[While I was catching up on email, I inadvisedly sent out the previous Politech message (http://www.politechbot.com/p-03635.html) without checking for followup stories first. That led to a whole lot of responses saying, nope, film88.com was already offline. --Declan] --- From: "Albert Koellner" <crajkat_private> Organization: - To: declanat_private Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 17:47:02 +0200 Subject: Re: FC: MPAA tries to shut down illicit movie site -- based in Iran On 10 Jun 2002 at 7:55, Declan McCullagh wrote: > [Next steps? The movie's over for Film88.com By Stefanie Olsen Special to ZDNet News June 6, 2002, 4:20 PM PT Hollywood dodged a second bullet in a burgeoning battle over online film distribution Thursday, quickly shutting down an Iran-based Web site that had sold access to copyrighted films over the Internet for $1 apiece. Tehran-based Film88.com registered its Web site in April, and the company had briefly operated a video-on-demand site renting a long list of Hollywood hits such as "Star Wars" for viewing on PCs. Though Film88.com was being operated from a country with unfriendly U.S. relations, its content ran from servers based in the Netherlands. The MPA, the international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America, worked with its Internet service provider in the Netherlands to turn the site off. ISPs in the Netherlands recognize international intellectual-property laws. [...] http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-933598.html --- From: hjmoyerat_private (Herbert Moyer) To: <declanat_private> Subject: RE: MPAA tries to shut down illicit movie site -- based in Iran Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 11:52:26 -0400 After reading this I went to the film88.com site and apparently they decided to shut down service as the following message appears now: ===================== Dear Valued Users and Geeks, We wish to announce that due to the following factors, we shall cease the operation of film88.com:- 1. There has been many technical complaints during our trial run. We are satisfied with some technical results but feel that we have a duty to find ways to resolve technical complaints before providing such service. We shall be publishing our technical results soon and open for public discussion for the benefit of everyone on our website. 2. We have made clear many times that we are not pirates. We have proposed to major studios in Hollywood to pay 30% of our movie rental price as copyright compensation. This represents a huge percentage from our gross profit but we feel that a balance between innovation and copyright compensation is important. However, Hollywood has reacted negatively. We have to evaluate this issue. Perhaps we should look for movies outside Hollywood but we hope that Hollywood will some day offer such service. Perhaps we should wait for the development of "Statutory Licence" for the movie industry similar to the Statutory Licence for the music industry in US. 3. Some journalists have given us fair comments while others drag us into politics. We have stated clearly that we are not involved in politics (Iran or elsewhere). What happen to the fundamental concept of Internet of being borderless and not knowing any nationality and race? We are actually more keen in technical comments/reviews and to resolve the copyright issue. We have no plans at the moment but the innovation must go on..... We wish to apologize to all users, Geeks, our service providers and Hollywood, and hope that they will accept our apology for inconvenience caused, if any. We can be contacted at film88at_private Thank you. Film88.com ==================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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