MPAA Steals Code, Violates Linkware License
Written by Smaran on February 17, 2007A 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, and had not credited him in any way.
Patrick Robin, a 29 year old web developer from South England, is the developer of an ASP-based blogging platform called Forest Blog. He distributes it freely under a linkware license, asking that anyone who uses it merely link back to his site where Forest Blog is offered for download. If someone wants to remove the links back to his site, they must purchase a license. A personal license costs 10 Pounds and a commercial one costs 25.
Amazingly, the MPAA seem to think they’re above “formalities” like licenses and such. The MPAA blog, located at www.mpaa.org/blog_default.asp (currently down – pic), was using Patrick’s Forest Blog software, but had been completely stripped of his name, and links back to his site. He only found about it accidentally when he happened to visit the MPAA site.
Clearly, there seems to be a lack of concern by the MPAA of others’ copyrighted works. Therefore, is it unsurprising that their customers seem to have the same attitude towards their movies?
According to Patrick, it isn’t something new to find his blogging software being used like this. What he finds really odd is that an organisation whose goal is to “protect” copyrighted creative works has no qualms in, essentially, stealing other people’s work. The MPAA still haven’t replied to a letter he sent them about the illegal use of his blogging software.
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54 Responses
Great news!
MPAA: You can blog but you can’t hide
Then there was the incident with RIAA/MPAA using a shareware PDF generator past the trial period.
There was a link in the PDF to the company who had created the PDF generator.
The link was white text on white background so the MPAA/RIAA did not notice :-)
LOL. I wonder who else they do this 2…
Sue them in small claims court! Find out what the limit for small claims is in their state, then sue them for just below that. It costs you a few dollars to do that — and then they either have to send a lawyer out OR they get a summary judgement against them for not showing.
And YOU don’t need a lawyer!
Consider it.
I truly hope this Patrick did not send a fluffy ‘please stop using my code without permission/licence’ letter, bu rather a letter from a lawyer regarding a notice to SUE THEIR ASS.
The actions over the past few years (especially) by the MPAA and the RIAA, make me f**king sick!
Re David Gaspar,
Also there was incident where they admitted to pirating movies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet_Rated#MPAA_infringements
You would think they would have a budget to buy .pdf software and that linking back to the linkware site would not be such a sacrifice. They are losing a chunk of credibility on this one.
Also, they were caught paying off law enforcement:
http://www.bsalert.com/artsearch.php?fn=2&as=700&dt=1
Send them a letter demanding that $2,700 like they send to everyone who has even one song. Hell, A song costs $1 on iTunes, so that would be 67,500 if you compared it. If you compared it to a cd, it would come up to 5,400.
I think he should contact them and report a copyright issue an fill out all the correct paperwork, and then see where it goes from there, and then later check back with the paperwork, that would be an interesting find. Or if you sue, what can the MPAA do? Honestly if in fact they are in direct violation they can’t really defend themselves because that would go against everything that they stand for. Great Find!
so “dan glickman” learned about america by going to the movies
that explains a lot
MPAA and RIAA bunch of hypocrites, it reminds me of the spanish inquisition, they like to accuse people, harass people and punish people with the full weight of the law but when it comes to them…they think to be above the law.
HYPOCRITES!!
You should sue them completely and make this appear on every major news organization in the world.
SORRY but it really pisses me off.
Send a DMCA Takedown notice to their webservice provider, and get their site pulled… :)
Crazy! Only problem is that if Patrick sued the MPAA, he would only get 25 pounds from them per his commercial license pricing.
@Dan, a DMCA take down would be ironically appropriate. Great comment!
sue em! sue em into the ground!
actually – if you work for the riaa , or mpaa and are reading this “you perform no useful role in society , have you ever considered either a new job or ending it all?”
Reality check.
The MPAA likely had absolutely nothing to do with the selection of technology or implementation of their weblog. More likely than not, they hired some random consultant who did the evil deed.
Sure, the MPAA should have double checked. But I’d bet they would still likely have missed it. Hard to check such things.
Hopefully, the MPAA will apologize and then either fire or sue the crap out of whoever it was that so obviously ripped off said software.
Sue em! The judgment would be a great exhibit for an unclean hands defense when they bring their actions.
Sue them at least 100 million dollars and use there own reasoning with the courts as to why the fine should be so high.
If i had a law degree i would take your case.
Hahah suck it MPAA
Bbum Response is correct. They probably didnt do it themselves, but the MPAA dont normaly have any problem suing mom and dad when little jimmy is pirating movies.
Protecting outdated business models via litigation is not a smart move.
I’d suggest a different approach: why not show the kind of leniency that we would like to see coming from them?
Think of the fence-sitter who happens to work for that organization (”Hey, it’s a living”). Is suing them going to turn him from his evil ways, or cement his believe in strong enforcement of copyright law (”They’re no different from us!”).
Somebody has to take the higher ground, and it might as well be us.
you take the higher ground and they’re just going to keep stepping all over you. Pull their site with DMCA, repeatedly.
mpaa are bunch of fucking scumbags,
i hope they all fucking die
I went to the MPAA website and used their online piracy reporting form to report to them about this particular act of piracy. Heh.
Motherfucking Pissfaced Asshole Association. Fuck these bastards. Go get ‘em coder.
Ah, the irony…
They sue us for copyright violation, but violate copyright themselves? Beautiful.
Haha.. MPAA; get a clue why no one listens to you or like you! Just give up.
Sue them or not, consider the impact on their prosecution efforts in court when the defendant or defense counsel turns it around and starts asking them about this copyright violation. Their case just went from strong to weak.
You should let them keep doing it for a while, then hit them for $250,000 per violation, like they do.
RAND0M C0RT CA5E!!!
I vote in favour of getting their site pulled and going to small claims court. They’ll likely settle. Report it to your local news paper and hope that large news organisations will pick it up from there.
-j
Wait… confused… are we thinking that copyright laws and licenses are valid and important this week, or is this the week we’re supposed to think that they suxorz and we can do anything we damn well please?
Let’s be careful that our opportunity for sweet, sweet revenge does not steamroll our principles.
They wouldn’t have even needed to buy PDF software as they could just download the Free OpenOffice (from openoffice.org) which supports PDF creation.
It’s not “stealing”. Yes, the MPAA violated the license, and yes, they are hypocrites for doing so. But if Patrick Robin didn’t lose his work, then there’s no stealing going on here, not by the MPAA or anyone else.
What the MPAA did is unauthorized copying (or unauthorized use). That’s a different sort of offense from “stealing”.
-Karl Fogel
Good text about stealing other’s work. Specially when you can see the similarity with those logos on the right hand side (”listen”, “advertise”) and the shoutcast.com logos (http://www.shoutcast.com/download/)
Oh and remember the Sony rootkit in copy protected CDs. It violated an open-source license (VLC media player, under the GPL).
MPAA: “Do as we say, not as we do.”
Loves it
Please sue them and go to the small claims court with this case.
If not for yourself, then for all those who MPAA has screwed.
“Sue them”
yeah right. Have any of you actually SEEN any of the david vs goliath copyright cases? here’s what usually happens:
1. david and golaith butt heads. Doesn’t really matter who throws the first stone, but both suit up for battle.
1.5 settlement. Golaith has a public image to protect, and tries to settle with david out of court, on the premise that if he doesn’t, they can out-lawyer his ass because they have more money.
2. court. This goes on for months, tiring out david, who really has other things he needs to do. Goliath has a whole team of lawyers who live for this kind of thing.
3. ruling. The judge rules in david’s favor. Hooray!
4. appeals. Goliath appeals, but at this point David is out of cash, so Goliath out-lawyers his ass because they have more money.
These days its not really abuot who is right, it’s who can afford to wait out the legal battle.
that is a damn shame. He should take them to court. He better. but did the MPAA know this. I guess the webmaster is part of the MPAA. All there employees shouldn’t be taken part in things like that. MPAA shows there true colors. They want money.
In small claims court, you aren’t allowed to have a lawyer. So they have to bring their own representative. They probably won’t even bother, which means they get a default judgment against them which they then have to pay or be in contempt of court.
Take the bastards for every damn cent.
Sue them in small claims court, but have the summons delivered to some small obscure MPAA Office. Hopefully they won’t show up and you’ll get a summary judgement.
This worked for a guy who sued Dell and had the summons delivered to a Dell Kiosk in a shopping mall.
Yah! How ironic!
Nice write-up Gina
MPAA claimed that they used it for “testing purposes only” and that they deleted it after they finished testing it. Supposedly that’s why they didn’t care to purchase or link to that dude.
I guess I am going to download a few songs and movies – test them – and then delete it.
Apparently MPAA doesn’t have a problem with that procedure… :)
death to glickman! it may seem a bit
harsh for you hippies out there, but
those bastards stop at nothing.
I linked to this article at the ElderScrolls forum and was suspended from the forum for 3 days. I received this PM from a moderator there:
“Linking to websites that advocate illegal file sharing isn’t tolerated on this forum.”
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! qzgmizfpsgqs
daubrrn
That proves once again the MPAA are just abunch of big fat hypocrites out for more money, The RIAA is exactly the same.
Rotten fuckers MPAA are THE criminals!
thats a fucking lame reason…oh i am testing if pirated software can rip music…but yeah we are criminals to pirate it
I think ppl should think thoroughly when they make rules
It is not even in god’s hands to stop piracy.;….we are merely humans
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