Hollywood seeks the pirates, file-sharers growing movie appetite

After watching the music industry be financially hammered by
piracy, Hollywood moguls want to follow its recent lead and go after
individual consumers who illegally download or file share copyrighted
films.

"We can't allow what happened to the music industry to
happen to the movie industry," says Jack Valenti, president and chief
executive of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). He says the
group will "seek enforcement of the breaking of copyright law" by the
authorities against offending consumers. The MPAA also is launching public
service ads urging consumers to just say no to piracy.

To send a strong message that movie piracy is a crime,
"There will probably have to be some people charged with the criminal
downloading of movies," says Bo Andersen, president of the Video Software
Dealers Association, which gathers in Las Vegas for its annual meeting
this week. "It has to be made clear this is criminal behavior, and not
just something fun to do on your computer."

David Bishop, president of MGM Home Entertainment
Group, says his studio has an internal team constantly checking "how much
piracy is going on around our titles," including the upcoming home video
release of Legally Blonde 2.

The studios also are working on the next phase of DVD
technology, with tougher encryption codes that might solve the problem,
but that technology is still three to four years from market. "We're
confident the next wave of DVD products will be much more difficult to
file share with," he says.