MPAA violates copyright

From the-what’s good for the goose is good for the goose, the gander can do what he damn well pleases-file:

Way back in October last year whilst going through the website referrals list for another of my sites I stumbled across this link. That’s right, my blogging software is being used by the MPAA (Motion picture Association of America); probably one of the most hated organisations known to the internet. Cool, I thought, until I had a look around and saw that all of the back links to my main site had been removed with nary a mention in the source code!

Now this isn’t anything new, it seems like every week I’ll stumble across someone who doesn’t think that my work deserves any recognition or that my effort deserves any thanks. But this time I had a good chuckle; it’s not every day that an organisation whos main reason for being is:

“… to advocate for strong protection of the creative works produced and distributed by the industry, fights copyright theft around the world, and provides leadership in meeting new and emerging industry challenges.”

gets caught out infringing someone else’s copyright and sticks it on the internet for all and sundry to see!

Now I know I’m not exactly renowned for my legalese but I did think that the terms and conditions that I had released Forest Blog under were pretty solid, specifically the section relating to removing the back links:

You may not remove, alter or otherwise disable all or any of the hyperlinks to the Host Forest website  http://www.hostforest.co.uk). All images, links or text must remain unchanged and intact and visible when the pages are viewed unless you first obtain explicit written permission from the copyright holders.

I’m sure that the decision to remove the back links was made by some individual rather than a committee at the MPAA but I find it surprising anyone working there would be so remiss to remove these links just because I let people download and use Forest Blog for free.

(Update) Well, I must say I’m surprised;to after getting no response to my previous emails to the MPAA about their use of Forest Blog at the tail end of last year I got a result within five hours this time, unless they were just replying to the original email?

Anyway, thanks to Paul Egge and Richard Kroon the situation has now been resolved and they’ve removed Forest Blog from their web server. Here’s a section of the email I received from Richard who I think is the Director of Application Development ast the MPAA:

The material has been removed from our Web server.

* No Web links were ever provided to the blog.
* The blog was never assigned a domain name.
* The blog was never advertised to the public in any way.
* The material on the server was a proof of concept awaiting approval to move into production.
* The blog was only ever used for testing purposes.
* Should we have decided to make the move to production, then we would have paid the 25 Pounds that would have authorized us to run a version of the blog without the logos and links.

Whilst that all sounds fair enough but I doubt I’d get away with pirating a few movies providing I didn’t advertise it and only used them for testing purposes. hmmm!

Patrick Robin

Update

This would be simply ironic if it weren’t for the dubious activities undertaken by the MPAA and RIAA against those who have done nothing more than what the MPAA has done itself.

Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing adds a few comments  that illustrate the attitude of those who insist the rest of the world follow their rules while they blithely ignore them themselves:

But the MPAA believes that employers should be held responsible for employees’ copyright infringements. They want you to know that if you download movies at work, your employer will also be named in the suit. Infringe as we say, not as we do.

This reminds me of Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman, Jr’s admission that his kids downloaded infringing music. He shrugged it off, saying that he’d dealt with the matter privately. Other parents are not so lucky: when their kids get caught downloading music, the RIAA sues them for every penny, through a thuggish boiler-room operation.

[tags]MPAA, DRM, copyright, blogging, BoingBoing[/tags]