Web sleuth: Hollywood relies on Thomas Temple, a former Navy SEAL, to track down movie pirates swapping files on the Internet.

EVERY day at his office, Thomas Temple receives affirmations of the nightmare that high-speed Internet service has created for Hollywood. Using software to track movie files, he routinely sees the pirated downloading on the Internet--much of it coming from dorms and computer labs of U.S. universities. A Navy SEAL turned lawyer, Temple joined the Motion Picture Association a year ago, and has become a front man in the campaign by movie studios to hunt down the culprits. The Motion Picture Association is the international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America and serves as the trade group for the U.S. motion picture, home video and television industries.

Question: What is your job?

Answer: I'm in charge of any motion picture piracy that takes place on the Internet around the world--people that are sharing or distributing movies online either in the downloadable format or in hard goods such as optical discs. Also things like circumvention devices that are used to break the encryption of DVDs and devices that are used to pirate satellite TV. We search the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week for sites that are distributing motion pictures. We take action primarily through the use of takedown notifications, which we send to the Interact service providers to get the sites taken off the Internet.

Q: How do you find these sites?

A: We use outside technology vendors that search for us. We give them a list of things we need to look for and it's up to them to find it for us. They find it and identify the Internet service provider, We gather information on the computer and person, such as user names, IP addresses and sometimes you can get additional information if they are operating a Web site by seeing who owns the domain. The IP address is the one thing you can get, no matter what, and that very often leads you to the user.

Q: How do you know if you're downloading something that's copyrighted?

A: If it's a movie that's in theatrical release or before release and it's on the Internet, it's pirated. If we find a person using a regular Internet service and they are distributing a movie, then they are doing it without the permission of the copyright owners. If you're distributing one movie file or even half a movie file, we will take action against the Internet service provider.

Q: Has your enforcement policy produced results?

A: We're able to identify technologies and individuals that are doing it, but the number of people doing it continues to grow. We're using selected litigation, takedown notifications and education. We try to get the word out that this very tempting candy out there on the Internet is not to be savored because it's against the law.

Q: Will your policies be more aggressive this year?

A: We want to work closely with universities and their IT managers to get the message out. These people are infringing copyrights and are subject to a lawsuit, and in some instances, criminal prosecution. We are looking at every possible solution, including education, continuing to send takedown notifications, and finding technological ways to stop it. This year you will see more of the same plus some additional efforts in the education and technological solutions. If people are violating the law, we will look into what we have under the legal system to take action against that.

Q: Are you concerned about negative public sentiment?

A: What is the negative side of suing people who are stealing from you? There are people writing that and talking about it on television. The negative is that people are stealing from us. The positive is we are doing something about it. It'd be one thing if we were suing people who weren't doing anything wrong. At the end of the day, the people stealing are taking money away from the people making the movies.

Q: Where is the biggest resistance coming from?

A: There is a feeling among a lot of young people that because it's available, it must be legal. That's simply not the case and we let people know that. In certain cases, we've filed civil lawsuits against people that were selling pirated optical discs. We've made progress in that regard. We've seen a drop in sales of pirated discs on the auction Web sites.

Q: What was the effect of the court rulings earlier this year that allowed some of the companies that make piracy software to keep operating?

A: I don't want to comment on the details of the Litigation. There was a ruling at the district court level that went against us. But the ease is still ongoing and we are appealing it.

Q: How will the paid movie download services play out?

A: Things like Movielink and CinemaNow are promising methods of distribution. Assuming the consumer is interested in getting their movies that way, and I think they are, then the studios will want to distribute that way. The comments that say the studios should just give consumers what they want and then piracy would stop. Well, that's a tempting argument, but what it's saying is the studios should be distributing their movies for free. Nobody at the studios would agree with that. You'll see more consumers interested in getting movies through something like Movielink and you'll see studios responding to that. The stealing has to stop and the distributing of movies is going to happen.

Q: Do all the studios agree on how to fight online piracy?

A: We generally come to a consensus. Each studio handles its own anti-piracy individually but it's not on the scale of what they do together through the MPA. They do their own work in-house, but big problems that affect all the studios are more efficiently addressed by the MPA.

Q: Has office downloading been a problem?

A: If I were running a corporation and learned that employees were downloading and distributing movies during work hours using equipment that I gave them, I'd be hugely concerned. The bigger problem is that peer-to-peer applications turn a computer into a server, and as a company, I would not be interested in having all of my secure computers offering up materials to share and using up bandwidth. Those computers are a server that is open to the Interact. When you open a computer like that, it allows stuff to come in. There's a serious security risk. And your employee would also be engaged in copyright infringement, which is breaking federal law.

Q: How do you find pirates on Internet chat rooms and e-mail tools, such as AOL's Instant Messenger?

A: Our technology vendors report cases of people sharing files in chat room channels because it's public and anyone can get on those chat rooms. If somebody is emailing a movie to somebody else, that's a private conversation that we are not privy too. We don't engage in violations of privacy like that.

Q: So people using e-mail to distribute movies cannot be tracked?

A: It's a difficult situation. The files are much larger than just about any e-mail system can handle. Although we can't monitor it, movie piracy as opposed to music piracy is probably not being done at a significant rate through e-mail or instant messaging. There is a lot of piracy being done over ad-hoc peer-to-peer systems at universities that we aren't privy to because those are private networks. It's being done and we don't have the ability to monitor to them. We will address those when we find about them from the university.

Q: How did get you go from being a Navy SEAL to a lawyer?

A: I became a Navy SEAL because it was down and dirty and you get to work with cool gadgets such as computers and night vision equipment. The reason I got out was I wanted to keep fighting as I get older. Once your knees give out, it's hard to carry a 60 pound rucksack. So I went to law school. My goal through law school was to get into computer crime. At the Venture County district attorney's office, I co-founded a computer crimes unit and started prosecuting child porn, as well as computer intrusions, identity theft, credit card fraud, Internet crimes and stalking. I had been doing that for about a year when I heard about this job. It seemed very interesting with widespread implications.

INTERVIEW

Thomas Temple

Title: Director of Worldwide Internet Enforcement, Motion Picture Association

Born: 1965, Newport Beach 

Education: Bachelor's degree, English, Spanish and engineering, U.S. Naval Academy; Juris doctor, University of San Diego 

Career Turning Point: The end of Navy SEAL training

Most Admired Person: Father

Hobbies: Building furniture, sailing, and reading

Personal: Married