Hollywood studios plan to launch a barrage of lawsuits against people who offer pirated films on file-sharing networks, adopting a legal tactic from the major record companies that has yet to reduce online piracy.
Motion Picture Assn. of America President Dan Glickman will announce the copyright infringement lawsuits today, according to people familiar with the campaign. It would be Glickman's first public initiative since taking over the MPAA's reins from iconic leader Jack Valenti in September.
At least five of the seven big studios that belong to the MPAA have agreed to join the effort, which could generate hundreds of lawsuits a month. Among the potential holdouts is Walt Disney Co., according to one person familiar with the association's plans.
An MPAA spokesman declined to comment Wednesday.
In an interview last month, Glickman said "a holistic approach" was needed to combat piracy, including educational efforts, criminal prosecution and lawsuits against infringers.
"You need the stick and you need the carrot both," he said. "You can't just have one without the other."
The major record companies began suing individual users of file-sharing networks in September 2003, after a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that two popular networks weren't liable for their users' behavior.
The lawsuits haven't stopped file sharing from continuing to grow, according to several companies that monitor the networks. Nor have they helped the recording industry's image, in part because children and senior citizens were among the defendants.
Still, label executives say that the claims against more than 6,000 alleged pirates have raised public awareness of the issue. More than 1,200 people have settled out of court, typically by paying the labels about $3,000 each.
Like the record companies, the studios plan to focus on people sharing a large number of movies online. The suits are expected to be against "John Doe" defendants, who would later be identified through records kept by their Internet service providers.
Reactions to the MPAA's plan were mixed.
Eric Garland, whose firm Big Champagne monitors file- sharing activity, said the number of Hollywood films popping up on file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and EDonkey was growing rapidly. Nevertheless, he said, movie downloading pales in comparison with the number of songs pirated online.
