MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-09-20 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] DMCA stuff
|
What seems to be an embarrassing blunder by the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) in its hunt for online pirates has
prompted Linux Australia to contact its legal representatives and warn
of a possible breach of Australian law.
Linux Australia president Pia Smith told Builder AU the MPAA had issued
Linux Australia with a notice of claimed infringement demanding the
group cease providing access to two copyrighted movies -- one called
"Grind" and the other "Twisted" -- and ordering it to "take appropriate
action against the account holder".
However, the files in question had nothing to do with those movies. The
file entitled Twisted is a download of the popular framework written in
Python and Grind refers to a download of Valgrind, a tool for developers
to locate memory management.
The MPAA has no legal rights over this software.
Smith told Builder AU the incident demonstrated that the process used to
locate allegedly illegal files on Australian servers was flawed, and the
MPAA could be infringing a number of local laws.
"We realised that the MPAA must be doing blind keyword matching against
Internet content, and then sending out automatic take-down notices with
no real research or double checks," Smith said.
"This seems to be a huge misuse of resources, an infringement upon
various global spam laws, an infringement upon our own Copyright Act
under Section 102 and needless stress and cost upon small Australian
organisations and companies," Smith said.
It is understood Linux Australia's legal counsel will be contacting the
MPAA to inform them of the mistake and legal implications of their
actions.
"Linux Australia is concerned that this kind of shoot-in-the-dark
approach to copyright protection is potentially damaging for Australian
organisations and companies," Smith added.
"Organisations that participate in such behaviour should be held
accountable, and forced to put at least some effort into researching the
validity of their keyword searches."
The MPAA did not return Builder AU's calls last week regarding the
matter.
____________________________
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