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MPAA Goes After Its Customers

Posted by michael on from the please-stop-advertising-for-us-kthx dept.

EyesWideOpen writes "The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is issuing 'takedown' notices to ISP's to alert them that customers are using their internet service to transmit or post copyrighted movies. The ISP's in turn send a letter to the customers threatening to disable their internet connection unless the offending material is removed. The MPAA is using software that 'cruises file-swapping networks like Gnutella to find copyrighted materials, hunts down the IP address of the poster, then discovers which Internet service provider is being used.'"

2 of 431 comments (clear)

  1. The MPAA's lapdog by shagoth · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unless things have changed dramatically, the MPAA is still using software from Ranger Online to perform their searches exclusively. This software isn't all that technically impressive. Anybody with an understanding of protocols and search techniques can make the searches they do in public forums like gnutella and IRC. So then I imagine that they do a simple traceroute to locate the ISP or hosting provider and then a whois for the contact. THis all publicly available and frankly probably requires lots of human intervention. We're not talking banks of computers here, we're talking about a room full of MPAA flunkies doing jack Valenti's bidding.

  2. Ummm...read the DMCA lately? by SPYvSPY · · Score: 4, Informative

    The DMCA requires ISP's to takedown materials that are alleged to be infringing until the alleged infringer disputes the allegation. There's a whole messy procedure for the back and forth, and it favors the intital claim of infringment.