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MPAA Sends Linux Australia Dubious Takedown Notice
L1TH10N writes "News.com has a story on how the MPAA sent a takedown notice to Linux Australia for the movies 'Twisted' and "Grind.' What was actually hosted with Linux Australia is Twisted (being a Python framework) and Valgrind (being a tool for finding memory management problems in programs). An interesting question that the article raises is whether automatic takedown notices based on blind keyword searches constitutes spam."
"This seems to be a huge misuse of resources, an infringement upon various global spam laws, an infringement upon our own Copyright Act under Section 102 and needless stress and cost upon small Australian organizations and companies," Smith said. ......
"Linux Australia is concerned that this kind of shoot-in-the-dark approach to copyright protection is potentially damaging for Australian organizations and companies," Smith added. "Organizations that participate in such behavior should be held accountable and forced to put at least some effort into researching the validity of their keyword searches."
Why aren't there any similar laws in the United States? Or are there similar laws that are applicable here (in the States)? I mean, it's understandable once or twice (ie- story where professor posted an mp3 of his lectures and RIAA hounded him for it), but any more than that and it just doesn't make any sense...... "Should be held accountable" indeed......
Offtopic - what movies were named "Twisted" or "Grind"? Anybody?
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
It constitutes stupidity and makes them hated by even more people (is that possible?). If it happened to me I'd be very pissed, especially if it happened in my workplace.
I'd hope there was something in Australian law that allowed them to sue for groundless legal threatening. An automated lawsuit threatening system... welcome to America!
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I wonder what the MPAA found? A tar.gz file, an rpm? If their agents are so idiotic to chase after something called python-twisted-1.3.0-1.1.fc2.dag.i386.rpm without checking if it is a film then they should be made to suffer by forcing the issue into court. Let the MPAA engage a lawyer in Oz and and then show them to be wasting the court's time.
See my journal, I write things there
Someone else already had this idea:
.jpgs of kittens :-)
http://www.xzzy.org/warez/
But they're actually just
A more interesting question is whether a takedown notice from a party who does not own the copyright on the material in question and who, given the nature of the material subject to the notice, could not reasonably have believed they owned the copyright constitutes illegal interference with the right of the copyright holder to distribute his works, and if so exactly what civil and criminal penalties does the law prescribe?
Look guys, if you want to tradmark the hell out of American English until it's completely unusable without being sued.... fine by me. Just leave the traditional English alone. Thankyou.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
How about creating a video in povray of a matrix of objects being. Call it MatrixRevolutions.avi and host it on your site. Make sure your site has clearly posted TOS that the MPAA and RIAA and all associated and employees are prohibited from accessing your site.
While they're on a roll, they could always go after the writers of Python with infringement takedown notices.
In light of the above, it wouldn't be all that farfetched, would it?
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I thought one of the tenets of trademarks was "where the product is targetted to the same marketplace" ...or some such thing....
does the MPAA assume that the "internet" is a single arena, which it controls a percentage of?
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*shrugz*
it's the taking apart that counts
In the same way one can detect spammers by putting bogus hidden email addresses in web pages, would there be any value in putting bogus file links in web pages?
eg. many <your-least-favorite-movie>.mpg
links to real large (junk, but not downloadable) files?
Would this (a) cause MPAA to improve their filtering & verification, (b) cause them to cease & desist, (c) reduce the effectiveness of their scans, or (d) add you to the top of the list to be persecuted by the MPAA?
Ooh I like this idea. They could send back a letter showing their mistake and demand that they pay their legal costs. 30 minutes? About 20$? If it went to court I'm sure they'd win.
Am I the only one who doesn't remember the whole DeCSS deal that flared up when DeCSS the DVD decryption program was hunted down while an innocent CSS stripping app got the boot?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Going after people for core files?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
(lynx)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0392368/
(windows)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081759/
(more)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188913/
(nero) (if thats not a prime candidate ?)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104983/
I spent five minutes finding that lot - sure there are many more. Methinks this is just anti-linux FUD again from the Microsoft Puppet Association America.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
The worst part of this are two very big lies.
When they send out these bogus takedown messages (which has been happening often lately), they will claim they are acting on some kind of "good faith" belief that the work is copyrighted and should not be distributed. LIE. They are simply doing keyword searches and auto-spamming people when download matches come up.
Then, they will claim that they are acting on behalf of the copyright holder of the work. LIE. The work in question is not really a film, so they are NOT acting on behalf of the real copyright holder of the item in question.
If you ask me, they should at the VERY least be legally liable for the second big lie, and be forced to pay some kind of damages every time they send out something this blatantly false.
This is ridiculous and it has to stop.
An interesting question that the article raises is whether automatic takedown notices based on blind keyword searches constitutes spam.
Its not spam its harassment. not just harassmen, but unwarranted harassment at that. As with most things they sould be allowed to sue for damages, but for the time it takes them to rectify the situation, but for some kind of defamation as well.
Errrm, because you'd have to actually pay them?? Don't forget that motion picture studios aren't in the business of giving money away, which is why, through creative accounting, no movie shows a profit. Never mind the umpteen bazillion dollar box office take on the opening weekend, somehow the expenses almost exactly match the costs...
IIRC, that's how they screwed over the original artist who drew (and owned copyright on) the original Spiderman comics. He was offered, and accepted, a percentage of the profits, which turned out to be almost worthless. Or something very similar - it's been a while since I read that.
to see more of this hilarity in action, see the recent copyright infringement notice sent to scene.org
4 0047
:) "
http://www.scene.org/showforum.php?forum=5&topic=
" But it is kind of flattering for them to think that the demoscene coders now have found a way to pack 1 whole tv series episode into a ~30KB file
I wonder how long it would take for the MPAA to get a hold of me if I inserted "stolen movies" or "national talk like a pirate day", etc into the meta tag of every web page I code?
Not to mention "speed." I just read that one guy recieved a letter from MPAA for downloading Super Metroid speed run.
Quote from the letter: "Also, we hereby state, that the information in this notification is accurate and that we are authorized to act on behalf of the owners of the exclusive rights being infringed as set forth in this notification."
To answer the question posed by the article write-up, the notices based on keyword and not human review constitute not spam but fraud. This is because the take-down notice implies human review of the offending item. Without such review, the submission of the notice is fraudulent misrepresentation of due diligence on the part of the complainant. The %IAA aren't just being lazy, they are in violation of the law.
The fascist state is characterized by a pliant judiciary that overlooks the legal violations of it corporate overlords. They for one welcome their petrification and hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants. Thank you. OOG, THE CAVEMAN.
How about a MPAA - RIAA fake-out network.
Allow me to explain. A webring, hosting empty MP3's and AVI's with names like madonna.mp3 and Stealthismonie.avi etc...
Multiply that by a thousand per site. And multiply that by the number of participant...
Hell we could have RIAA and MPAA sending out bogus take-down notices 24/7 in no time.
What do you think?
Is that I find it trivial to find illegal copyright movies using suprnova and bittorrent (thats pretty common knowledge) - Now judging by the fact that they dont bother checking filesize or content (as we have seen demonstrated today) how come they havent come down on suprnova to take down .torrent files that contain the name of copyright works? I know that most p2p get around the "storing on a central server" issue by splitting the file into tiny pieces that no one person is offering the complete file at a single time. Judging by the evidence the mere fact that a file contains the name of a work is enough. So how come they havent c&d'd suprnove et al yet? ( its not exactly difficult to stumble accross)
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
If I got hit with one of these incorrect letters, I think I'd write up a bill at a typical consulting rate for the amount of my time which the MPAA used, and send it to them.
When the MPAA sends you an incorrect notice of copyright violation, there's a cost to you for your time for investigating the claim and searching your machine for potentially offending materials.
They're effectively shifting the cost of doing a more careful search to you.
Of course, they wouldn't cough up the money without a fight, and the fight would not be worth it if the only thing you wanted was the small amount of money. But if even a few people chose to go thru and fight it and set a precedent, I'm sure that the MPAA would start being more selective with its letters.
Harassing people outside the US with the DMCA and the like. When will they get, that US law only applies in USA? I think these swedish guys speak for all of us, when they say 'go fuck yourself' to these fuckers:e .txt
http://static.thepiratebay.org/dreamworks_respons
See more responses to meaningless legal threats at:
http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/
Slapping an ASBO on the execs is a fascinating approach that hadn't even occurred to me until you mentioned it. Do you have a reference to the cases in question, please? It sounds like quite a brilliantly simple solution to the problem to me...
As an aside, treating the takedown notice to an ISP as defamatory was mentioned later in this discussion, and also sounds like a straightforward approach.
Bottom line: we have existing laws to counter intimidation, anti-social behaviour and defamation. Why do we need something whizzy and special in this case? Of course, we have existing laws to counter monopoly abuse and price-fixing, too, and look where those have got us. ;-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Blade is an MP3 encoder.
^_^
Fanfiction isn't a gray area. It's one of those sections of fair use that weren't screwed by the DMCA. In the US, at least, it stands as perfectly legal. During Blizzard's breif IP zeal when they squashed Bnetd, they also went after fan fiction, fan-made mods, and even a couple fan games (like a pacman clone using childishly drawn MSPaint Starcraft characters). The only thing they managed to take out was Bnetd and a total conversion of Starcraft that sought to effectively recreate the gameplay of Warcraft III before it was released, and I think that one just bowed out to avoid going to court over it.
Spam my bloody arse! Those incompetent imbeciles from MPAA wish it was spam but this is in fact extortion. I have actually made some of my holiday movies available as files named "star_wars_dvd_rip_divx.mpeg" etc. and I honestly hope to sue those bastards as soon as they dare to send me one of those pathetic "automatic takedown notices."
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Dear Slashdot Editor:
This is the MPAA. This is to inform you that we have a good faith belief that this Slashdot writeup, entitled "MPAA Sends Linux Australia Dubious Takedown Notice", violates the copyright of several Movies. The infringing phrases and the Movies infringed upon are listed below. Accordingly, persuant to Title 17 Clause 8 Section 4 Subsection 3.7b(iv) Paragraph 11 of the United States Law, we ask that you CEASE AND DESIST(tm) hosting said infringing Material and to initiate action against user L1TH10N who posted said infringing Material.
Listing of infringing phrases and names of infringed Movies:
Story Toy Story
Takedown Takedown
Australia Australia
Twisted Twisted
Grind Grind
Python Python
Tool The Tool
Finding Finding Nemo
Memory Memory
Management Anger Management
Problems Pokémon: Vol. 8: Primeape Problems
Programs The Program
Interesting An Interesting Story
Automatic Automatic
Blind Blind
Searches Mike Searches for His Long-Lost Brother
Thank you for helping us in our quest to improve the world.
Sincerely,
the good ol' folks at MPAA