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MPAA Sends Linux Australia Dubious Takedown Notice 520

Posted by timothy from the takedown-is-two-points dept.
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."
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MPAA Sends Linux Australia Dubious Takedown Notice More

MPAA Sends Linux Australia Dubious Takedown Notice

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  • You mean... (Score:5, Funny)

    by elasticwings ( 758452 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:05AM (#10305649)
    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.

    • Re:You mean... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rubz ( 719242 )
      It's like a company other than Microsoft using a word which *sounds* like "windows"...unheard of.

    • Re:You mean... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wheany ( 460585 ) <wheany+sd@iki.fi> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:58AM (#10306042) Homepage Journal
      Not to mention "speed." I just read that one guy recieved a letter from MPAA for downloading Super Metroid speed run. [nesvideos.stc.cx]

      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."

    • Re:You mean... (Score:3, Funny)

      by wastaz ( 634441 )
      I cant help but wonder how many skateboard sites has gotten that notice on the word "grind"....

    • Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zonker ( 1158 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @05:05AM (#10306258) Homepage Journal
      so why not do the same kind of thing that the riaa has done and make lots of bogus files available using the name of various popular movies. even better, put together a bunch of small utitilies that are named generic names (which are also the names of some popular movies too) like 'twisted' and 'grind'...

      if these jerks are doing simple keyword matches and sending out formletter threats, make them have to actually do their homework. if they start sending out tons of letters to folks that carry these bogus files on their site, it will weaken their case and make them look foolish...

      • Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @07:11AM (#10306640) Journal
        This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. We already know they do not check for file size. Obviously a 140k file is NOT a movie, unless someone has invented some miracle compression technique.

        I was thinking about setting up a page that has links to small text files with random content, named the same as all the popular movies. Might even add text on the main page using the terms "These files are not warez or pirated movies" just to let them find those key words.

        This *might* be an effective method to create so much noise that their lame efforts will have to be changed, assuming enough people do it. It would seem to me that if you are going to send legal letters with threats, you should at least have a real person review the alleged infringment first. Otherwise, it IS spam, and no different than a spider that trolls for email addresses.

        This is kind of like a reverse DDOS attack on their lame spider that is searching for infringment. Oh yea, and who ever wrote the code for this spider, and whoever agreed that this was a good idea and should be implimented, should be fired.

  • A few quotes from the article - (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thewldisntenuff ( 778302 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:05AM (#10305653) Homepage
    "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
    • Maybe Twisted is an upcoming sequel to the blockbuster hit Twister?

    • Duh (Score:5, Informative)

      by InfiniteWisdom ( 530090 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:09AM (#10305676) Homepage
      Twisted [imdb.com] and Grind [imdb.com]
    • apparently a few:

      Twisted: http://imdb.com/find?tt=on;nm=on;mx=20;q=twisted [imdb.com]

      Grind: http://imdb.com/find?tt=on;nm=on;mx=20;q=grind [imdb.com]

      there are a couple of relatively recent ones in there too... Spooky...

    • Re:A few quotes from the article - (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:37AM (#10305783)
      Why aren't there any similar laws in the United States?

      Because here in the United States laws are made based on how much corporations pay polititians. Common sense or accountability never enters the equation, that would be bad for business.

      That's why things like the DMCA (and whatever the Disney copyright extension law is called) exist in the first place, the laws were purchased by corporations.

    • From what I recall of the restrictions in the size of the bandwidth of the lines to/from AU, the misuse of resources could be causing an impact there. Of course I'm sure spam tops the list of unnessesary traffic across those links, but someone ends up paying for the bandwidth no matter if it's automatic scanning or whatever.

      Jonah Hex

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:18AM (#10305925)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • If you are interested, there is a script that generates dummy *.mp3 and *.avi files with names that would get you some attention from those groups.

        • Re:A few quotes from the article - (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs.ajs@com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @10:04AM (#10307904) Homepage Journal
          #!/usr/bin/perl
          use LWP::Simple;
          $mp3junk = `cat template.mp3 2>/dev/null`;
          $avijunk = `cat template.avi 2>/dev/null`;
          $top = get("http://www.imdb.com/chart/top");
          while($top =~ /\/title\/\w+\/\"\>(.*?)\s*\(/g) {
          push @names, $1;
          }
          foreach $name (@names) {
          $name =~ s/\&\#(\d+);/chr($1)/eg;
          open(MP3,">$name.mp3"); print MP3 $mp3junk; close MP3;
          open(AVI,">$name.avi"); print AVI $avijunk; close AVI;
          }
          Put whatever you like in template.avi and template.mp3

      • Re:A few quotes from the article - (Score:4, Insightful)

        by GreyPoopon ( 411036 ) <[gpoopon] [at] [gmail.com]> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @09:53AM (#10307803)
        but a class action against them might reap some benifits and wouldn't be too expensive.

        More importantly, I wonder if the RIAA uses similar tactics. It would make an interesting court battle for one of the potentially innocents who get nailed with a P2P piracy charge. Publicity like this could be used to get the case thrown out of court (if it can be shown that the RIAA is equally lazy in checking the validity of their searches).

    • Re:A few quotes from the article - (Score:5, Informative)

      by devilspgd ( 652955 ) * on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @04:20AM (#10306108) Homepage
      Under the DMCA, the notices are sent under the penalty of perjury.

      Whether or not this would apply to notices sent out of the country or not is doubtful though.

      • Re:A few quotes from the article - (Score:4, Informative)

        by ToLu the Happy Furby ( 63586 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @09:30AM (#10307608)
        Under the DMCA, the notices are sent under the penalty of perjury.
        The only part of the letter that has to be declared under penalty of perjury is that the letter writer is the authorized representative of the copyright holder--which is true in this case. The assertion that the files in question violate that copyright does not have to be made under penalty of perjury.

    • Re:A few quotes from the article - (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @05:59AM (#10306441)
      This is just Brillant!!!

      Just happened to find a copy of the copyright act on the Net (Australian Copyright Act 1966) may have been changed since but section 202 also Looks interesting

      I quote

      "
      202 Groundless threats of legal proceedings

      (1) Where a person, by means of circulars, advertisements or
      otherwise, threatens a person with an action or proceeding in
      respect of an infringement of copyright, then, whether the person
      making the threats is or is not the owner of the copyright or an
      exclusive licensee, a person aggrieved may bring an action against
      the first-mentioned person and may obtain a declaration to the
      effect that the threats are unjustifiable, and an injunction against
      the continuance of the threats, and may recover such damages (if
      any) as he or she has sustained, unless the first-mentioned person
      satisfies the court that the acts in respect of which the action or
      proceeding was threatened constituted, or, if done, would
      constitute, an infringement of copyright.
      (2) The mere notification of the existence of a copyright does not
      constitute a threat of an action or proceeding within the meaning of
      this section.
      (3) Nothing in this section renders a barrister or solicitor of the High
      Court, or of the Supreme Court of a State or Territory, liable to an
      action under this section in respect of an act done by him or her in
      his or her professional capacity on behalf of a client.

      (4) The defendant in an action under this section may apply, by way of
      counterclaim, for relief to which he or she would be entitled in a
      separate action in respect of an infringement by the plaintiff of the
      copyright to which the threats relate and, in any such case, the
      provisions of this Act with respect to an action for infringement of
      a copyright are, mutatis mutandis, applicable in relation to the
      action.
      (5) A reference in this section to an action in respect of an
      infringement of copyright shall be read as including a reference to
      an action in respect of the conversion or detention of an infringing
      copy or of a device used or intended to be used for making
      infringing copies. "

      GO FOR IT GUYS !!!

    • Response to MPAA (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @08:17AM (#10306996)
      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.)

  • Wait a minute (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:05AM (#10305654)
    The MPAA makes mistakes? I am shocked. My entire world is shattered.

    • Re:Wait a minute (Score:5, Funny)

      by Nos. ( 179609 ) <andrewNO@SPAMthekerrs.ca> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:10AM (#10305689) Homepage
      The worst part is, this isn't a mistake. So, make note all, when naming your next OSS application, be sure to search for the title on IMDB first!

    • RIAA (Score:5, Informative)

      by pommiekiwifruit ( 570416 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @06:31AM (#10306528)
      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.

      • Re:RIAA (Score:5, Informative)

        by SenseiLeNoir ( 699164 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @07:58AM (#10306880)
        For those outside the UK, who didnt understand a word of that:

        Camden Council in London have been looking at the explosion of "Fly Posting" for various Albums. These Posters are stuck on window boards or closed down shops and buildings, and other property, and is actually illegal, and considered vandalism.

        Although heavy fines and possible prison sentances exist for anyone caught flyposting, often its hard to briing on arrests for people, for it is hard to catch them as it is, and when anyone is caught, often are poor, or sometimes exploited immigrants.

        Camden Council had enough and decided to go after the person at the top of the chain, the Music Industry Executives selling the advertised albums. And are thinking of taking out a ASBO on the CEO of Sony Music, and BMG.

  • What it proves (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tokerat ( 150341 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:06AM (#10305660) Journal

    An interesting question that the article raises is whether automatic takedown notices based on blind keyword searches constitutes spam.
    It sure does raise the issue of whether or not the MPAA is trying to be lazy and controling/monopolistic/greedy at the same time.

    I'd say yes. Why wouldn't you at least have real people double checking for false positives?

    • Re:What it proves (Score:5, Funny)

      by Triumph The Insult C ( 586706 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:27AM (#10305760) Homepage Journal
      It sure does raise the issue of whether or not the MPAA is trying to be lazy and controling/monopolistic/greedy at the same time.

      i dunno about that. i think it'd be safe to say that issue was settled a long time ago ..
    • Why wouldn't you at least have real people double checking for false positives?
      People? What makes you think the MPAAs employees are people? Hells union doesn't allow offshoring jobs.

    • Re:What it proves (Score:5, Interesting)

      by surprise_audit ( 575743 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:28AM (#10305960)
      Why wouldn't you at least have real people double checking for false positives?

      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.

  • Not only spam (Score:5, Interesting)

    by riotstarter ( 650328 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:07AM (#10305662)
    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.

  • That does it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) * on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:07AM (#10305666) Journal
    "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...

  • Spam? Yes! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boisepunk ( 764513 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:07AM (#10305669)
    An interesting question that the article raises is whether automatic takedown notices based on blind keyword searches constitutes spam.

    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.

    • Re:Spam? Yes! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Zeal17 ( 602971 )
      You are not thinking like a Lawyer. You don't get any money for being spammed. This is harassment, there is a lot of money in harassment.

  • Spam Spam Spam!!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by EEBaum ( 520514 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:07AM (#10305670) Homepage
    Motion picture industry SPAMS linux Australia regarding a PYTHON framework.

    Coincidence?

  • Groundless legal threats (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PitaBred ( 632671 ) <slashdot&pitabred,dyndns,org> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:08AM (#10305671) Homepage
    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!

    • Re:Groundless legal threats (Score:5, Funny)

      by surprise_audit ( 575743 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:40AM (#10305991)
      Whether there is or not, they could certainly have some fun with the MPAA. If it were me, I'd write back telling them, in the most insulting but respectable terms possible, that I had no intention of taking down anything whatsoever, and if they didn't like it they could bite me.

      At the same time, I'd go visit my ISP and make sure that they were completely aware of the situation, that the content was in no way infringing, and ask them to reject any harassment from the MPAA.

      I'm not sure I'd bother telling the MPAA that the content was not theirs to regulate, as the main purpose of the insulting reply would be to goad them into going to court... Shouldn't take more than about 30 seconds in front of any reasonable judge to show that the content wasn't any kind of movie. Then sit back and watch him tear strips off the prosecution...

    • I'd hope there was something in Australian law
      It's called something like "demanding money with menaces", and a lot of us were waiting for SCO to try to get money out of someone in Austalia so that we could see their local rep do some jail time.

      One thing that is very annoying is that a private body like the MPAA sees the entire world as their juristiction.

    • Re:Groundless legal threats (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SpecBear ( 769433 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @05:19AM (#10306321)
      IANAL, etc...
      But it seems like it would be a fairly clearcut case to claim that these takedown notices do not constitute a legitimate notice that the ISP is hosting copyrighted material.
      This may or may not apply under Australian law, but my understanding is that the reason these things work under American law is that ISPs are classified as "common carriers." So they don't have to monitor their systems for copyrighted material, but in order to maintain common carrier status and not be liable for infringement they have to respond promptly when a copyright holder informs them of a violation. If there can be no reasonable level of certainty that a takedown notice actually refers to copyrighted material because the MPAA isn't actually checking for accuracy, then the MPAA is effectively imposing the burden of monitoring the network for infringements on the ISPs. As common carriers, they shouldn't have to do this.

      MPAA: "The ISP was duly notified of infringing material..."
      ISP: "No we weren't. We've gotten hundreds of these emails. Nobody at the MPAA actually looks at them, why should we?"
      Judge: "So who at the MPAA informed them of infringement?"
      MPAA: "..."

      • Re:Groundless legal threats (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dissy ( 172727 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @08:53AM (#10307300)
        Actually the one nice thing about the safe harbor provision for ISPs is that the ISP has the ability to deligate a DMCA contact at their company, and the provision specifically states the notice -must- be delivered to this contact.

        The way we handled this at the ISP I used to work at was, on the main webpage, as an image of course, was a message stating all DMCA and copyright notices must be sent to [address here] which was an address at our domain which forwarded directly to our lawyer and not us.
        We also had to file this address somewhere, I believe the copyright office, but I am not sure on that detail as it was our legal department that handled it.

        If a bot is doing whois lookups for an email and it is sent to one of the addresses we get at the NOC, the letter can be legally ignored.
        If its not sent to the specific address, we have not been notified as per the safe harbor provision and thusly have a legal defense.

        In our case, one would have to go to our website to look for contact addresses, and look either on the main page or the contact page to find the right address.
        Any emails like that sent to us were ignored.

        http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID 129 [chillingeffects.org]

        The above URL is the only quote I can find at the moment, but it states:

        In order to facilitate the notification process in cases of infringement, ISPs which allow users to store information on their networks, such as a web hosting service, must designate an agent that will receive the notices from copyright owners that its network contains material which infringes their intellectual property rights. The service provider must then notify the Copyright Office of the agent's name and address and make that information publicly available on its web site. [512(c)(2)]

        Seeing as we did get a large number of claims of copyright infringement sent to our staff and support addresses, and to my knowledge our legal team never mentioned any, it looks like both bots and stupid people don't look up the correct address at all.

  • Wait till my movie comes out... (Score:3, Funny)

    by VidEdit ( 703021 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:09AM (#10305677)
    I'm naming my new movie "MPAA." I'm guessing I'll be able to send a lot of takedown notices...

  • MPAA of America or Australia? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hughk ( 248126 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:12AM (#10305697) Journal
    What is the MPAA doing trying to get a take-down notice against an Australian entity anyway? They do not even have rights to the films in Australia, having signed them over to the distributors there.

    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 [wieers.com] 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.

    • 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.

      Well, the RPM extension is not just used for the packaging format, the extension is also used for Realplayer movies. As a result, I could understand why a search agent would pick it up as being a movie.

      What I can't understand is why the search agent d

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Simple, they plan to extradite [slashdot.org] the server owner.

      It doesn't matter where the files are hosted :(

      Innocent until proven guilty? The {MP|RI}AA are trying hard to make proving your innocence your responsibility.

      I guess the best thing to do is ignore the takedown notice, and hope they are stupid enough to start proceedings without checking what they've got.

  • Twist and Grind (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:13AM (#10305701)
    I wonder how many lapdancing clubs will be sent a takedown notice?


    Indy Media Watch [blogspot.com] Sticking my head in filled trashcans and telling the world what I find...

  • Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Renraku ( 518261 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:13AM (#10305702) Homepage
    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.

  • A more interesting question... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Todd Knarr ( 15451 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:14AM (#10305710) Homepage

    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?

  • My new GNU spreadsheet will be named... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:19AM (#10305729) Journal
    Matrix! Free to download, of course!!

    -

  • SPAM is not the half of it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suckmysav ( 763172 ) <suckmysav AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:19AM (#10305731) Journal

    "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.

  • Spam? (Score:3, Funny)

    by tehdaemon ( 753808 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:21AM (#10305736)
    I'd say that it is assault with a legal weapon, but IANAL

    What am I missing?

  • Why stop there? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kgbspy ( 696931 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:27AM (#10305759)
    While they're on a roll, they could always go after the writers of Python [python.org] with infringement takedown notices [imdb.com].

    In light of the above, it wouldn't be all that farfetched, would it?

  • DeCSS? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RyuuzakiTetsuya ( 195424 ) <taiki.cox@net> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:38AM (#10305789)
    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?

  • What's next? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:42AM (#10305800)
    Going after people for core [imdb.com] files?

  • Heres a few more MPAA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:46AM (#10305811) Homepage Journal

    (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.

  • More **AA Stupidity (Score:3, Informative)

    by Raseri ( 812266 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:49AM (#10305830)
    Will these morons ever quit?

    Probably not. What's worse is that nobody will ever really sue these organizations, not in America, not in Oz, not in Candyland, or anywhere else. People considering doing so would just end up feeling overwhelmed and intimidated by the size of the cartels, and just forget about it.

    Either that, or any judge and/or jury would be bought by the **AA, ensuring the plaintiff's failure and subsequent economic ruin (lawyers, countersuit, et cetera).

    The only thing we can really do to them is stop buying their shit, no matter how interesting a movie looks, or how much you like one of their bands. They will never stop this bullshit until it becomes financially impossible for them to continue.

  • Information (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kadmos ( 793363 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @02:54AM (#10305845)
    The Australian Copyright Council publishes information sheets dealing with copyright in Australia. You can see their website at http://copyright.org.au

    One such information sheet "Infringement: What can I do?" (http://www.copyright.org.au/PDF/InfoSheets/G052.p df) states:

    "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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ghostgate ( 800445 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:00AM (#10305867)
    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.

    • Re:The worst part (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Gopal.V ( 532678 )
      > Then, they will claim that they are acting on behalf of the copyright holder of the work.

      There's a loop hole there - the copyright holder of the work in mention. And we all know they are not going to say "Valgrind - Memory debugger" or "Twisted Python" .

      The only way to get people moving against DMCA is to enforce it very rigorously.

    • 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.

      The problem is in the loose wording of the DMCA. I don't feel like dredging through that hogwash at 4

  • Legal action (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:06AM (#10305887) Homepage Journal
    The fact that the Australian Linux users are taking the MPAA to court over this is interesting, to say the least. It could result in a lot more legal action, particularly in the UK.

    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

    • Re:Legal action (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt.nerdflat@com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:16AM (#10305919) Journal
      Actually, most people do *NOT* have a problem ripping off someone who is honest and decent, as long as they don't actually have to actually see the person or in some other way be connected to them in a manner that could reasonably and forseeably (adversely) affect their life. Large and effectively invisible organizations like the RIAA fit into this category quite nicely so people have no problem with piracy.

    • Re:Legal action (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zurab ( 188064 )

      The MPAA needs to address this image problem. Fix the image, and the piracy problem will take care of itself.

      The "image" they have to fix, in my opinion, is to disband the cartel they are operating and start competing amongst each other like companies in most other industries. Competition will force the industry to fight for customers based on price, value-added content and services, methods of delivery and quality of their products. Healthy competition will force them to truly innovate to survive.

      But MPA

  • If this had been me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt.nerdflat@com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:07AM (#10305892) Journal
    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.
    • That would be fun, of course, but wouldn't the judge be able to saddle you with legal costs for wasting the court's time (when a simple phone call would have cleared up the whole mess)?

    • Re:If this had been me... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by julesh ( 229690 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @04:41AM (#10306167)
      I don't know much about Australian laws, other than them being based on the UK's laws.

      In a civil case in the UK, however, you have to submit details of the arguments you intend to present to the court before the hearing. I would suspect the MPAA's solicitors would back down on receipt of this, rather than let it go to court. In the UK this means you would have cost them a GBP 30 filing fee.

  • Hurry Up! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Maljin Jolt ( 746064 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:43AM (#10305999) Journal
    It's time to register "Twisted Grind" as a cool Slashdot nickname!

  • another sad/funny example... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:46AM (#10306003)
    to see more of this hilarity in action, see the recent copyright infringement notice sent to scene.org

    http://www.scene.org/showforum.php?forum=5&topic=4 0047 [scene.org]

    " 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 :) "

    • Re:another sad/funny example... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by liquidsin ( 398151 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @10:14AM (#10307997) Homepage
      Wow. Choicest quote ever:
      Given the nature of the material concerned and the fact that it is widely known that motion picture studios do not distribute their works for free over the internet,
      there can be no reasonable doubt about the illegality of this material.
      (emphasis mine). Is it actually legal for them to do that? No reasonable doubt that the files, which they fucking listed in the email, including file sizes, are illegal? 23kb for a whole season? Retards.

  • Using meta tags as bait (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eelriver ( 757799 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @03:49AM (#10306010)
    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?

  • Random stupid idea... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Temporal ( 96070 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @04:55AM (#10306204) Journal
    (1) Create some work of art or anything else that you can copyright.
    (2) Name it after a file on the MPAA web site.
    (3) Send the MPAA a takedown notice.
    (4) Profit?

    OK, it's probably not a good idea, but I had to suggest it.

  • What I dont get ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @07:04AM (#10306619) Homepage Journal
    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)

    • Re:What I dont get ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbenderNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @10:48AM (#10308327)
      I'm sure SuprNova has gotten numerous letters from various copyright holders and their proxies. But using the name of a copyrighted isn't illegal by itself, as this story has shown once more, and SuprNova will probably claim their files are, by themselves, just as innocuous as the ones hosted by Linux Australia.

      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.

      Not really. Most recent P2P schemes - eMule and Bittorrent in particular - have huge sites dedicated to them. Those sites manage to survive because they are (arguably) not hosting any copyrighted works, not even tiny pieces of them. They just host checksums in the case of eMule, or files containing checksums and network data in the case of BT, which other people do use to copy protected works. The latter is still quite illegal, no matter how tiny the pieces are, and after all the purpose is to have the whole thing in the end, and not just pieces of it.

      Note that the biggest eMule site - Sharereactor - was taken down by the authorities and the owner is facing serious charges. I don't know what exactly is the state of that trial.
      As far as I am aware, the whole "storing checksums is legal" thing has not been tested in court yet. From a technical point of view it's sound, but from a different point of view it's ridiculous: you're effectively linking to copyrighted works, the technical details on how the files arrive on your computer are irrelevant, could be HTTP (as in the geocities-hosted Warez of yore), FTP or it could be a distributed channel like P2P. As I said, two different ways of looking at it.

      Judging by the evidence the mere fact that a file contains the name of a work is enough.

      Enough to trigger those idiotic search engine/FUD spam programs they use. Not enough for anything else.

  • Billing the MPAA for your wasted time? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kurisuto ( 165784 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @07:24AM (#10306689) Homepage
    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.

  • Spam my bloody arse! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @09:48PM (#10315229) Homepage Journal

    "An interesting question that the article raises is whether automatic takedown notices based on blind keyword searches constitutes spam."

    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."

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