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03/28/2024 02:33:37 pm

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Sony Pictures Leak Exposes MPAA War Against Google

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Investigators are starting to check out the Sony Pictures leak dump and new information about "Project Goliath" is starting to become public.

The Sony Pictures leak has revealed quite a lot of behind-the-scenes information, including emails referencing celebrities and companies.

In one email started in January, Sony takes part in "Project Goliath" with the MPAA. The MPAA is the six film studios - Universal, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney and Sony - who have been fighting online piracy for the past decade.

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Project Goliath is a move by the film industry to hurt Google, or all search engines. The intent is to make new laws to stop piracy and actively hurt Google's reputation through investment in advertising and make the search engine cooperate through legislation.

In the past two years, the MPAA has invested over $1 million in total to various organizations to fight piracy. The MPAA general counsel Steven Fabrizio takes a $40,000 monthly paycheck for his work fighting against Inter piracy.

The MPAA originally pushed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in 2011, debunked after several protests. The new emails show a "SOPA 2.0", but this time the MPAA is pushing it through the All Writs Act, to force Google to fight copyright infringement.

ISPs are also being brought into the discussion, in the email executives from Comcast (owner of Universal) speak of new ways to fight piracy, by blocking files in transit. It is unclear if this technology is being tested by Comcast currently.

Blocking of files in transit would be a major issue, especially if Comcast's technology is flawed and starts blocking legal files. However, there has been no evidence of Comcast blocking any sort of content, meaning this might still be in testing.

Google has been an obvious target for the film industry, the company has defended open source and net neutrality in the past, and clearly does not find blocking sites to be an active way to stop Internet piracy.

For the most part, piracy experts agree that blocking sites like The Pirate Bay and Isohunt will not prevent piracy. In fact, it could have the opposite effect, bringing a new piracy threat onto the Internet. Already we see Popcorn Time utilising technology like VPN and cloud mobility to actively keep the site going, even with ISPs trying to shut it down.

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