Disney, Fox, Universal call for a stop to Megaupload competitor Hotfile

[xuploaderz]

Megaupload competitor Hotfile is in hot water. A group of major entertainment companies has asked the US District Court to make a summary judgement in a year-long case against the file sharing company.

Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Brothers filed a suit against Hotfile in February of 2011, saying that file sharing site Hotfile isn’t doing enough to deter copyright infringement and operates similarly to Megaupload. The latter company was recently taken down by the FBI, and its executives were arrested for copyright infringement and money laundering.

Founder Kim Dotcom was singled out for having made a huge profit from copyrighted material, in addition to actually paying people to upload copyright protected content. According to Ars Technica, these five entertainment companies are also pointing fingers at Hotfile owner Anton Titov, saying he too is taking financial gain from copyrighted material and not doing enough to stop its distribution.

“Defendants protest that Hotfile is not like Napster, Grokster, Limewire, and other notorious infringers. But the differences make Hotfile’s infringement more egregious, not less. No earlier pirate services had the temerity to actually pay its users to upload infringing content, Hotfile does,” said the companies in their filing.

Hotfile counter-sued in September 2011, saying they had put in place technology from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and provided various avenues for people to complain about copyright infringement. It also claimed Warner Brothers requested the removal of content that did not actually belong to the production studio. The entertainment companies, however, said Hotfile’s practice was “mind-boggling,” citing “billions of infringing downloads.”

A summary judgement would end the case where it stands, either adding to the fire already started by the Megaupload take-down, or giving hope to similar companies preparing for legal battle.


http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/08/hotfile-judgement/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ts-hotfile.ars

xuploaderz Reviewed by xuploaderz on 8th Mar 2012. Disney, Fox, Universal call for a stop to Megaupload competitor Hotfile Megaupload competitor Hotfile is in hot water. A group of major entertainment companies has asked the US District Court to make a summary judgement in a year-long case against the file sharing company. Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Brothers filed a suit against Hotfile in February of 2011, saying that file sharing site Hotfile isn’t doing enough to deter copyright infringement and operates similarly to Megaupload. The latter company was Rating: 5

[Dean2k]

Not doing enough?!
Hotfile is the topboy deterring copyright! haha

[Music_Machine]

LOL....hotfile???....naaaa....All these companies are paranoic about the downloads....LOL...

Hotfile is dead for the uploaders and the downloaders.....they need vacations..

[ceekeigh]

They're really losing a lot that's why they have no choice but to catch up uploading sites.

[DJboutit]

Hotfile got sued 2 yrs ago for the same thing so they only allow legal content like Ebooks Skins Templates Scripts why go after them when they have been pretty much legal for 2 yrs. If they want to go after anybody they should go after Filesonic Filepost Filejungle Depositfiles Ul.to Filefactory Turbobit Netload & Bitshare

[Tele]

good for hotfile, they banned my 2 years premium account