MPAA Releases Software For Parents

SnowWolf2003 writes "The MPAA have released their Parent File Scan tool, which 'helps consumers check whether their computers have peer-to-peer software and potentially infringing copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted material'. According to the MPAA, the software does not report any data back to the MPAA. However, users have noted that the software is not accurate; 'tagging' virtually every audio or video file it finds based on file extensions."

According to...

[YrWrstNtmr]

According to the MPAA, the software does not report any data back to the MPAA.

Ha. And according to most criminals in prison, they are innocent.
OK...this first version might not. But in a few months, after people get used to it, and they send out an 'update' containing all the new songs/movies that have been put out, it will have a new unpublished 'feature'.

Do you REALLY want to trust the MPAA snooping around inside your PC?

According to most criminals in prison, they are innocent.

Re:Not just "virtually"

[NetNifty]

Does it tag .wav files? If so, and the program says they're infringing files, which leads someone to delete them, Windows might not be too happy about that...

Parents Should Be Able To Get This Information

[teiresias]

If a parent is not active enough in their child's life or like my parents, not technical enough to understand what files are what, this tool does very little.

Parent Not Active - The parent either doesn't care what their child does on the computer/internet or at least does not monitor it. Indeed, that parent might not see this as doing something wrong and in fact do it themselves.

Non-technical Parent - My parents know about movie pirating and that it can be be done on the computer. However, I could also leave a new copy of a main stream movie on the desktop with little worry.

Personally, I think this is a sneaky (abeit overt) way of allowing the MPAA's software to take a peak in your drawers. Parents, if you feel like this is information you can't optain by talking to your kids, than them having some movies on their computer really isn't the problem.

Geez...

[Otter]

However, users have noted that the software is not accurate; 'tagging' virtually every audio or video file it finds based on file extensions.

Uh, no kidding?

And if their software used some DRM or logging scheme to track the origin of every audio, video or archive file, you'd be saying that was a good thing?!?

Isn't this grounds for legal action?

[iplayfast]

Suppose you record your own music, save it on your machine. You give it to your friends, or release it on the net. The MPAA claims that it's stolen, which implies that it's not yours go give away.

Isn't the MPAA infringing on your copyrights?

Re:Programmed Entirely In Mom's Basement

[saforrest]

Notify Ministry of Peace? (Y/y):

Nice, but it should be the Ministry of Love [wikipedia.org].

begs the question

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/begs.html [wsu.edu]

The MPAA is worthless for parents in so many ways

[ianscot]

Let's hear it for the MPAA and its efforts to make things easier for parents.

For example, their ratings system does a graet job of giving "Billy Elliott" and "Waiting for Guffman" R ratings, because goodness knows no 13-year-old has ever hear bad language or encountered tacitly gay characters. Violence like Daredevil's "paperclips stabbing your throat until you choke to death" gets a PG-13 -- and so does a fantastic family movie like "Whale Rider" -- because there was apparently a bong in the background in one scene.

We're ever so eager to hear their parenting advice in other areas.

Handy form to notify FBI?

[hoggoth]

Does it include a handy form you can fill out to turn your kids in to the FBI?

And when you turn them in, and the MPAA sues your kids, do they indemnify the parents from the legal fees and penalties? Just send those subversive kids to prison where they belong.

I bet this is a big hit with concerned parents everywhere.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[essreenim]

But actually, thre is nothing to see here - same crap different submission.

As I daid and am tired of saying:

censorship bears the legacy of copyright. For example, the custom of printers and authors to have their name listed with their creations began as a law demanding this practice, not to ensure the originator due credit, but in order for the king to keep track of disobedient writers. Brendan Scott (2000)

In the end free/open software will triumph, Raymond attests; "[...] because the commercial world cannot win an evolutionary arms race with open-source communities that can put orders of magnitude more skilled time into a problem" The high innovation rate of free software has been stressed by many others and is one reason for recent interest by companies in the movement (DiBona et al., 1999).

This is part of the power of Open Source: it creates this kind of unifying pressure to conform to a common reference point - in effect, an open standard - and removes the intellectual property barriers that would otherwise inhibit this convergence"43. (Young in DiBona et al., 1999, p. 124.)

Taken from here [firstmonday.org].

Re:madness

[Belial6]

But does it tag Windows as p2p since every copy of Windows from WFW 3.11 on had file sharing built in.

Re:Not just "virtually"

[waltsj19]

"The program does not distinguish between legal and illegal copies, as it is up to the user to determine whether the files found by the program have been acquired legally, or whether the material should be deleted."

Wouldn't that make this absolutely pointless? All it actually does is scan your computer for *.mp3, *.wav, *.avi, *.mpg, etc.?

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[Frizzle Fry]

I ran the damn thing and it even wanted to delete the system audio files in c:\windows\media.

Copyright detector. Bahahahaha.

Well, those files are copyrighted.

Re:This is great!

[KlomDark]

Yes, and just think of how organized crime usually results when stupid and unenforcable laws are created. (Think prohibition, the drug "war", etc.)

It does sound a lot like it, because it is a common human reaction to overreaching stupidity.

Re:This is great!

[EvilAlien]

Yes, it is how it can work. Notice-and-takedown (which is what the DMCA requires) is very different from notice-and-notice. Futhermore, what is required by law does not determine how the law is interpreted and implemented in terms of policy and practice by ISPs subject to it. All it takes is for an ISP to decide that there is more risk of liability by not suspending and/or terminating service, and the account goes off.

A notice-and-takedown demand from a rightsholder is a different matter from a demand under the DMCA to ignore privacy rights and disclose customer information. The DMCA not only required notice-and-takedown, but also was interpreted as requiring non-court ordered disclosure by virture of a mere subpoena without judicial oversight. That is the nature of Verizon's battle against the RIAA and the DMCA over the last couple of years.