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MPAA Forced To Take Down University Toolkit

Posted by kdawson on from the sauce-for-the-goose dept.

bobbocanfly writes "Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has succeeded in getting the MPAA to remove their 'University Toolkit' after claims it violated the GNU GPL. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the MPAA directly, Garrett eventually emailed the group's ISP and the violating software was taken down."

5 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Actually by poopdeville · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I saw no indication that the MPAA was hosting their own apt repositories with source. If you mean that sources.list was pointing at Ubuntu's servers, that's not good enough. That's Ubuntu doing the distribution.

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    After all, I am strangely colored.
  2. Nomenclature, please by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Instead of saying they "violated the GPL", let's keep this simple. They violated copyright law. By their own definition, they're "pirates". They stole. Etc.

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    Do you have ESP?
  3. Re:Encouraging result by dbIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They won't care. There's currently the idea that some people are above, below or completely outside the law. Since they were involved in drafting some copyright laws they are of the opinion that those laws are not for them and are only for the peasants.

  4. Don't think that's true. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are, in fact, a lawyer, I'll happily defer, but in my layman's opinion I don't think that's the correct conclusion.

    If you violate one of the GPL terms, your license to use the software is terminated. Fine. However, as long as the software is still being offered to anyone under the GPL, you can just go, conform to every part of the GPL, and use it again. You can think of it as one license being terminated, but then going and getting a new one; the GPL is an "infinite stack" of licenses: all you need to do to get a new one is to play by the rules.

    There's nothing in the GPL that says 'if you violate this once, you're out for good,' although I'm not sure that would be an entirely terrible idea. But that license-termination clause doesn't necessarily imply that.

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    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  5. Re:Except in one scenario by dwater · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, it depends on what they changed. If they added code to phone home a lot with lots of personal information....that would be interesting from more than a purely academic point of view (IMO).

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    Max.