Business in brief: NYC cracks down on film piracy
With the summer blockbuster movie season just ahead, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation on Tuesday that upgrades film piracy from a violation with a $250 fine to a misdemeanor that carries up to six months in jail and penalties of up to $5,000.
The stricter law coincides with an advertising campaign against film piracy.
The Motion Picture Association of America says more than 40 percent of bootlegged films are secretly videotaped in New York City theaters. The duplications are typically sold for mass reproduction or posted on the Internet, sometimes just hours after the movie has premiered.
Pirated movies cost major U.S. film studios more than $6 billion in 2005, according to the MPAA. And a new study by the group shows that the New York movie industry loses an estimated $1.5 billion a year because of piracy, and the local economy suffers further with lost earnings, tax revenue and jobs.
Dearborn, Mich.
Land Rover sales halted in Sudan
Ford Motor Co.’s Land Rover vehicles are no longer being sold in Sudan after the Securities and Exchange Commission asked the company about reports that some Land Rovers may have been used by military or paramilitary organizations in the African nation.
The SEC on Tuesday released a letter dated Jan. 5 from Don Leclair, Ford’s chief financial officer, who was responding to a Dec. 15 letter of inquiry from Cecilia D. Blye, chief of the SEC’s Office of Global Security Risk.
An SEC spokesman said such correspondences are not released to the public for at least 45 days, following the completion of their review by the agency.
Leclair’s letter says the company’s Land Rover subsidiary had reached an agreement “in recent months” with its United Kingdom-based distributor that handles all sales to Sudan “that no further sales of Land Rover vehicles will be made into Sudan for any purpose.”
Jackson, Miss.
Mississippi to sue State Farm
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said Tuesday he plans to sue State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. because he believes the insurer failed to honor the terms of their agreement for a mass settlement of policyholder claims over Hurricane Katrina damage.
Hood, who agreed in January to drop State Farm from a civil suit his office filed less than a month after Katrina, said his office is in the “final stages” of drafting a new complaint that accuses State Farm of breach of contract.
State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said the company met its legal obligations in the proposed settlement and is disappointed that Hood plans to sue.
“We are at a loss to understand Mr. Hood’s motives for his actions,” Supple said.
Hood, however, said the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer hasn’t adhered to the terms of a deal that called for the attorney general to drop State Farm from the lawsuit he filed against several insurers for refusing to cover damage from Katrina’s Aug. 29, 2005, storm surge.