WebProNews

Hollywood has won a major lawsuit against movie linking Web sites ShowStash.com and Cinematube.net.

A federal judge in Los Angeles issued a $2.7 million judgment against Showstash for the infringement of more than a hundred copyrighted movies and television shows. A federal judge awarded the studios a similar judgment against Cinematube for $1.3 million.

The judgments come on the heels of another settlement in favor of the studios, which recently won a $110 million judgment against TorrentSpy.com.

"Our goal is to stop this kind if blatant and illegal activity. These judgments indicate tht the studios will not hesitate to vigorously pursue litigation against this type of site," said John G. Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy for the Motion Picture Association of America.

ShowStash and Cinematube infringed the studios copyrights by collecting, organizing, indexing, and posting on their Web sites links to pirated copies of movies and television shows, which had been posted on third party sites, allowing users to locate and view the content.

The judgments against both sites prohibit them from engaging in any other activity that would infringe on the studios copyrighted content.

The worldwide motion picture industry loses more than $18 billion a year because of movie theft. More than $7 billion in losses are connected to illegal Internet distribution