This article posted by the Motion Picture Association of America announced that Swedish authorities shut down Pirate Bay, one of the world's largest and best known facilitators of online piracy. ThePirateBay.com is a pirate “tracker” that allows people to access pirated movies and music, making 157,000 illegal files available to the general public. Some titles include blockbuster hits such as the Da Vinci Code, Mission Impossible: III, and a number of other tities. The shutting down of Pirate Bay, according to the MPAA, represents an appreciation for the respect of intellectual property abroad. Sweden, in particular, reformed its copyright law in July of 2005 to tackle digital piracy. Because of piracy, the major motion picture studios lost approximately 6.1 billion dollars in revenue in 2005. Of this amount, roughly 2.3 billion was lost to internet piracy alone. To combat these losses, The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) plans to launch a multilateral attack on internet piracy, including educating the public about the fines they might incur for contributing to it. Additionally, this multi-level attack plans to incorporate harsher punishment for those failing to adhere to MPAA standards about film copying and distribution. The article sites the Razorback2 file-swapping server, which was shut down by Belgian and Swiss authorities, ending sharing between roughly 1.3 million users. This effort, in combination with the shutting down of Pirate Bay, appears to be the MPAA’s largest motivation for shutting down other file sharing networks across the globe.

In relation to my thesis, this serves as a great example for the ACTA’s justification in limiting the passage of material from peer-to-peer.    Additionally, this particular case highlights the influences of file sharing on the motion picture industry, which in combination with the music industry, is considered to be the largest source of revenue for pirates abroad. Though succinct, this article emphasizes the importance of ACTA’s cause and provides another example of the other industries being influenced by piracy.