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MPAA Crocked For Software Copyright Violation
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-12-04
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A "University Toolkit" made available to schools to spy on network traffic for infringing content proved to be infringing itself, and embarrassing the Motion Picture Association of America.
The terms of the GPL, sometimes called copyleft, dealt a left hook to the MPAA after a software developer compelled the MPAA's ISP to takedown a spyware package.
Boing Boing said the developer, Matthew Garrett, asked the MPAA several times to release the source code it used in building upon his work in creating the University Toolkit. GPL terms require such development to be released back to the open source community.
Being a major lobbying force for wealthy studios, the MPAA likely did not regard such requests as ones they need to obey. Garrett followed up the non-response by feeding the MPAA a dose of its medicine - a DMCA takedown request sent to its ISP.
An ISP can maintain its safe harbor status by quickly complying with DMCA notifications. Though this has been used controversially, in Garrett's case it worked as it was meant to do.
Brian Krebs at the Washington Post discussed the University Toolkit at length in November. He highlighted privacy concerns, but the copyright issue was not known at the time.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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