Dave Horvath
15 Jun 2006 18:54
After two solid years of lobbying by anti-piracy groups like RIAA and MPAA, someone in the US Congress has decided to listen. The two groups have asked for US resources to help stop Internet Piracy in foreign lands. After their jovial announcement of "sinking The Pirate Bay", the RIAA and MPAA used their raid as ammunition to coax US law enforcement to aide in their campaign.
The organizations claim that the entertainment industry loses as much as $250 billion per year to Internet piracy due to downloads of movies, music and video games. Such hot titles as "The Da Vinci Code" and "Grand Theft Auto" were used as figures showing huge losses in their respectful genre. Revenue from the entertainment business is said to account for 6% of the United States Gross National Product, tipping the scales at $626 billion. The RIAA and MPAA claim that the losses they incur from Internet theft could eventually have a detrimental effect on the US economy.
In the aftermath of The Pirate Bay raid, Swedish politicians have been quoted as saying that the US should keep to matters that involve the US. With recent developments of The Pirate Bay's move to the Netherlands to regroup in an astounding 3 days and their impending lawsuit against Swedish officials, it remains to be seen what kind of effect the US may have on other file sharing entities.
Source:
The Washington Post