MPAA: Censorship Good For Consumers, Will Help Innovation

The MPAA has welcomed recent court decisions around Europe that have seen orders to censor the BitTorrent indexer website, The Pirate Bay. 

Writing on their official blog, the MPAA welcome rulings in the Netherlands, UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Finland, and says that censorship helps "not only the creative community but also consumers". This suggestion will no doubt incense Internet Freedom activists, who say that censorship of The Pirate Bay and other websites are not only heavy handed, but also ineffective at stopping visitors to these websites.

But the MPAA says such blocks are needed to promote innovation, to allow more legitimate sites to "provide consumers with content when they want it". Critics also attacked this point, saying that the MPAA's history on innovation (having been against VCRs at one point, and with members believing nothing good has ever come out of the Internet) nullifies their argument, and if anything, websites like The Pirate Bay have been instrumental in forcing Hollywood to start offering competitive products and services for the Internet age.