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MPAA Violates Another Software License
Patrick
Robib, a blogger who wrote his own blogging engine called Forest Blog recently noticed that none other than the MPAA was using his work, and had completely violated his linkware license by removing all links back to the Forest Blog site, not crediting him in any way. The MPAA blog was using the Forest Blog software, but had completely stripped off his name, and links back to his site. He only found about it accidentally when he happened to visit the MPAA site.
I am quite sure MPAA would fail in many similar regards if someone would take the effort to investigate.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Apparently they're hiding now. I get a "Page cannot be found" on the MPAA blog...
This is not the first time the MPAA has been caught pirating the copyrighted works of others. They got caught making and distributing copies of This Film Is Not Yet Rated without permission (and after they claimed they did not make any copies).
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
At least *I* make sure that "grep GPL /dev/dvd" gets a match before I copy a DVD.
the author should extort the RIAA for $10,000 per byte that was pirated.
It looks like a replay of the times when Hollywood was flaunting the Edison patents. Anything new here?
What?
Who's the pirate now, MAFIAA?
If you hold the MPAA to the law on this, then it is a tacit acknowledgement that I.P. is a valid thing. You can't have it both ways, Slashdot.
It's Patrick Robin.
What if someone else violated the license and made a stripped version of the code available, without any references to the original author? How in general can one tell whether one is getting the original code with intact copyright notices?
Its ok for the MPAA to steal whatever they want, duh!
Its not ok for you to download crap that you wouldn't have paid to see in the first place.
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
In spite of the fact there is criminal legislation in place for copyright infringment, I expect the prosecutors will look the other way and declare it to be civil. This will just be another example of the double standard.
As a civil issue ( the only other legal avenue ), you can only hope to obtain justice through the courts. It will cost $1000's to get a judgment, perhaps $100,000's. There is no justice. All we have is persecution it would seem with the powerful pretty much doing whatever they like with impunity.
While its not fair, the question any prosecutor is going to ask is if spending the taxpayers money on this is a good idea. Of course, spending the taxpayers money prosecuting a person charged with a traffic incident is always considered a good idea because its cheap (usually) and meant to keep the sheep in line and paying the fines.
Am I a cynic?
Here, I suggest contact MPAA about the whole piracy issue and point them to the offending party; themselves.
http://www.mpaa.org/ReportPiracy.asp
Please feel free to let them know about their own transgressions.
Perhaps the MPAA considered it "Fair Use"--after all, they were modifying the pages for their own personal use...
Well, I must say I'm surprised;to after getting no response to my previous emails to the MPAA about their use of Forest Blog at the tail end of last year I got a result within five hours this time, unless they were just replying to the original email?
Anyway, thanks to Paul Egge and Richard Kroon the situation has now been resolved and they've removed Forest Blog from their web server.
If you want the MPAA to hang for this, you must also call for all the movie downloading pirates to hang as well. To not do so would be hypocritical, and having selective morality. It's called "practicing what you preach".
Already been done. I will contact the BSA in the morning as they most likely have all sorts of unlicensed software from BSA members laying around.
I've concluded that the traditionalist forces and thinkers (read: MPAA, "follow the rules without question simply because they are the rules and everyone follows them") are evolved in such a way as to be unable to adapt once the traditions have been set. Such people simply need to die off more quickly now that the world is changing more quickly thus significantly reducing overall conflict. Rather horrifying, but an unavoidable conclusion.
One respondent to TFA suggested using the MPAA's own logic against them in court. Another suggested suing them in small claims court which is apparently much easier.
I submit that a software author is the same as a music CD author on an artistic level, perhaps more so since he does not have all the studio people to massage his work into something palatable.
If this artist is left on his own, he could make some cash in small claims court, or at least his 150 pound license fee if he is not the litigous sort perhaps.
However I think this is also a very good opportunity for a big guns lawyers supplied perhaps by the EFF to find the paper where the MPAA writes down its killer legal strategies, and tear it up into tiny pieces, much as IBM is doing to SCO.
Equate software to music. Equate running softare or viewing a webpage as a "performance" in the legal sense. Use MPAA rules. Since the license costs about $100, calculate based on a 300% markup over a $35 average MPAA cd price. The sum will be punitive damages for theft, plus the 300% of what the MPAA sues for a song, plus the price of a "performance" multiplied by the number of visits to any of the blog's pages, based on the evidence of the MPAA's server logs which is must produce in court. Although this sounds over the top, it is simply using the same non-common-sensical strategy the MPAA is using in court, and I think a judge and jury might just see justice in that, or at least a reason not to throw the case out.
I think this ought to net a nice award for the author.
When you think about it, SCO has lasted this long because it is like a pathogen that bends the organism that is the legal system to its intent, far beyond the realm of common sense: If they don't show the infringing code it is common sense that they ought not be able to argue beyond that. The MPAA also also exhibits pathogenic qualities; it sues its own customers for such outrageous sums that it is not only beyond common sense, you have to wonder if their worth is based more on legal games than actually what their members sell. Unless we take advantage of such amazing incidents as this one and use their own weapons against them, it will just continue. We now have a chance to stir up some talk about whether the MPAA is also over the top, and what to do about it.
He should sue them into oblivion. $100M
taste that? it's irony
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
In other words when informed they do the correct thing about it. Now contrast that to slashdot's response to license violations. "Whaaa! He's too young. Whaaa! Give him a slap on the wrist. Whaaa!"
so it would appear the mpaa doesn't think their own rules don't apply to them.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
P.S. Personally I think there is a major problem with the existence of an industry association like the MPAA and it being able to generate limitless lawsuits against customers on behalf of its members. I say Sony or Toshiba EMI ought to be required to do the suing, and see if they really have the stomach to do it and get caught out.
As it is now, the MPAA appears to exist for the sake of making lawsuits; its profit is based on the success of the lawsuits, and it is presumably paid by its members the startup cash needed to hire all those lawyers, to generate enough income to eventually make the lawsuit engine self-sustaining. Sounds like Microsoft/Baystar and SCO doesn't it? Or a recent RAM patent company?
When Sony embeds a rootkit they get clobbered with bad PR, and when EMI's copy protection sucks they get clobbered. Conversely, when EMI considers removing all copy protection they get even more, positive, PR. But when the MPAA sues soccer moms, the record companies seem to be wearing some kind of armor. All the bad PR sticks to their stalking horse, the MPAA. (Which like JASRAC in Japan has been the number one impediment to online distribution.)
I say the MPAA is a menace to the public and serves no purpose other than to make frivolous lawsuits on the behalf of big record companies while insulating them from the media. It does not exist to protect authors at all, but rather seeks to cause enough mayhem to scare people from trying other distribution mechanisms, by grabbing "rights" that never previously existed for music before the digital age. This is remembered well by anyone who grew up with cassettes or 8 track tapes.
I posted elsewhere in this thread that the MPAA's logic should be used against them to generate a huge award for the theft and performance of the Forest Blog software for a potentially huge number of page views. This model, in which a software author is granted the same rights as a music author, turns software downloading and web page views into something much more insidious than trite torrent sharing, in a legal sense. So I think now is a good time not only to make a legal case against the MPAA, but in fact to start aiming at them with big cannons like RICO and public opinion. Let the record labels do their own dirty work and pay for it individually when their customers get mad.
Realistically, it doesn't. They are the masters, and the public are their slaves. Get used to it. That is what Corporate Amerika is all about.
This guy won't get a penny. If anything, HE will be found of violating the MPAA's "rights". That is how it works folks.
http://www.patrickrobin.co.uk/default.asp?Display= 5
The MPAA claim that it was in use only privatly and they had no advertising. Good to know. If they ever come knocking, I will tell them I watched the movies and home and never sold them to anyone.
insight through the mind
ORLY? Note the lack of anything resembling an apology. Also, I must remember that defence when I get a P2P Tax demand from them: "Oh, sure, I copied your memebers' work, but only for testing purposes, and now that I've been caught, I can totally assure you that I intended to buy licensed versions."
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
We now have a plausable defense vrs organisations like the MPAA! "You! You did xxxx with our video, we demand compensation! etc.etc." "No. I used it privately!" "Foiled." Yay! Download like mad!
We want to remind the MPAA that "those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." If the MPAA wasn't complaining about other people's copyright infringment, then I wouldn't complain about its. But it is, so I will. Get it?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Some call this fighting fire with fire. It's the way the industry works. For example, Linux would be in some serious IP hell from Microsoft if IBM and others didn't have it's army of lawyers ready for a Battle Royale"
Good thing Russia "gave up" before we did, else fighting "fire with fire" would have no winners.
"actually dipshit, it is free, but they can't even stick to using someone elses work for free and abiding by the copyright holders license, which states they must leave logo's and links back to his website intack. so it would appear the mpaa doesn't think their own rules don't apply to them."
So what's the slashargument for today? "We're better than you!"* So how many here have copied the contents of another site contrary to the owner's wishes? The MPAA may be hypocrites? But the group doing the pointing is no better.
*It sure can't be "we're worse than you." Or, "we're the same as you".
Sue the tits off them, sue them for everything they have
Just so everybody knows, this story does have a happy ending. The MPAA responded, finally, to his inquiries after a very long wait - by saying essentially that they were only using his software for 'testing' purposes and that the offending site was never made live, advertised on the internet etc.
The Forest Blog Author retorted, in his update to this story, that he doubts they would have been so kind if he 'borrowed' some movies for 'testing' purposes but never distributed them to anybody. He makes a valid point.
The entire trial over those dvd-codec software coders was based on them 'circumventing' a DVD's protection mechanism - it had nothing to do with them actually committing piracy, and were it not for the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act the MPAA would have had no case at all. Essentially they sued and won, establishing for the first time in history that you can purchase intellectual property but essentially not have ownership of the rights to even use it, however you see fit.
Remember that all laws previous to the DMCA were to protect against piracy, (bootlegging, distribution, etc). But now the DMCA actually limits your freedom of use, even for personal use. And it's been proven. If they can do that, why can they abuse fair-use of software they essentially got just by agreeing to it's terms of use?
I say he still send his case to the EFF and hope that they can use something in this as ammunition against the MPAA.
---
DMCA Doesn't Protect Against This!
Ace
The point of the article and what everyone is hollering about is that the MPAA is not practising what they are preaching. This makes it seem as though they will selectively apply the concept of IP to further their own interests.
Besides, the guy had released the thing for free on a Linkware license. How difficult is it to retain backlinks in the source code? Or even pay the mere 25 pounds he was asking for a commercial license?
"..."
OK, take a deep breath and look a few steps ahead of the finger pointing.
Every person who just blasted the MPAA for "violating the author's copyright" is being recorded and researched by the MPAA and RIAA. They will then build a case against you based on all the songs/movies you have downloaded, all the CDs/DVDs you have burned, and every iPod purchased with your credit card (including the one you bought for Aunt Sally's birthday), and when they get you up on the stand and you say, "what I did was not wrong," they will pull out this post, exhibit 326b, in which you passionately stated that it is wrong, immoral and illegal to violate copyright. Open. Shut. Call the next lemming to the stand.
Simply send a DMCA take down notice to their ISP requesting that the site be taken down because it is infringing.
Dekker Dreyer
what hole have you been hiding in? RIAA has been claiming damages to the tunes of %750 PER SONG, I have no idea how much MPAA has been claiming. The point is both about the amount and not about the amount. It's about that the MAFIAA have been claiming that piracy has put such a dent in their God-given right to make tonnes of money, that they should be asking for such disproportionate amount of damage to cover their losses. And YET, when THEY are the ones "stealing" other people's work, all of a sudden, it's not such a big matter? Do you think the MAFIAA would let people get away if they just say that they never put links to the songs they downloaded, they never publicised it and it was purely for personal use?
Mean Pirate Assotiation of America? Who's gonna come up with better M* word?
And a DVD costs what? 12 bucks or so.
See my journal, I write things there
You are wrong. Here's why and also how a Good Lawyer can sue and win atleast 1.2 million dollars from MPAA.
First, the fact that MPAA violated his license. According to the DMCA under section 1204 penalties range up to a $500000 fine...
Next, each visitor to MPAA pages could have been a POTENTIAl licensee of the software. This POTENTIAL was lost by the author since no link backs were provided. Assuming a good lawyer subpoenas' MPAA website administrator and gets a total of number of visitors to the page(s) from date of violation till date of verdict, takes a very conservative estimate that atleast 50% of the people visited could have licensed the software, (same calculations that MPAA uses to send take-down notices and suits for damages), the author can easily claim atleast $1.2 million.
Now, once the case goes to court, by that time it has been proven MPAA had violated his copyright. The judge would have no qualms declaring MPAA guility under DMCA. The second play is for more damages outside the $5000000 fine.
If only 1,000 visitors visited the site since the day of violation the fine would stand reduced, however i bet it is more.
A more serious lawyer can pursue it even further and argue that since the MPAA in its role as a guardian of digital copyrights has ITSELF violated the DMCA (thus a case of fence eating the flock), it must be criminally tried and asked to pay a more amount as fine to the poor author.
One sympathetic judge is enough to screw MPAA in this case.
I would say, first get a GOOD lawyer.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Stupid blurp. If it doesn't have 100 words, no need to forcefully add them by adding reduntant content.
Bot Assisted Blogging
> First, the fact that MPAA violated his license. According to the DMCA under section 1204 penalties range up to a $500000 fine...
Well, putting aside the rhetoric, this is a simple breach of contract case.
As you correctly point out, Section 1204 of the DMCA does indeed carry the potential for hefty fines. But not for the simple breach of contract action this would be. Section 1204 is the penalty for breaching Sections 1201 and 1202.m p/~c105awNRih:e52661
See here.. : http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c105:6:./te
So what are 1201 and 1202 ? .. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.228 1:
`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
`Sec. 1202. Integrity of copyright management information
See here
So, you claimed breach of the DMCA is baseless.
How about your theory of loss of income from potential licencees ? I think you are on very weak ground here because you will have great difficulty in proving certainty of the claimed loss and causation of the claimed loss on the balance of probabilities.
This could be shown by discovery of the actual "conversion rate" of site visitors to licences bought from other such sites - eg the author's own site may prove to have a conversion rate that is exceedingly low.
Your comment's re criminality are rubbish, and again rely on that incorrect breach of the DMCA.
You do have one good point.
I would say, first get a GOOD lawyer. - who I suspect would advise you to forget about the whole thing, and then send you a bill for $300.
After doing some similar research, I came to the conclusion it is either a clever marketing ploy by blog author, or more likely some hidden prototype site their web development team was using and as it was never linked from main page, it was never found by any spiders (yet referrers to authors site showed up in his logs, which is exactly how he found out about it), Turns out the latter is the case
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
I just can't buy your argument here that anyone would ever willingly pirate Epic Movie.
meep
short of it is:
MPAA Response:
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
So basically your argument is that it is okay for the MPAA to violate another person's copyright. Wonderful. I don't know what they do in Australia (with your history and all) but in the U.K. attorneys provide the initial consultation for free. If this case is as open and shut as you say it is, there will not be the insult to injury bill you hypothesize. Nice guy you are.
The MPAA and RIAA are concerned about nothing more than maximizing revenues for the organizations they represent. Period.
The mention of the artists is only to make it appear as if the MPAA and RIAA have some sort of noble purpose. The MPAA and RIAA represent the media content industry executives, not the artists.
*By 2007, IDC Research expects Internet users will access, download, and share information equivalent to the contents of the entire Library of Congress more than 64,000 times every day.
Use the perverted "law" that they created to penalize them. Turn the dog on it's master, what a perfect idea!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Back in ye olden times when they captured a known pirate, they'd hang 'em as an example for all. So why don't we just hunt down the members of the MPAA and make 'em an example for all to see eh? That'd stop their piracy for sure.
I mean hey, if America can invade random countries for economic interest alone, heartlessly slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians, why can't the rest of us, y'know?
You can only fight fire with fire.
From their letter:
No Web links were ever provided to the blog.
The blog was never assigned a domain name.
The blog was never advertised to the public in any way.
The material on the server was a proof of concept awaiting approval to move into production.
The blog was only ever used for testing purposes.
Should we have decided to make the move to production, then we would have paid the 25 Pounds that would have authorized us to run a version of the blog without the logos and links.
Remember #2 and #6, use it against them the next time the come knocking on your door. They violated his agreement ( and the law in general ) and ADMITTED it, yet its ok for them to do so because 'we were going to pay later if we liked it'. wtf? ( the internal use only arguement is irrelevant )
Well fine, that means i can sample YOUR wares for testing purposes and pay later if i like it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I guess the appropriate thing to do would be to contact their ISP and have the site taken down until the layers work out your settlement payment.
Fat chance in that ever happening.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
If convicted of copyright infringement, I recommend those involved at the MPAA be sentenced to 5 years of watching the FBI warning on copyright infringement, non-stop.
In soviet russia, the MPAA pirates from you!!! ...oh wait...
http://wstewart.php0h.com - the sugarbuzz project blog
So, when they sue me for music sharing I can use the following?:
1. No html links were ever pointed to my music
2. My music was never assigned a domain name
3. The music was never advertised to the public in any way (only privately)
4. The music in the file sharing program was a proof of concept and never moved into production
5. The music in the file sharing program was only used for testing purposes
6. Should I have decided to make the move to production, then I would have paid the appropiate royalty fees
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
If as the MPAA says there were never any Web links to the blog, then how did the author of the software stumble upon it? No Web links equals no search engine listings equals effective invisibility to the outside world.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
...??AA should reconcile this unauthorized use to their enforcement policies. Their unauthorized use is little different from what they are prosecuting and litigating from others. How to get people worked up enough to ask for something to be done, via legislative or judicial means?
Okay, the story is a troll. What was the "other" license they violated?
When evaluating software, often people just download the full version and crack it. It's against the license, but for evaluation purposes. Guess MPAA agrees that that's a valid approach. People also download movies to evaluate whether to purchase them or not, so the MPAA agrees that we should be able to as well.
The program code is copyrighted content, clearly being used in violation of the license. I think the author should get a lawyer and do a DMCA take-down to the MPAA's ISP.
Take that motherfuckers.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Time to go download a movie and strip off the start of the movie where it shows the companies that produced the movie.
Imagine the punitive damages - this is a principal case and should have far ranging consequences.... Bleed them dry!!!
"I grew up copying my friends albums on tapes. We all bought stuff, but no one bleated then about stealing. We called it sharing."
Now you're just insulting people's intelligence. You know damn good and well there's a difference between your "sharing" and sharing a movie with the entire planet.
"Over and over.....copying is not stealing. It is copying. There is a difference. The powers that be LOVE when people call copying stealing. If I steal an object - you no longer have the object. If I copy an object, you still have the object."
The same could be said for cable, electric theft and even identity. The other half of theft that gets left out of these discussions is that you enjoy the benefit of usage, regardless of weither the creator has the original or not. Anyway I doubt all the people busted so far used your "but you have the original" excuse in court. Apparently courts don't like their intelligence insulted either.
"How many people out there are buying NOYTHING and only aquiring music via copying. Very few I would imagine."
Of course with a lack of evidence it's easy to "imagine" something in your favour.
"Copyright is a givernment granted monopoly so what I am doing in copying is ignoring your monopoly."
"Render unto caesars that which is caesars."
I suggest that Patrick pushes an "update" that will detect whether the script is running on MPAA's servers or not; and when it is, it'll only show a picture (goatse or a parody of their "You can click but you can't hide") and talk about how hypocritical they are.
It's true, I don't care about copyright infringement. And I still don't. I am, however, disgusted by their hypocrisy in claiming that copyright infringement is wrong while engaging in it themselves. Just because I don't care about copyright infringement doesn't mean that I like hypocrisy. Nor does this stance make me a hypocrite--like I said, the copyright infringement is NOT what I blame them for.
If you're going to charge someone with hypocrisy, it helps to know what they actually believe. And lest you think that I make that mistake with the MPAA, well, there are plenty of writings on their website I can point you to that detail how evil they claim to think it is. Unless they're doing it, of course, in which case they apparently don't even owe the guy a couple hundred dollars or whatever the price of his software was. As if I could get off like that by claiming, "Oh! I was going to buy the DVD anyhow! I deleted it so you don't have to sue me." and get out of a lawsuit if they'd caught me infringing upon one of their copyrights.
Right below the story lead-in: an ad for the BSA
I'm certain their own seizure subpoenas could be referenced for precedent and legal justification.
But I Am Not A Lawyer.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
For a good lawyer this doesn't sound too hard. After all, they can crib from the MPAA supoenas for rationale.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Dear MPAA,
I have now deleted downloaded movies from my harddrive. They were proof of concept that bittorrent and divx works on my computer. Since deleting the movies, I now look forward to you dropping your lawsuit against me.
Best regards,
Joe Sixpack
"We would have paid if it went to production" is a pretty terrible excuse. Why not just keep a link back to forest blog until it made it to production? Even if it was only used for testing, they had no right to make it link free until they had paid 25 pounds.
I don't agree with the folks who say he should have sued. He's just a nice guy.
He should have filed a DMCA "Takedown" notice and then sued.
Sauce for the gander and all that....
Ah slashdot, were owning a ditionary makes one a lawyer.
Well here's my definition.
"theft
In law, the crime of taking the property or services of another without consent. Under most statutes, theft encompasses the crimes of larceny, robbery, and burglary. Larceny is the crime of taking and carrying away the goods of another with intent to steal. Grand larceny, or larceny of property of substantial value, is a felony, whereas petty larceny, or larceny of less valuable property, is a misdemeanour. The same principle applies to grand theft and petty theft, which need not necessarily involve the "carrying away" of property and may include the theft of services. Robbery is an aggravated form of larceny involving violence or the threat of violence directed against the victim in his presence. Burglary is defined as the breaking and entering of the premises of another with an intent to commit a felony within. Two offenses usually distinguished from theft are embezzlement and fraud."
BTW this exercise in definition is both a "feel good" exercise, and a red herring. It makes you all "feel good" to believe that it's a lesser crime, because the artist "has the original". Much like beating someone senseless, and then saying "I could have killed you instead. Bitch!". Like you're doing them a favour by not being as evil as you could. It's also a red herring because the implicit statement is false. That someone who has the ethics to not compensate an artist, and is an oathbreaker, would also have the fortitude to honor agreements if it ment depriving the artist of his original.
Yes, I'm a Big Dic...ionary Guy. How is it that geeks who understand that spelling, grammar, and usage errors in their code will at best keep it from compiling (so that they know there's a problem and can fix it) but consider the same things in human communication irrelevant, and resent having them pointed out?
And while I'm ranting, when two things agree with each other, they jibe, not 'jive'. The whole comprises the parts, or the parts compose the whole. In passive voice, the whole is composed of the parts (it is not 'comprised of' them, although it's possible that they could be 'comprised of' the whole).
The word it's, by the way, is a contraction for it is or it has; possessive pronouns do not have apostrophes in them. The only case where an apostrophe indicates a plural is that of text characters (Dot all your i's and cross all your t's).
The frozen dessert is 'sherbet', not 'sherbert'. A 'slash' leans forward (/), a 'backslash' leans back (\), a colon is two dots (:) and a semicolon is a dot on top of a comma (;). There is no such word as 'paticular', 'strenth', 'lenth'.
And we get fringe benefits, not 'French'...
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
This is what I am getting when I go to his site. Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005' [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]SQL Server does not exist or access denied. /Includes/inc-dataconnection.asp, line 22
Remember that all laws previous to the DMCA were to protect against piracy, (bootlegging, distribution, etc). But now the DMCA actually limits your freedom of use, even for personal use.
MPAA could easily respond by stating that the DMCA is not their fault, but the brainchild of corrupt politicians they had to buy... all from the consumer's money. So, the consumer is to be blamed for DMCA: they not only elected the politicians to vote it in, they also paid for it with every commercial DVD they bought in a store.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Perhaps this explanation could also apply to music:
.99 cents that would have authorized me to play a version of the music without internal moral objection.
The Britney Spears music has been removed from my personal computer.
* The songs were never assigned to a playlist.
* The songs were never played to any of my friends.
* The material on the harddrive was a proof of concept awaiting approval to be moved into my library.
* The songs were only ever used for testing purposes.
* Should I have decided that I enjoyed the music, then I would have paid the
Of course, I'm pretty certain that defense wouldn't prevent a lawsuit, as I'm sure the MPAA are hoping it will in their case...
If it were for testing purposes, why did they spend the time removing all the links?
I found a hack (at least on my region 4 dvds), before it shows you MPAA propaganda, it asks you "which language would you prefer to see MPAA propaganda in?" Weirdly, some languages have no propaganda, they just skip straight to the film. On my discs, the conveniently first option ("Shqip" (Albanian)) won't play any ads.
Now I'm not saying it's right in any way - I absolutely detest being forced to even see this language menu from an evil organisation with nothing better to do than waste my time telling me how bad I would have been if I illegally pirated this movie I paid $170 for. But that's a way around it.
(Having said that, the electricity bill isn't a very strong argument, but I know I know - principles).
While we're talking about these ads, does anyone know what broadband service that girl is using? I want to be able to download a feature length movie in 12 seconds...
Be sure to report this piracy! http://www.mpaa.org/ReportPiracy.asp
I hope the developer of the violated product issues a take-down notice to MPAA's ISP. Turnabout is "fairplay", IMO.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.