I. Currently there are major television and film studios filing suite against Limewire due to infringement. Limewire recently settled a suite with major music companies to the tune of $105 million, due to infringement. The suite claims that Limewire allowed movies and videos to be illegally downloaded. When videos and movies are illegally downloaded, company lose potential profits. The complaint cites more than 2,000 television shows and movies that were infringed by Lime Wire users, including episodes of "SpongeBob SquarePants," "South Park," "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," as well as movies such as "Harry Potter," "Stardust" and "The Dark Knight,"(Leonhardt, 2012).
II. Hurt Locker has also been the subject of many law suites due to illegal file sharing. Currently there are law suites in the US and Canada. Canadians stand to lose more because they have tougher laws than the US. In Canada they can pay up to $20,000 for copyright infringement. Though this would look like a win for movie producers, they still lose because the laws do little to protect companies from copyright infringement.
III. Lastly there is currently a British gentleman waiting extraction to the US to face copyright infringement charges. The charges allege that he created a website that directed people to illegal download sites. 23 year college student Richard O'Dwyer said"he undertook TV Shack as a project to improve his skills and job marketability." According to the Deadline Team "No British citizen has ever been extradited to the United States for a copyright offense".
As you can see the film industry is trying to take necessary steps to make sure that their works or protected. Copyright infringement not only hurts filmmakers it hurts you and I as actors also. When movies are pirated it takes away from our residual income. So I applaud the film industry for trying to take steps to put an end to piracy and copyright infringement.
