On 29 November, the major Hollywood studios, such as Disney, Warner, Universal, Sony, Paramount, Netflix and the rest of Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) members voiced their concern regarding the increasing piracy issue in Georgia, reported georgiatoday.
In a letter addressed to the Georgian National Communications Commission and the National Intellectual Property Center of Georgia, MPAA underlined the problem of the websites adjaranet.com and imovies.ge, which have been illegally pirating the movie contents in the country. The message read that unless the issue is appropriately addressed the MPAA will put sanctions on Georgia.
“Reducing piracy continues to be a key priority for us and enforcement is a necessary and important step to achieve this priority. In Georgia, services such as adjaranet.com and imovies.ge, which [provide] movies from the MPAA member companies without their consent, present a significant problem,” reads the letter.
The sanctions the MPAA threatens Georgia with entail belated movie and TV premieres and in certain cases, canceling them completely.
The MPAA named the movie “And Then We Danced” which had been leaked illegally, and the theft of the movie "My Happy Family" which prompted Netflix not to purchase other Georgian movie rights in the foreseeable future, as the examples of such practices. The sanctions of the MPAA threaten Georgia with entail belated movie and TV premieres and in certain cases, canceling them completely.
The MPAA also welcomed in the letter the newly established Anti-Piracy Center of Georgia which aims to protect the image of the country and develop the industry within legal frames.
Imovies.ge and Adjaranet.com released a joint statement in response to the MPAA letter. The Georgian websites said that Russian pirate websites are creating a real problem in the country. They request that Imovies.ge and Adjaranet.com be blocked in Georgia.
“It is very important to block Russian, pirated movie portals operating on the territory of Georgia to properly execute the process, so Georgian companies that pay taxes to the Georgian budget can have the opportunity and motivation to buy legal films and TV series,” read the statement.
These two companies also highlighted the fact that they have always respected other Georgian channels and never streamed their content illegally, but they are also surprised that the channels themselves were not targeting Russian pirating websites.
“We recognize the rights of any Georgian company to their proprietary content, for years we have not placed illegally attained products on our websites, precisely because all of their rights have been fully protected, although surprisingly the same companies have not taken any steps against Russian pirated websites for so long,” is said in the statement.
According to a survey from Muso, a company that makes anti-piracy technology, in 2016, Georgia was ranked fourth amongst the countries with the most piracy site visits in the world. It was estimated that 4120 US Dollars from the Georgian Gross National Income (GNI) per capita were lost on piracy sites.
