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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."
The words Twisted and Grind are used by other people than the MPAA? God knows those are such uncommon trademarked words. Anybody using those words must be pirating the movies.
"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
The MPAA makes mistakes? I am shocked. My entire world is shattered.
I'd say yes. Why wouldn't you at least have real people double checking for false positives?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
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.
"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."
That does it! My next projects are going to be called Lord of the Rings and Matrix Revolutions.
Wonder if RIAA uses similar techniques. Hmm, maybe I could start a pr0n search tool called Britney. On second thoughts...
Yes, unwanted un-asked-for and undeserved email is spam in many people's eyes. It's very similar in another way because normal spammers automatically search the web for the "@" symbol, and these spammers look for Motion Picture titles. There's very little difference.
main(0)
Motion picture industry SPAMS linux Australia regarding a PYTHON framework.
Coincidence?
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
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.
Twisted and Grind
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
Indy Media Watch Sticking my head in filled trashcans and telling the world what I find...
Doesn't the loser of some cases have to pay court costs for both sides? They should take the MPAA to court and show them whats up. The MPAA wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on, they'd have nothing except empty threats which got them in trouble.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
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?
I suppose likewise it could be said that movie titles should be the same way to some extent. Some will say, "Well no, a movie should be creative because it's more a work of art and expression than software." And on the flip side people will agree software is creative expression too. But either way, the redefinition of program naming standards shouldn't be brought about by the damn MPAA
Matrix! Free to download, of course!!
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
"the article raises is whether automatic takedown notices based on blind keyword searches constitutes spam."
Spam? How about unwarranted and unprovoked legal harrassment? I say Linux Australia should contact the EFF or similar and look into suing the pants off those MPAA bastards.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Fair enough, but out of curiosity, please tell me, what do Excel, Outlook, C, Pascal, and Java do? None of those names are descriptive, but all are simple and easy identifiers.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Most films are just copyrighted rather than trademarked. Some like Star Wars (TM) are both. However, was Twisted trademarked, and is there any film called Valgrind?
Which brings us back to whats in a name. Both Twisted and Valgrind are somewhat linked to their function. Would you prefer to invoke something called Twisted.py or "An.event.driven.threaded.engine.for.messing.with. networks.py"?
Lets keep the names short and memorable. If we want semantic value, we can always look them up.
See my journal, I write things there
Huh?
Unbelievable. You actually got modded up for that troll.
Firstly, a name is just a name. A tool for association. It's not supposed to be a description of something. As another poster said, how about C, Pascal, Outlook, Excel, Apache, blah blah. Hell, how about your own name? Dancing Santa? That name describes you? "It's just a nick" you say? Well, how about David or William or Veronica or whatever your real name - does that describe you?
What rot! Creative names are easier to remember. Would it be easier to remember names like Gentoo, Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, etc., or names like MyLinux, YourLinux, HisLinux, YetAnotherLinux?
Naming issues aside, the MPAA should have at least downloaded the files in question and verified their assumptions. If they're just going to go off of the filename, maybe a more appropriate way to phrase the letter would be "we suspect you are distributing our content, but if not, kindly disregard."
You really have to laugh at such a stong yet misguided threat. Do they really expect people to take them seriously?
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -- Lord Acton
(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 Australian Copyright Council publishes information sheets dealing with copyright in Australia. You can see their website at http://copyright.org.au
p df) states:
One such information sheet "Infringement: What can I do?" (http://www.copyright.org.au/PDF/InfoSheets/G052.
"In some circumstances, letters claiming that someone has infringed copyright can result in problems under the law of defamation or under section 202 of the Copyright Act (which prohibits the making of groundless threats of legal proceedings)."
Interesting to note: It is apparently not copyright infringement if you copy something to review it (such as for a magazine (although specifics are not given)). The informaiton sheets are very informative (who would have guessed?).
It is also interesting to compare the webistes; copyright.org (US site), compared to copyright.org.au (AU copyright website). The later gives out factual and easy to understand information without any sort of obvious agenda.
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.
Why the UK? This thing called the Computer Misuse Act. Basically, you're prohibited in England from using a computer's resources without proper authority. Now, sending unwarranted Cease and Desist notices, especially for the purpose of intimidation, may well be considered by some UK judges to be misuse of resources. (Hey, the British legal system is notoriously unpredictable - just ask Judge Pickles! :)
There's also some question as to whether it violates the Data Protection Act, as an account is considered "personal information" (one reason bulletin boards had to be registered under the Act) and the trade in personal accounts (and therefore personal information) is definitely going on here. Under the Act, the MPAA is not authorized to hold personal information without permission. Even with permission, it has to be accurate, and the individual whose information it is has the legal right to demand that inaccuracies be rectified, under penalty of law.
Now, I fully understand the MPAA's situation, here. They want to get to grips with piracy, which is a fair point. In the 1990s, there were over 60 million Internet sites. It's probably closer to 600 million, these days, or more. Checking each by hand would be both tedious and impractical. Some kind of automated filtering system, to make the problem managable, is inevitable.
Do simple keyword searches do the job? No. Anyone who wanted to could easily set up a name translation table, and then store the files under a fake name. Hey, automatic word replacement systems are two a penny. Most "Echelon Jammer" software out there works on that principle. It would be trivial to operate file-sharing using a filename substitution system.
Would hashes work? No. Lossy encoding means that it'd be impossible to check for every possible hash of the same movie, never mind every movie out there.
Ok, what about checking the file type? No good. Pirates would just use zip, or some other common archiving format, and a binary check for the file type signature (eg: using Unix' 'file' command) would reveal nothing.
No, piracy won't be solved by brute-force methods, any more than system cracking is solved by applying Microsoft patches. There's always a way round. The key lies in the people, not in the technology. In the same way systems are secured OR broken by social engineering, the only sure-fire way that exists to stop piracy is by changing attitudes.
Now, attitudes are rather resistant to change, especially when people have the idea that they're being ripped off royally. The MPAA needs to address this image problem. Fix the image, and the piracy problem will take care of itself. It always does. History has encountered the problem before, and it'll encounter it again. It's efficient to learn along the way, however.
Now, it doesn't help that movie studios quote price tags in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for movies. Why? Because most movie-making sites are noting that the REAL price of making the movie is generally between a tenth to a hundredth that which the studios are giving. It's like that story of crying wolf - once you're established as being "economical with the truth" (as one British Minister famously put it), nobody is going to believe anything else you say.
Which goes right back to the image thing. The MPAA needs to give the movie studios a serious image make-over. Accuracy and honesty are vital, if the studios are to convince anyone that they have any kind of money problem from piracy at all. (Especially when the consumer watchdog groups keep claiming that sales are booming.)
Nor does it help the MPAA that movie studios are notorious for vice-related crimes. Who, exactly, did Madame Hollywood supply those (il
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I would silently and patiently let them force the issue all the way to court... and I wouldn't tell them a thing about their mistake until I got there. If they are going to be so grossly incompetent as to do things like this, they deserve to be stuck with pointless legal costs.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...search engines and automated take-down notices.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's time to register "Twisted Grind" as a cool Slashdot nickname!
There you are, staring at me again.
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?
Well, here in the UK members of the RIAA have been warned about ASBOs (anti-social behaviour orders - used on "problem" kids). If they continue to illegally flypost for their megacorps, the record company executives will be personally jailed. There should be more of that sort of thing.
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
In the US, ignoring an MPAA/RIAA demand can and likely will result in your upstream ISP shutting you off, as well as further legal expenses. Ignoring their claim based on absurd evidence (e.g. possessing Python's Twisted framework) will result in potentially significant damages that may exceed the cost of alternate options.
Subsequently, a more prudent response is to:
1. Send WRITTEN notice to the requesting party that you have received their request and as you are not a party to any unauthorized copyrighted materials, provisions under copyright law and/or DCMA (if in the US) and were inappropriately served notice/demand, their demand necessitates a response at their expense to which you have engaged upon receipt of their demand. Note the location where you received this notice and indicate that it is your place of business and where this notification was received (for jurisdictional purposes).
2. Fully document your compliance with the appropriate copyright/DCMA/etc. laws, including information on filenames, respective licensing, sources, etc.
3. Track the time realistically and honestly that it takes to prepare the response.
4. Send a bill for this time at a defensible market rate for your services (be realistic; seek several estimates from third party firms if you did this yourself; even better, hire another firm at fair market rates to do the above first steps for you) to the requesting party. If your ISP sent you the notice, bill them. If the MPAA or RIAA sent it, bill them.
5. Send your bill registered mail (return receipt).
6. If payment is not provided after thirty days, send a followup notice via registered mail indicating the matter will be taken to collections or small claims court within thirty days should payment not be received.
7. FOLLOW UP IN SMALL CLAIMS IN YOUR JURISDICTION!
This will require the notifying party (MPAA/RIAA/ISP) to retain counsel in your jurisdiction (normally a several thousand dollar retainer just to get them active) to respond to a minor case. Failure to represent themselves will likely result in a default judgment, which is even more of a concern.
Slashdot posts, complaints, angry emails, threats, angst, etc. won't stop these "fire-ready-aim" massmail notices. Extremely annoying litigation by innocent parties will. Suggestion for the day: Go visit your small claims court and obtain information on what the requirements are in your state (as they will vary on maximum damages, etc.)