MPAA Makes Unauthorized Copies of DVD 424
An anonymous reader writes "There's a story on ArsTechnica about how the MPAA has admitted that they made unauthorized copies of a movie. That in itself is a bit of tasty hypocrisy, but if it turns out that they ripped a DVD, then the MPAA could find themselves in violation of the DMCA." From the article: "According to Mark Lemley, a professor at the Stanford Law School, the MPAA may have been within its rights to make copies of the film. Given that the MPAA's intent isn't financial gain and that the whole situation may rise above the level of trading barbs through the media into legal action, making a copy may be justified. Personally, I can't see any justification for an organization such as the MPAA ignoring a directive from a copyright owner, but IANAL." Update: 01/24 19:52 GMT by Z : Made title more accurate.
Financial gain? (Score:5, Insightful)
intent!! (Score:4, Insightful)
so I can rip a few thousand copies of the latest sucky movie and as long as I don't gain financially, I can distribute at my discretion.
Statutory Damages (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Does that mean that..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, they'll just sue the company they got to make copies for them. They'll call it a "mega piracy bust" or something, and say that they found 30 DVD replicators inside and some pirated goods... namely this one "This Film is Not Yet Rated" documentary.
Double Standard (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:CSS? (Score:5, Insightful)
I unfortunately agree. The MPAA does have a case, considering the police were already called about potential stalking, and with this serving as evidence in that potential lawsuit, I can't help but agree this should be possible, to protect the innocent in this situation .
That said, I hope and pray that the author was smart enough to encode it with CSS, so we can actually have an example of using Fair Use policy to circumvent CSS encryption.
I'm tired of being told it is illegal to play DVDs on my linux-based laptop even though I own the DVD and have no DVD ripping libraries on my computer. Hopefully this publicity will force the MPAA to admit that there are cases that backup copies should be legal.
And to all the DVD ripping/sharing individuals, thanks for making it hard on the rest of us. Abuse of the system is what caused such strict policies and laws in the first place.
Re:intent!! (Score:3, Insightful)
In the first case it may not even be worth going to trial (since they'll still have to pay the lawyer fees which may well be more than they could get), in the second it is much more likely to be worth it, on a 'normal' case.
(Standard disclaimer: IANAL, but I have studied this some. Got good grades too.)
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not popular, but here's the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
What? No.
Show me the bit in the Copyright Act that says "If a copyrighted work mentions you, you get a free copy."
Re:intent!! (Score:3, Insightful)
If the point to all of the *AAs' huffing and puffing is the financial gain of the people doing any sort of copying, and the MPAA can get away with making copies of this guy's movie, then we should all be able to breathe a sigh of relief, right?
(Well, in an ideal world, yes, but in our current bizarro-world where big corporations want to control every thought in your head and dollar in your pocket, no).
It also amuses me that they claim the copying was justified because their employees' privacy may have been voilated. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because they believe laws were broken, doesn't mean they can break them as well.
Then again, these days, they make the laws, so yeah, I guess they can break them...
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:4, Insightful)
The DMCA makes it illegal to break copyright protection mechanisms. If the movie was NOT protected, and it probably wasn't, then the DMCA does not come into play in any way.
The copyright infringment bit is still possible, but fair use does come into play there.
That's really the perversion of the DMCA - any copyright protection mechanism, pretty much regardless of how poorly implemented, trumps fair use rights.
Re:More info in the original unspun article (Score:5, Insightful)
geese and ganders (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds a whole lot like pot, kettle and black. The copyright owner should sue their pants off.
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that loophole was closed by the No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act [ucla.edu], not the DMCA.
Funnily enough, like the DMCA, the NET Act was also signed into law by the Clinton Administration. I only point that out to illustrate that selling out your rights to further rapacious corporate profits is not, and never has been, exclusively a Republican trait.
Schwab
Re:the sad part is the movie copied was......... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:5, Insightful)
I obviously don't know the background but when a guy makes an incidiary movie about the MPAA, makes specific requests of the MPAA, and pays attention to whether or not his instructions were followed it seems to be like he is trying to get a law suit.
I am torn between not liking the film maker for trying to find something to sue for and not liking the MPAA because they're cockroaches - I think I'll just settle on liking neither and hoping that the MPAA loses.
Re:CSS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the police were called regarding stalking and even if there was evidence on the DVD that could be used as evidence, the correct thing (IANAL etc) would be for the police to seize the original DVD, NOT for the MPAA to arbitrarialy decide what could and could not be used as evidence in a potential criminal case.
Which raises another interesting question. Given that these were copies made without the agreement of the copyright holder, and without - presumably - proper forensic procedures having taken place; would they be admissible anyway? My guess would be "no" because you can't prove you've not tampered with them.
Re:CSS? (Score:2, Insightful)
They had no right to distribute it, IMO.
Re:More info in the original unspun article (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny, since Jack Valenti (President of the MPAA until 2004) has claimed repeatedly that there's no such thing as fair use. [darknet.com]
They were making copies of the work in its entirety and distributing it to employees because they thought they might be interested in it because the movie was about them. The only reason they had access to the material in the first place was because it was submitted to be rated, and they control the ratings process. IANAL, but I don't see how they'd squeeze a fair use defense out of this.
Remember, this is a movie that was being submitted for rating, so it hadn't been released yet. The MPAA has supported legislation that would have made this kind of copying a felony punishable by jail time. [slashdot.org]
I would love for this to go to trial and have the MPAA use a fair use defense. I want them on the record as saying distributing a small number of copies for purposes other than financial gain. I want an MPAA executive under oath stating what that number is. Hell, I just want them to submit to the court, in writing, a document that acknowledges the existence of the fair use exceptions.
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Financial gain? (Score:2, Insightful)
For most people who download stuff, no sense of "compensation" really comes into play, as their willingness to pay goes to zero.
Quite simply, by and large people download because they are greedy themselves, and wouldn't pay a cent for anything if they could get away with it. And this is how they can.
So we have greed on both sides of the table. One wants everything free, one wants nothing outside of their grasp. The latter is a reaction to the former, and does not suprise me in the least. I don't like it, but hey, the masses have loudly stated that they won't play (or pay) fair if they don't have to.
Intellectual Property Rights...are only for (Score:5, Insightful)
He who has the $$$ gets the rest of the $$$$$$$$$$
SONY, should have been hit with a fine or penalty for every instance of the ROOT kit installed. Were they? Nope...but they'll turn around and sue a 12 yr old.
DMCA does not apply (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not popular, but here's the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time I checked, the MPAA were not a Law Enforcement agency.
They made copies of the movie and gave them to their employees. That's very different from handing over the evidence (the original DVD) to the Police, and then the Police making copies.
Re:More info in the original unspun article (Score:3, Insightful)
But the bottom line is that the time and cost of taking the MPAA to court (probably multiple appeals) isn't worth it unless your pockets are VERY deep.
Think of it as photocopying a book and passing it around for all to read. Clear violation.
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Does this logic allow all Republicans to pirate F9/11?
If the MPAA makes a specific request of movie buyers that they not pirate, and pays attention to whether these instructions were followed, aren't they "trying to get a lawsuit"? Your point is irrelevant (no offense)
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Will you ever know for sure? Not until someone is caught. But the perfect digital copies of movies that come out before the film hits the theaters often come from advance DVD's sent to ratings boards and professional movie reviewers.
Yes I think the film maker is looking to stir something up, but that doesn't matter. The MPAA broke the same law they spend millions trying to enforce.
I could imagine a lawyer taking the case for the publicity also. Maybe we will be that lucky!
Full translation of the Heise article (Score:3, Insightful)
GVU is reported to have sponsored piracy
Of all things, the Organization for Prosecuting Copyright Infringements (GVU) was targeted in the large search action against the piracy scene. The state attorney's office of Ellwangen suspects the private tracking organization of the film and software industry of having actively supported the distribution of what are called "warez". On Tuesday, investigators of the state Office of Criminal Investigation searched the Hamburg offices and the apartment of a high-ranking employee.
According to the joint research of the computer magaine c't and the news portal onlinekosten.de, evidence indicates that the GVU went beyond the pale in their investigations against pirates. For a fairly long time, the editorial staffs had received leads from an informant close to the GVU that had been supported by a second source. According to this informant, the GVU is reported to have regularly paid at least one administrator of a central exchange server of the warez scene. It attained log files and with them access IP addresses of this "box" in this way. It is reported to additionally have contributed hardware to equip the platform.
The server stood in a Frankfurt data center and was called IOH in the scene. It was confiscated today by the police. In a press release regarding the raid, today the GVU themselves emphasized that precisely this server in addition to one other had served "for mass distibution of pirated copies on the Internet".
For months, multiple release groups copied pirated film copies from their own servers onto IOH via the File Exchange Protocol (FXP) in order to make them accessible for the purpose of faster distribution. From what are called flash servers such as IOH, the files also reach operators of pay servers, for example, where they can be downloaded for payment by consumers. Moreover, the servers act as a source for supplying file sharing services.
Alongside many pirates, the GVU is reported to have also had access to IOH. Consequently, the private investigators could have had a large interest in ensuring that the "honeypot" remained attractive via a good Internet connection and powerful hardware. If it should be the case that the GVU helped finance the instrastructure of the pirates, this would establish a suspicion of criminally relevant aid to the distribution of warez material.
The state attorney's office of Ellwangen is clearly entertaining precisely this suspicion. To all appearances, through the seizure today of files of the GVU it would like to glean whether the GVU actually used such questionable investigation methods. The state's attorneys will also have to resolve whether the GVU management and the members, primarily large corporations from the film and software industry, had knowledge of the supposed operations. The investigation results from c't and onlinekosten.de indicate that at least one member of the GVU management (which also once designated its organization as a "small BKA [Federal Criminal Police Office] for copyright infringements") was informed about the operations.
In a comment, today at midday the GVU merely acknowledged that "the GVU center in Hamburg was also investigated". It was assumed that "it was presumably for the purpose of verifying the information that the GVU had surrendered to the authorities". That surely does not explain why the state attorney's office of Ellwangen required a judicial search warrant for an organization that, according to its own representation, cooperates particularly closely and well with the investigative authorities. The GVU did not comply with a request for a response to the investigation results by c't.
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:3, Insightful)