Internet movie thieves be warned: You have no friends in the online community when you are engaging in Haitian movies copyright theft. The Motion Picture Association of Haiti (MPAH) this Sunday announced the second criminal enforcement action targeting Haitian Movie Websites committing online copyright infringement.

On September 18th, 2009, the MPAH shut down Bamboch TV for playing illegally the movie San Papye which is distributed by MPAH/Win Win Distribution.

On Sunday March 21st, 2010, The Motion Picture Association of Haiti shut down TV Kreyol, another popular online streaming channel on Livestream.com that was playing Randevou Avek Lanmo – which is also distributed by MPAH/Win Win Distribution.

In a video posted on YouTube on September 2009, Hans Patrick Domercant, MPAH CEO, said

This is America, we are covered by the law, the Digital Millennium Act, and this one of the reasons we will not tolerate any websites to play Haitian movies illegally, specifically “San Papye” which is copyrighted in the United States.

According to a source, MPAH only targets websites that are playing movies distributed by the Win Win distribution system.

Here is the confirmation letter MPAH got back from Livestream.com Copyright Department:

Dear Motion Picture Association of Haiti:

Livestream provides users with the ability to create channels of streaming content that can be viewed by other users. Livestream takes the rights of intellectual property owners very seriously and complies as a service provider with all applicable provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (.DMCA.). Our policy is to respond to the valid notices of alleged infringement we receive according to the DMCA by expeditiously removing or disabling access to allegedly infringing material and terminating users when appropriate.

We received your communication of 21-Mar-2010 and promptly disabled access to the content located at http://www.livestream.com/tvkh as of the date of your notification.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Copyright Agent

Livestream

Hopefully, this crackdown will send a clear and unmistakable message to anyone involved in the online theft of copyrighted works.

This illegal operation is doing serious financial damage to the people who labor to produce these copyrighted products. So, what should Haitian filmmakers do to shut down as much of this illegal operation?

Share your thoughts below.