MUMBAI: The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on behalf of the major Hollywood movie studios filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against ShowStash.com, a website that facilitates copyright infringement on the Internet.

ShowStash contributes to and profits from massive copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organizing, and indexing links to infringing content found on the Internet that consumers can then view on-demand on the site.

“ShowStash is a one-stop-shop for copyright infringement and the operators’ sole purpose is to disseminate content that has been illegally reproduced and distributed. Sites like ShowStash are breaking the law and the operators of such sites can and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and put out of business for good,” said John Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA.

ShowStash relies on advertisers to maintain its website and earns considerable profits from displaying ads on their site. With servers located in Scottsdale, Arizona, ShowStash averages over 17,000 unique daily visitors who view nearly 60,000 pages of content per day.

Civil lawsuits were filed against ShowStash.com in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for damages and injunctive relief for violations under the United States Copyright Act of 1976.

The worldwide motion picture industry, including foreign and domestic producers, distributors, theaters, video stores and pay-per-view operators lost $18.2 billion in 2005 as a result of piracy –over $7 billion of which is attributed to Internet piracy and more than $11 billion attributed to hard goods piracy including bootlegging and illegal copying.