The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) will no longer take legal action against the illegal movie streaming website Movietube. Earlier this year studios including Paramount, Century Fox, Disney, Warner and Universal brought copyright and trademark claims against the operators of the website.
The lawsuit was controversial as the MPAA demanded that all references to the site were removed from the internet. Including references in search engines, social media and all other websites. The MPAA also wanted the site to be taken offline.
Earlier this month Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Tumblr sent a letter to the judge warning him against the demand of the movie studios. The movie studios would silently try to resurrect the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that didn't pass after heavy protest, according to the technology giants.
SOPA aimed to make it easier to block piracy on the internet, but also meant that parties that had nothing to do with piracy has to block sites.
The MPAA has now dropped the lawsuit as the Movietube operators took the website offline themselves.
Update: We received an email from a MPAA representative who writes, "I wanted to make sure you were aware, the MPAA member studios did NOT drop the lawsuit against the movietube sites. Our letter, a copy of which is attached, simply said we were no longer seeking a preliminary injunction, as the sites are down and the preliminary injunction was not needed."
