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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."

3 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Explanation. by zonky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Should also be made clear that the tools only identified torrent users, and didn't make any attempt to distinguish between 'naughty' and legal torrents.

  2. Encouraging result by GroeFaZ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    but at the same time rather worrysome what a simple email to the ISP can do, even if it's for a good cause. Why not sue them and make things bullet-proof and at the same time strengthen the GPL in court, rather than sorting things out vigilantism-style? A pile of court-issued takedowns might be a more impressive repellant against future violations of the GPL (or any other such license) than a pile of social-engineering-issued takedowns. Don't associate "social engineering" with the negative connotation of spam/phising/etc. as I used it; instead, read it in its original meaning: someone requested a blocking of content from an ISP, essentially (TFA is void of details) only with convincing arguments but no hard proof that the GPL was indeed violated.

    --
    The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
  3. Possible deterrent? by sessamoid · · Score: 5, Interesting
    IANAL, but why don't OSS developers offer a GPL-free version of their software for some really high price. That way, when big-media tries to steal (their words, not mine) their creative works, the developers can sue them for legitimate damages, citing a stratospheric market price per copy, then multiply the number of CDs they've distributed by their stratospheric market price to get damages from them?

    "The MPAA/RIAA has distributed 1500 copies of my work. I offer that software at $50,000 per copy. They owe me 75 million dollars in damages!"

    That's basically what they big media is trying to do to the consumers, isn't it?

    --
    "No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."