A recent trend of the MPAA has been undoubtedly threats. This also includes one of the oldest forms of communication online, IRC. It's not only IRC who's being attacked, but the open-source filesharing programs, the commercial services such as Kazaa and Morpheus, gnutella servers, web sites, forums which discuss the pirating of movies and TV episodes and the list goes on.

A spokesperson from the IRC-chat network says "We've been forced to change our Acceptable User Policy after being contacted by the MPAA. We value our users' privacy, but we can't advocate illegal activities and we're ready to work with the MPAA in solving these issues". The IRC network has many TV episode distribution channels who's main aim, according to the Motion Pictures Associate of America is to "distribute, sell and advocate the pirating of copyrighted works". Although this IRC network is not located in the United States, they're still required to respect the laws there of.

IRC-Chat wasn't the only one hit hard with the MPAA's hard stand. DALNet (formerly the world's largest chat network) has been forced to change it's rules and regulations. The network plans to monitor and moderate it's 30,000 to 120,000 users constantly, banning any channels which share files.

To think the United States has such a large reach, not only in the middle east or Asia, but on such an open medium such as the Internet or IRC is disturbing to say the least. Napster was only the start when it was closed by the RIAA quoted Napster as "file-trading application created a safe haven for digital piracy". While the MPAA has not commented on the current round of attacks on IRC, the future of this open medium filesharing community is sitting idle waiting for yet another blow.

"As long as the movie companies and software companies charge way too much for their products, and then turn around and pay their employees so little, there will always be someone out there thumbing their nose at such companies" says an anonymous member of a movie encoding group. They are referring to the early release and distribution of films and TV episodes.

We've been informed by several that the Motion Picture Association of America's problem stems from it's own member companies. Claiming that employees of such companies as Paramount or Disney compensate their employees so little, and in turn, distribute their copyrighted works among pirate organizations worldwide.

The MPAA has it's side of the fight, and the users of the Internet have theirs. Moderating the Internet is what they are after now and the users feel violated. "What gives the MPAA or the government the right to invade my privacy" says another user. The general mood in the online community world is that of disgust and the general feeling of betrayal. This comes after a US judge gave the MPAA and the RIAA the right to sue Shermann network, the creator of the Kazaa firesharing network.

While the general distaste of the reach of the MPAA and the RIAA is growing, there's very little providers and users can do to stop the law from being laid down against filesharing.

Shermann Networks is located in Australia and many of the IRC networks threatened by the MPAA go as far as Singapore and the European Union. The MPAA's arm reaches around the globe and the gap between gray market and black market is closing in, creating quite a controversy with the communities involved and the users of the Internet.