Blindspot: Fred Goldman Sues The Pirate Bay

On Thursday, in a Los Angeles County Superior Court, Fred Goldman sued The Pirate Bay for making If I Did It available for free on its website.

Yes, that Fred Goldman. Yes, that Pirate Bay.

Fred, Fred, Fred. Not only does a California court not have this kind of jurisdiction, but The Pirate Bay isn't new to the game. Listen. Listen closely, now. Can't you hear those Swedes snickering over there, I know I can.

For our reading enjoyment, The Pirate Bay routinely posts its responses to these sorts of actions, taking obvious great pleasure in replying to the likes of Apple, Microsoft, DreamWorks, SEGA, Warner Brothers, etc. They are particularly fond of referencing "retractable batons" ....

You've filed a lawsuit that you can't win, Fred, and you've not only given TPB free advertising thru the media coverage of your lawsuit (they've got free books online, too!) but you've made your critics aware that your profits from the book include advertising dollars in the hundreds of thousands.

Fred, Fred, Fred.

Hollywood Sues Chinese Company For Pirated Films

Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Universal Studios have just sued a Chinese internet cafe and online service, Jaboo.com, for over $400K for offering pirated downloads of movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Jaboo.com purportedly created software for the cafe that gave customers the ability to download the Hollywood movies. Then, the cafe offered the movies to folk interested in viewing films like "Pirates," "Hitch," and "Click."

I wonder ...

Has Jaboo contacted the folks over at The Pirate Bay yet? Shouldn't the same jurisdictional arguments advanced by Swedish The Pirate Bay apply equally as well to Chinese Jaboo?

Seems like they should, and I'd like to know if Chinese law is allowing a suit that Swedish law will not.

Are these Hollywood BigWigs going to use their new outsourcing lawyers over in India to handle things?

SDD offers litigation support .... Why wouldn't they -- they're already using them for transactional work.

American Gangster and Bee Movie: The Pirate Bay As Movie Forecaster

American Gangster opens the weekend, and ThoseInTheKnow are predicting great things. There's a hush as American Gangster, combined with Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie, are hoped to bring in big bucks to a lackluster American Box Office this year.

Sure, it's got Denzel Washinton and Russell Crowe. But, here's the thing. A full, high-quality pirated version has been available to a world-wide audience over at The Pirate Bay for a couple of weeks now.

American Gangster hasn't held a lead over there -- this morning - as I write this - it's in 6th place, with Death at a Funeral in the #1 spot.

No, I'm not suggesting that you go watch American Gangster for free courtesy of the Pirates. That's stealing.

I'm just curious about TPB as a predictor of how popular a movie really will be, and if my hunch is right, then American Gangster is not going to be a Bourne Ultimatum ($412 million worldwide as of last weekend) nor a Ratatouille ($555 million worldwide as of last weekend). (Both Bourne and Rat are in the top 5 at TPB right now, despite being released several weeks ago.)

Bee Movie? It's not even on TPB top ten -- and it's getting "rotten" reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes.