Los Angeles - The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against two websites, YouTVpc.com and Peekvid.com, which the movie studio trade group says identify, post, organize and index links to infringing content.

The sites are accused of "secondary" or "contributory" copyright infringement, as they themselves do not host the files, but merely provide links to them, and thereby "induce" infringement.

"The sole purpose of these sites is to disseminate content that has been illegally reproduced and distributed," said John Malcolm, director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the MPAA.

"These lawsuits should serve as a warning to other aspiring movie theft 'entrepreneurs' that they are not above the law and will face serious consequences for their activities."

The MPAA said that both sites profit from advertising; San Antonio, Texas-based YouTVpc.com claims 53,000 unique daily users, while Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Peekvid.com attracts 6,000.

The actions against YouTVpc.com and Peekvid.com take a similar tactic as the MPAA's lawsuit against TorrentSpy, a site that provides a list of links to files available for download on the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2e9opw (PDF: MPAA announcement)

http://tinyurl.com/2g8g5r (Hollywood Reporter)

http://www.youtvpc.com

http://www.peekvid.com