Posted on: Friday, November 5, 2004

BUSINESS BRIEFS
Hollywood aims at movie piracy

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood studios said yesterday they will file hundreds of lawsuits later this month against individuals who swap pirated copies of movies over the Internet.

The move is a reversal of the studios' earlier reluctance to follow the aggressive legal path taken by the music industry. Internet piracy of movies is not nearly as rampant as in the music industry, in large part because movie files are huge and can take hours to download, in contrast to less than a minute in most cases for songs.

Altria Group reorganizing

NEW YORK — Tobacco and food giant Altria Group Inc. is moving ahead with preparations to break itself up into two or three businesses, CEO Louis Camilleri said yesterday.

Camilleri said splitting up Altria — whose brands include Marlboro cigarettes, Oreo cookies and Maxwell House coffee — would be a boon to investors who hold shares he described as significantly undervalued.

Russian oil giant appeals to Putin

MOSCOW — Group Menatep Ltd., the main shareholder of OAO Yukos, threatened international litigation against President Vladimir Putin over the government-led legal assault that has reduced the value of the oil giant by some 82 percent.

The appeal to negotiate was sent to Putin at the end of last week in the name of Menatep's wholly owned foreign subsidiaries, Tim Osborne, a Group Menatep director, told The Associated Press yesterday. Those subsidiaries control most of Yukos.

Dollar down against euro

BERLIN — The dollar hit its lowest level in more than eight months against the euro yesterday, falling sharply on worries about the economic effects of rising oil prices and expectations of continued trade and budget deficits in President Bush's second term.

The shared European currency neared its all-time high of $1.2927 of Feb. 18, trading at $1.2867 in late dealings in New York.