MPAA Goes After Its Customers

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.'"

Comments

False Positives

[ghostlibrary]

My first reaction is "so? Sounds fair". I mean, it's going at the source of pirating and illegal sharing, not a problem.

The article raised the issue of false positives. It had this chilling bit on it:

"Of all the letters we have sent out, we only had 2 other people who corresponded back who said we were mistaken," Jacobsen said. "And we didn't think we were."

Oh, wait-- the folks doing the automated search get to decide whether its infringement. This is kinda backwards.

I mean, someone thinks you stole a coke from 7-11, the cops come and listen and maybe a judge makes a verdict-- not the 7-11 clerk.

But here, the person making the allegation gets to decide if it's true or not-- and when has any person ever been really psyched to say "Oh, wait, sorry, I was totally wrong, wasted your time, and opened myself up to legal risk by making a false accusation."

So, neat idea, but the implementation needs some better due process.

Re:False Positives

[RatFink100]

All systems have false positives. Cops arrest the wrong person. Innocent people get convicted.

The important thing is where are the checks and balances. The right of appeal for instance.

I don't have a problem with the process in principle but I think 24 hours is too short a time to be able to challenge the information.

They should also have the right to have access to the ISP's logs on their connection.

Re:Invasion of Privacy - I think not

[Alan Cox]

It becomes an invasion of privacy if they decide to break into your computer. What is going on here is quite different. Its more akin to people leaving piles of copied movies on the road with a big "take one" sign.

If you make stuff available for download you stuck it up for people to see and put it out in the open.

There are guilty until proven innocent problems with the current take down approaches but the privacy one is a red herring here.

I feel validated

[Borealis]

I can't remember how many times I've said or thought "without the fucking customer, my life would be so much easier". I'm so glad to see somebody finally decided to just say "screw them" to all their customers and live the easy life.

I wonder if the MPAA is hiring...

Re:Uh, those customers are same as shoplifters...

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

By copying the movie rather than buying it, you are depriving the copyright owner of income.

Thankfully, "denial of income" is not a bona fide crime. If I review a movie and pan it, convincing some people not to see it, am I guilty of "denial of income"? Copyright law is not overly concerned with income -- that's why the usual "I was only copying for non-profit use" defense is bogus.

Infringement is a crime. It is not theft, as it does not deny use of the item in question to the legitimate holder of copyright.