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What Is The MPAA Up To Now?

Posted by michael on from the nothing-good dept.

Phlux writes "I was one of the original group of people sent letters by the MPAA back in March to stop posting DeCSS on the Web. I immediately removed the code from my site at that time. I have now been sent another letter telling me to cease and desist from linking to any other sites on the matter (there is a link to 2600 on the page). The standard list of threats apply. The page, and the text of the letter, can be found here." I think these form letters are sent with little or no human supervision. Which ought to be illegal in and of itself.

4 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Here too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    We're getting these letters, almost word for word, down here in Australia.

    I imagine one day we'll be forced to remove the stuff from our web sites, but for now, decss is not illegal here in Australia, nor is it covered by any legal/court rulings. I have a dread feeling that one day I'll become a test case. I have no idea if I'll have the balls and stamina to go through with it. I hope so.

    My site has received two threatening letters, but fortunatly my ISP has a set of balls, and is not only ignoring them, but has started his own mirror too.

    I'm anonymous for a reason - I dun wanna provoke the fight before it's due :) I know the mpaa dudes are scouring the web...

  2. AINAL Comments: seven degrees of seperation by tagishsimon · · Score: 3
    There seem to be a couple of issues, here, the second being more interesting than the first.

    1. You're site still has a fairly blatent (indirect) link to the code ... "I encourage you to click here for a list of mirrors". You'd be hard pressed to defend this. If, however, you provided a link to" sites which provide further commentary on the DeCSS/MPAA matter", then the link to the code would not be so blatent and you could, imho, argue fair comment.

    2. More interestingly, the form of words in the letter: "injunction against .. linking any Internet web site, either directly or through a series of links, to any other Internet web site containing DeCSS". is surely unenforcable. My site has a link to slashdot. Slashdot has a link to your site. Your site has a link to 2600. 2600 has links to mirrors of hte DeCSS code. So we're all implicated. Various UK Government sites link to my site. They're implicated. US Government sites link to UK government sites. MPAA probably links to US Government sites. They're implicated.

    The logic appears to me that we should all stop linking to other sites, on the off chance that there is a route through which someone can get the the DeCSS code. To comply with the injunction, we should, in effect, dismantle the internet.

    Further, we should not link to 2600 for any other reason than to highlight a DeCSS link; in other words, the injunction apparantly makes it impossible to link to 2600 for any reason.

    So, to repeat, I suggest there must be plenty of scope under your free speech amendment to argue that the injunction is not enforcable.

  3. Slick by SanLouBlues · · Score: 3

    Looking for a copy of DeCSS? The easiest way is to go to Disney's search engine and search for DeCSS. They will then LINK you to thousands of sites, something we're no longer allowed to do. This is still the slickest way possible to link to DeCSS mirrors. I doubled over laughing when I saw 2600 first post this. Ah hipocrasy.

  4. Bully attempt. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 3
    This is another example of a large company bully tactic.

    Many large corporations use their size and wealth to bully the small guys (individuals and small companies) with the threat of large legal expenses.

    Why do you think that Skala and Jansson caved in to Mattel? I did not cave in to Mattel, but I can understand why they did.

    If enough people stand up to bullies, they may stop being bullies.

    --
    Fight Spammers!