The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants President-elect Barack Obama to use Internet filtering to help stop copyright infringement on movies and television shows, along with several other requests.
On Obama's Change.gov web site -- designed to make trade groups publicly state their requests and intentions -- the MPAA posted a "Key International Trade Issues" paper that discusses "the fight against online piracy, including through automated detection and removal of infringing content."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) supports some of the MPAA's ideas, such as eliminating commercial optic disc piracy, but the EFF has some serious problems with the MPAA's requests. The Obama transition team also is expected to continue to put pressure on Malaysia, Korea and other nations where camcording in theaters is a major problem -- a problem the MPAA says is a "major source of pirated motion pictures."
The first major problem is that the MPAA hopes to use "automated detection" leading to the "removal of infringing content" to help curb theft of online content. The EFF believes any type of technology used to stop online content sharing is an invasion of privacy, despite the fact the MPAA continues to push for automated removal technology on U.S. college campuses.
If a user uploads a copyrighted video or song to the Internet, the discussion moves away from fair use issues towards piracy, according to the MPAA.
Similar to anti-piracy technology used on YouTube, the MPAA hopes to see a more widespread attempt at removing copyrighted video content from sites like YouTube, MetaCafe, and others.
Piracy remains a hot topic among computer users and government officials, as video game, music and movie industry officials have all filed lawsuits against alleged file sharers. Both the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and MPAA claim billions of dollars of possible revenue are lost each year because of copyright infringement and organized piracy.
Obama faces numerous issues ranging from global terrorism to illegal immigration when he enters office next month, so it's unknown where Internet issues rank on his list of "to do" items. However, Obama will nominate a copyright czar aimed at helping discuss legal issues related to copyright and other technical priorities.
