For years, the MPAA has been sending notifications to users who illegally download their movies via the Internet. The general course of action is to hire a company to track down users who infringe on the MPAA’s copyrights, send a letter to the offenders ISP, and request that the message be sent to the actual offending user. The letter contains the title of the alleged infringement, the day and time that the company detected the activity, as well as the users IP address, port, and protocol information.
According to TorrentFreak, the MPAA has sent multiple letters to Google headquarters with information on employees who have allegedly downloaded movies via BitTorrent. These users are accused of downloading copyrighted material from within the company and according to the letters that the MPAA sends out, they are within their rights to have the users ISP shutdown Internet access for the offenders – thus taking Google offline.
“Copyright infringement also violates your ISP’s terms of service and could lead to limitation or suspension of your Internet service. You should take immediate action to prevent your Internet account from being used for illegal activities,”
The chances of anything actually happening to Google are virtually zero, but at least the MPAA offers Google (and other violators) helpful step by step instructions on how to avoid violating copyright law. After all, you wouldn’t steal a car, would you?