Matthew Garrett ([info]mjg59) wrote,
@ 2007-12-05 00:49:00
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Entry tags:advogato, ubuntu

Seth Oster, executive VP and chief communications officer of the MPAA, told Ars that the notice came over the Thanksgiving holiday when their offices were closed. "As soon as we came back and discovered that there had been someone who had raised some concerns, we removed the software," Oster said. "Anytime anyone raises any reasonable concern we look at it because we take copyright very seriously at the MPAA." He also denied Garret's assertions that the ISP was involved in the takedown, saying that the MPAA chose to take the toolkit offline.

(from Ars)

The bit about Thanksgiving is basically accurate - I contacted them at 15:52 Pacific time (23:52 GMT) on Friday the 23rd of November, saying that I'd take further action if things hadn't been fixed by close of business on the following Friday (the 30th). While I'm happy to accept that this might have cost them Friday and Monday (if the MPAA are the sort to offer a 5 day long weekend), that's still 4 business days of response time. I telephoned them on Friday morning (around 10AM Pacific time) and was told I'd get a call back shortly. By Saturday it seemed likely that this wasn't going to happen, so emailed the ISP. At 19:13 Pacific time on Saturday, I received an email from the ISP informing me that they were going to contact Paul Egge at the MPAA. There was an ISO available from the MPAA site until at least 09:22 Pacific time (17:22 GMT) on Monday the 3rd of December, which had been removed by 23:00 or so GMT (the next time I checked).

So, to summarise. The infringing material was still available the best part of 9 days after the original notification was sent. At least 4 of those 9 were business days. The material was not removed until after I had contacted the ISP and they had informed me they were going to contact the MPAA. Further interpretation is left to the reader.




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Friday post-Thanksgiving
[info]Luis Villa [tieguy.org]
2007-12-05 02:26 am UTC (link)
FWIW, virtually every non-retail American business does give their employees the day after Thanksgiving off. So contacting them that day was poor-ish form by American standards. But I've never heard of anyone also taking Monday off.

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i'm drinking to that
[info]dismissive
2007-12-05 04:10 am UTC (link)
cheers mate, and keep an eye out for the non-beta versions they'll ultimately try to fob off.

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[info]nunfetishist
2007-12-05 08:17 am UTC (link)
A poorly researched article - they can't spell your name :)

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Seriously...
(Anonymous)
2007-12-05 09:24 am UTC (link)
"Anytime anyone raises any reasonable concern we look at it because we take copyright very seriously at the MPAA."

My question to that would be, why don't they take copyright seriously _until_ a concern is raised?
Why not read the licensing term to begin with, so no concern has to be raised at all?

Is following the licensing agreement for copyrighted works only important if the copyright holder is in a position (read: has enough money) to sue?

I'm no way near as good as mjg59 at this, but I'll give it a try: Dear MPAA, fuck you!

//fatal

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[info]madfilkentist
2007-12-05 11:53 am UTC (link)
Could you clarify what the GPL violation was? The MPAA is currently denying that it modified any of the apps that it distributed. Is the issue that the "stickiness" of the GPL requires that all applications shipped with an Xubuntu distribution have to come with source code, even if they're unmodified? If that's the only concern, then it would seem that all the source code is already available to the public.

I'm sorry if I've misunderstood the issue, but the news reports which I've seen just haven't been clear about the nature of the alleged violation.

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[info]mjg59
2007-12-05 12:00 pm UTC (link)
You need to provide either the source or an offer to provide the source on request for all GPLed code, regardless of whether or not the files are modified.

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xubuntu.com is the source repository?
(Anonymous)
2007-12-05 05:39 pm UTC (link)
This is also a muddy issue considering that some may feel that if the packages have not been modified in their redistribution, that anyone who wants the source can go back to the originator of the software, in this case XUbuntu's sources.

Is seeing that this was the XUbuntu distro and pointing to their sources enough to comply? The source is provided, if indirectly.

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Re: xubuntu.com is the source repository?
[info]mjg59
2007-12-05 05:41 pm UTC (link)
Under GPLv2, no, that's not enough to comply.

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Re: xubuntu.com is the source repository?
(Anonymous)
2007-12-06 04:37 am UTC (link)
If we are talking "regardless of whether or not the files are modified", ie allowing for the possibility they are therefore just redistributing binary objects they got from elsewhere (rather than compiling their own from source) then why isn't clause 3c of GPL2 viable for them?

Presumably an Xubuntu CD comes with something constituting "a written offer" for the source so it can distribute under 2b (as it doesn't to my knowledge contain the source on the same CD and therefore can't be 2a).

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Re: xubuntu.com is the source repository?
[info]mjg59
2007-12-06 04:49 am UTC (link)
Ubuntu don't distribute Xubuntu CDs - the source is available for download at the same time as the ISO. Of course, anyone else is free to distribute Xubuntu under 3(b) - but that means that they have to provide the source themselves. Recipients of a CD distributed under 3(b) can in turn pass it on under 3(c) (assuming that it's non-commercial) but can't point at xubuntu.com (because they don't distribute CDs under 3(b)) - instead, they'd have to point at the source provided by whoever gave them the CD under 3(b).

Not that this matters, since they're not passing on the written offer anyway. The license documentation on the CD simply points to the licenses (not the source) of a small subset of the code contained on the CD, so 3(c) isn't being followed either.

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Re: xubuntu.com is the source repository?
(Anonymous)
2007-12-06 09:38 am UTC (link)
You say Xubuntu aren't distributing it under 3(b) but it isn't immediately clear to me that they are distributing it under 3(a). The source certainly does not "accompany" the binaries. It is offered seperately which sounds more like 3(b) (I'm not sure whether "written" necessarily means on a piece of paper", does a "source" link on a download page constitute a written offer for source?)

From what you say if I downloaded a xubuntu ISO and burned it to a CD (an act of copying I'd need approval from the licence to legally perform) then I couldn't give that CD to a friend unless I am also prepared to offer him the source directly?

I wonder how many people do that without thinking twice....

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Re: xubuntu.com is the source repository?
[info]mjg59
2007-12-06 09:45 am UTC (link)
It's generally been understood that providing the opportunity to download the source at the same time as the binaries counts as accompanying - the user is (usually) simply choosing not to take advantage.

Strictly, yes, you ought to be making an offer to provide source to anyone you pass CDs on to. Even if you do receive the original under 3(b), you'd need to pass on that offer to satisfy 3(c). If you're just doing this individually then realistically it's unlikely that anybody is going to care, and GPLv3 actually makes things a good deal easier in an acknowledgement that the conditions in GPLv2 don't really match how people distribute software nowadays. The problem with relying on the GPLv3 options is that there's a good deal of software (including the Linux kernel itself) that's GPLv2 only.

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Re: xubuntu.com is the source repository?
[info]landley
2007-12-06 07:09 pm UTC (link)
That's a grey area that's never been tested in court. Keep in mind that GPLv2 doesn't mention the web at all; it predates it.

If xubuntu can't act as your agent hosting the data, then why can an ISP do so? The presence of absence of a relationship between you and xubuntu is a question, but when the FSF went after Mepis _after_ Mepis announced a relationship with cannonical (involving press releases and everything), the FSF was pretty clearly in the wrong and probably would have lost in court if Mepis had the resources to fight it, which they didn't.

So if the MPAA points at Xubuntu and Xubuntu _objects_, then yes they probably have to host a duplicate copy of the source themselves. But if Xubuntu doesn't object to the MPAA pointing at them, then a judge would probably accept it (probably telling you to come back when you _couldn't_ get it from Xubuntu anymore, if the three years wasn't up yet).

The MPAA being evil doesn't change the nature or scope of the GPL. It's fun to twist the knife, but don't try to bend the knife out of shape doing so.

Rob

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GPLv2 and curing a violation
(Anonymous)
2007-12-05 07:31 pm UTC (link)
Please recall that the GPLv2 components are protected such that a
violation is not cured by merely providing the source after a violation -- permission must be given from the rights-holders before the license to use is
restored.

You might want to consider the balancing act between good faith in reply to
bad faith, or matching them tit for tat.

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eler comic strip about all this
[info]johnleach.co.uk
2007-12-06 01:59 am UTC (link)
http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/gpl-killed-the-mpaa-star

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Re: eler comic strip about all this
[info]reddragdiva
2007-12-07 12:09 am UTC (link)
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/valenti.jpg

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Interesting Action
[info]urban_terrorist
2007-12-07 03:07 am UTC (link)

I suspect that they are probably really confused right now .

Has the MPAA replied yet?

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