Los Angeles, CA – Copyright attorneys for several motion production companies filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the Central District Of California (Los Angeles Division) against movierumor.com. Universal Studios, Warner Bros., and New Line allege that several of their copyrighted movies – some of which are currently in theaters – are being infringed through the distribution and performance of the same on movierumor.com’s website or third-party websites which are linked to movierumor’s website: “Movierumor is a for-profit ‘one-stop-shop’ for infringing copies of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Specifically, Defendants post, organize, search for, identify, collect and index links to infringing material that is available on third-party websites . . . Defendants profit from their misconduct by displaying advertisements adjacent to the infringing content (including Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works) that plays on their site.”
For research purposes only, I visited movierumor.com, clicked on the Batman: The Dark Night link, and was freely able to watch the movie on a pop-up website, although the video quality was lacking. If the MPAA is reading this, I still have my $12 theater ticket for Batman. Here’s a screenshot of the video and advertising:
The complaint states that “in furtherance of creating and posting the index of links to infringing content, which Movierumor makes available to its users at the click of a mouse, the website allows users to submit new links to infringing copyrighted works and to report broken links . . . Defendants exercise control over the selection and organization of the links to infringing content available on their website . . . By virtue of the conduct alleged herein, Defendants knowingly promote, participate in, facilitate, assist, enable, materially contribute to, encourage, and induce copyright infringement, thereby secondarily infringing the copyrights in Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.” The Plaintiffs allege that they gave notice to Defendants regarding the allegedly infringing videos and asked them to cease displaying the same, but Defendants have failed to do so. Plaintiffs request either actual or statutory damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504, in addition to their costs of the lawsuit and reasonable attorneys’ fees pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 505. The case is titled: Universal City Studios Productions, LLLP v. Movierumor.com, CV08-04931 RSWL (Central District of California 2008).