Alibaba & the forty... um... dudes (1944 film poster)
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has applauded Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba.com for putting a ban on the sale of pirated media. Alibaba posted the following message on its website summarizing its decision:
Effective immediately, Alibaba.com and AliExpress.com have instituted a prohibition on the posting of optical discs with audio-visual content. We take this decision recognizing that the vast majority of distributors of this type of material have their own international distribution channels or authorized resellers, and that our experience is that many listings in the past have proven to infringe on IP rights of others.
According to Alizila, the company’s news site, this move was subsequently applauded by the recently appointed chairman of the MPAA, former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd:
I applaud Alibaba’s strategy to stop listing optical discs with audio visual content on their sites to deter the trade of illegal DVDs and Blu-Ray discs… [It] is a bold and positive step in protecting the livelihoods of millions of people in film-making communities across the globe.
It’s somewhat refreshing to see the MPAA focus on something other than pursuing illegal downloaders. In the past the organization has been guilty of publishing exaggerating figures that college kids accounted for 44% of the film industry’s lost revenue. This number was subsequently revised to 15%.
On a related piracy note, we recently reported on how the Business Software Alliance has been tooting its horn about lost revenue in Asia as well, claiming that the commercial value of illegal software in the region amounted to $18.7 billion. This is also a bit of an exaggeration, as the figure assumes that for each act of piracy the offending party would have bought the software at full price had they not stolen it.
Photos: IMDB, Judiciary Report
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