BSA Accuses OpenOffice Mirrors

sqrt529 writes "A German university was accused by the BSA of pirating MS Office, because they mirrored OpenOffice.org. The scripts from the BSA only check for "Office" in the filename and then automatically send out notices to the ftp admins. Did any of you get similar notices from the BSA?"

Comments

Up for penalty?

[Espen]

From the letter:

BSA represents that the information in this notification is accurate and states, under penalty of perjury, that it is authorized to act in this matter on behalf of the copyright owners listed above.

So the BSA has perjured itself; now what is the penalty?

Re:Up for penalty?

[ketamine-bp]

Actually, they are UP for their penalty. This is because they announced that they are representing the Openoffice.org, but actually they do NOT.

Re:Up for penalty?

[dschuetz]

BSA represents that the information in this notification is accurate and states, under penalty of perjury, that it is authorized to act in this matter on behalf of the copyright owners listed above.

Ha!

I'd've spent DAYS scouring every open directory on the aforementioned server, just to verify that no copy of MS-Office was on there, then send them the bill. And use that clause as justification. Run it through court, and you've got a decision against the BSA showing that, at least once, their practices were shoddy and their information unreliable.

Wouldn't *that* be a great thing for the next recipient of a BSA-extortion-threat to point to?

This beggars belief

[Hittite Creosote]

Excerpt from the BSA email...
Filename: /mandrake_current/SRPMS/OpenOffice.org-1.0.1-9mdk. src.rpm
The above computer program(s) is/are being made available for copying, through downloading, at the above location without authorization from the copyright owner(s).

It seems almost astonishing that even the BSA can be as utterly incompetent as this (does BSA stand for Bloody Stupid Alliance?). Unless you go for the conspiracy theory that they're deliberately hassling their clients rivals...

invalid e-mail address?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the BSA letter in the article:
>> FTP Login Name: anonymous
>> FTP Login Password: guest@nowhere.com

Hmm. Using a spoofed (or at least, invalid) e-mail address?
As most FTP servers allow anonymous access if you "Please provide e-mail address as password", I'd call that gaining access under false pretences. Is the BSA representing those same companies that get so pissy when people (for privacy reasons) use spoofed details on web "please register" forms?
If they can do it, so can we. I won't feel so guilty - not that I did anyway - next time I install software and register it to "nobody@mindyourownbusiness.com"..

In Yo Face

[4of12]

It's clear the much feared BSA has made a mistake.

However, since their actions in the past have caused untold scrambling to find licenses on the part of many law-abiding but sloppy businesses, I think it is only fair that BSA likewise be caused to scramble. Because the BSA, likewise, has now been sloppy.

The university should have lawyer draft up some pompous letter indicating that

1. the BSA has not done its homework,
2. is accusing the university falsely,
3. has maligned the reputation of the university,
4. is beginning to cause the university to incur expenses to deal with the BSA's flimsy and false accusations and to repair its reputation as a law-abiding university, and
5. that, furthermore, the BSA should expect an invoice shortly for these expenses.

[I know, it will be only a paper tiger and never stand up. But I'm sure I'm not the only one that fantasizes about seeing the BSA have to eat their own dogfood for a change.]

Re:Wow. That's stupid.

[nitehorse]

Public FTP servers usually have the restriction that the user enter a valid email address, which the BSA's spidering/searching software faked in order to gain access.

Hell, isn't that illegal under the DMCA? They're circumventing a protection measure to gain access to digitally protected work. Heh. That'd be awesome, if someone would sue the BSA for breaching the DMCA...

Also, here in the US, it's very common to be charged a flat fee for internet service, such that one would pay (say) $400 a month for a guaranteed pipeline of 3Mbits (numbers are made up, but you get the idea.) Whereas, in other parts of the world, billing is much more commonly based on the amount of data transferred. Which means that if I host a server here, I pay for the line to it - no matter if the machine is accessed once or two million times in a month, whereas in other countries (especially Europe, including Germany), the difference between once and two million accesses is quite large, and may result in higher bills due to more data transfer.

My point is that the BSA wasted bandwidth, needlessly scared a sysadmin at a German university, and may have even violated the DMCA in doing so. Again... Wow, that was stupid of them.

Re:Open Office Outlawed

[WindBourne]

Many of the tactics that BSA employs would actually be illegal if the law was applied in an even-handed approach. BSA operates be threats and false premises. The problem is that they have the backing of our current admin (Clinton's admin was not much better). If they treaten you and you do not comply, they get a warrent and come back with Ashcroft's FBI, who then take ALL of your computers for the next year. I have been told by somebody that they can hold the equipment up to 5 years. We used to get upset when these kind of actions were done in Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and a number of third world dictatoships. Now, it is all in the name of security.