The Butt Ugly Weblog

It's easy to be a pirate

Interesting... Both GVU - the German "antipiracy" -team, run by the media and entertainment industry - and MPAA - the US movie producer's association - have been caught redhanded doing things they want to stop others from doing. GVU is spreading files in p2p networks (in Finnish) to try to catch others doing the same thing, whereas MPAA has been copying and distributing DVDs without the rightsholder's permission.

There is, of course, some more justification for both. But copyright organizations are not the police, and they cannot and must not assume the same rights as the police has. The idea that law enforcement is done by private, unaccountable entities is not a good idea; not in practice nor morally.

For the latter it might appear that MPAAs copying is governed by Fair Use. And I actually agree; that's something that could well be covered by fair use. But considering that MPAA has been shouting for years that there is no fair use, and considering that someone in the entertainment industry wants to eradicate these old-style "rights", this seems very... what's that word? Hypocrite?

(Via numerous places, mostly Boing Boing and Slashdot.)