RSSMPAA's student P2P sniffer pulled over copyright issues
By Ed Oswald | Published December 4, 2007, 2:45 PM
In an embarrassing blunder for an organization that has made copyright one of its signature issues, the MPAA is now being accused of violating copyright itself.
As part of the organization's fight against the pirating of movies, the Motion Picture Association of America had been urging universities to install an Ubuntu-based toolkit that would assist it in tracking and reporting students who were participating in file-sharing. The Association proposed the so-called "University Toolkit" as part of letters sent to 25 universities back in October.
MPAA's software was not above criticism: One security researcher found it could pose significant privacy concerns depending on how the school's network was set up.
But that's not the whole of it. On Monday, it was disclosed that the organization is actually breaking copyright itself by providing the toolkit. One of the developers behind the Ubuntu toolkit began defending the distribution by issuing takedown notices.
Ubuntu is licensed under the General Public License. In order to comply with the terms, developers creating applications must not only provide the binary, but the source code behind it as well as publish changes made. Without the source code, distributing the binary alone constitutes copyright infringement under the GPL.
Obviously, such a setup would not benefit MPAA. With source code in hand, enterprising hackers would probably be able to find ways to subvert the tracker, and continue to trade files.
When Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett caught wind of the MPAA's activities, he complained to the organization directly. However, the group didn't respond to his e-mails, and calls to the organization's office were met with bewildered receptionists unsure of how to direct his call and with promises that he would be called back.
Frustrated, Garrett took it to the next level, contacting the group's ISP and demanding that the offending content be removed from its servers. It apparently has complied, and the package was missing from the MPAA's Web site as of Tuesday.
"MPAA don't [expletive] with my [expletive]," Garrett wrote on his Web log Monday.
I can only hope he sues them for copyright infringement and requests millions in compensation for violating the terms of the license under which they obtained the code.
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|HAHAHA.... I hope they will be sued also.
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|Good for him. MPAA RIAA Take a taste of their own unjust BULLCRAP for a change.
Invasion of privacy is more and more the norm in todays online life. Patriot act witch hunting for would be terrorists, MPAA, Witch hunt for potential pirates, and taking the step of saying they are with ZERO evidence that anyone ever downloaded 1 file from them at all. And RIAA Using illegal file packet sniffing to track all packets for potential hash marks that MAY be copyrighted music packets, and if detected they send a C&D notice to your ISP claiming your IP is transmitting a large amount of bits that has a high probability of being copyrighted material.
Every word of it BS cause in every case the burden of proof is set so low, thats all they need for their extortion. This evidence has ZERO value in criminal court. Thats why they never allow it to get there, as it would set a very good precedence for the public, and put them in their place for a change. As the Betamax ruling did for Analog fair use rights.
The DMCA has no fair use rights in it,and as such is a disservice to the people for which it is suppose to represent. Instead its is an indict from on high for the subjects to obey or be dammed forever. Right... DMCRA Digital Millenium Consumer Rights Act folks. Demand it from your representatives... Its time has come.
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|MPAA, everyone hates you! Greedy by nature, I hate companies that are greedy by nature. Lets push for the 100k+ fines on them now! lol
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|100K thats peanunts to them lets push for unlimited
they are just greedy ......
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|Too funny. It serves those bas+ards right...
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|I love the smell of irony in the morning...
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|What goes around comes around. I say we all bind and SUE MPAA to oblivion.
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|"assist it in tracking and reporting students who were participating in file-sharing"
'file-sharing' is not illegal
it is the copying of copyright material without the copyright owners consent, that's illegal
lot's of systems allow for 'file sharing' (email for example)
so they collect a list of IP addresses, then what ?
they still need to show that people are actually sharing material that they don't have the right to share
is it legal to search a persons PC without a search warrant ?
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|yes file-sharing cause you know how the MPAA is wanting to know whos sharing pictures and mp3's they dont care about those. they want movies idoit. It's the MPAA they are wanting to know who is sharing their movies over the networks.
If your on a school network in order to get on their network you comply to their standards, I know at mine it includes search of computer software.
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|No, it's not legal. But you do have the right to monitor a network you voluntarily hook into. That said, you still have to make the case to get a warrant. The stupid thing is that to not violate your Fourth Amendment rights, they have to determine that a file went from A to B without searching A to B. Then they have to find the IP addresses, and get a warrant based on that. It also has to prove that a crime likely took place. This includes being able to prove reasonably to a judge that this wasn't fair use.
What the MPAA was doing was clearly overstepping, and highly hypocritical. They're thugs. No news on that front.
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|Of course the MPAA will use lawful means to combat the unlawful. That's the way they always did and continue doing things. [/sarcasm]
But they are also stupid as they should know already what using LINUX implies.
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|MPAA, "Do as we say, not as we do..." Hypocrites.
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|Can Canonical sue MPAA $750 per infringing work enclosed in Ubuntu now?
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|$750 for a line for code.
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|right!! it's not fair here.. The MPAA will get a $10 fine and told to try again.. most of the courts are on the payroll..
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|Actually they've already gotten the full extent of their punishment.
Ubuntu isn't a commercial product, it's distributed for free; IANAL but I'm sure that means they can't sue for money, at least not for the same reasons the *AA are.
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|bwuahahahahaahahahahahahaahha hahahaha ah aha a
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|lol thats great
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|Dont even get me started on the FUGER that is the MPAA. Die a slow death MPAA...
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|Ditto RIAA
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