MPAA violates copyright law

Revenge of the nerds: MPAA violates the law, infringes copyright with it’s spy software

The MPAA’s “University Toolkit” –universities have been asked by the MPAA to install spying software in their networks to monitor student behavior.  The measure was taken as the MPAA and RIAA are continuing to crack down on copyright violations of their software. In a humorous twist of irony, due to copyright violations, the MPAA was prevented from using the toolkit.

The GPL (license) that comes with the “open” software includes a provision by which the code must be available upon request and licensed under the same rules that govern the original code. After several attempts to contact the MPAA, the author was forced to resort to the same tactics that the MPAA uses to harass students. A developer of the operating system Ubuntu decided to send a DMCA notice to the MPAA’s ISP and demanded that the material be taken down as infringing.

This was just too funny to pass up. Here’s the original exchange that got picked up by Slashdot (comments for your amusement) and BoingBoing before finding its way here.

Fred Soto is an Attorney and Entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley.
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