MILWAUKEE, WI — Fred Lawrence of Racine, WI doesn’t even enjoy watching movies – but the Motion Picture Association of America insists that he’s done the multi billion dollar industry $600,000 worth of harm.According to a suit filed in federal court against the 67 year-old grandfather, four motion pictures were downloaded over the internet file-sharing service iMesh onto his home computer. Lawrence doesn’t disagree that the downloads occurred, but refused in March to pay a $4,000 settlement since he didn’t have anything to do with them.
Lawrence’s 12-year-old grandson, however, did download “The Incredibles,” “I, Robot,” “The Grudge,” and “The Forgotten,” in December of last year. The admittedly “naïve” adult insists that the child didn’t know what he was doing was illegal and chalks the experience up to “an innocent mistake my grandson made.”
Although he says he understands why the MPAA might be upset about copyright infringement, the idea of paying a large fine for something he didn’t do doesn’t sit well with the man. “I can see where they wouldn’t want this to happen,” he empathized, “but when you get up around $4,000… I don’t have that kind of money. I never was and never will be a wealthy person.”
Kori Bernards, Vice President of Corporate Communications for MPAA, insists that downloaded films cost the movie industry approximately $5.4 billion a year. She further contends that those who download pirated content need to understand the consequences of their actions. Although the MPAA plans to continue its suit against Lawrence, Bernards insists that it’s peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted content available via iMesh and other similar networks that MPAA objects to the most.
Lawrence insists that once the movies were downloaded, they were immediately deleted. He further points out that three of the four titles were already legally owned and available on DVD.
