’s a different scale. But a 12-year-old kid who downloaded 4 movies? Gimme a break.
The laws need to be fixed. And/or our congresscritters (with the exception of kick-ass copyright-reform advocate Rick Boucher) need to be thrown out on their bums.
Comment by Adam — November 2, 2005 @ 9:44 pm PST
I am shocked and appalled that these companies have stooped so low. They tried to sue other big companies and that didn’t work so the cowards went after the little people with no money! I will not buy from them no matter what until they stop!
Comment by Lisa — November 20, 2006 @ 12:30 pm PST
I am shocked and appauled at the repeated justification for theft. So what the company is big and the grandpa is small? He broke the fucking law! I’m with Adam - hate the game not the playa. If you are so appauled, lobby to change the law.
Comment by Jiddoc — February 18, 2008 @ 8:35 am PST