The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is the most notorious for fighting movie piracy and even their website makes it clear that making copies of motion pictures without the copyright owner's consent is illegal and carries serious legal consequences. Well, with all its efforts in trying to shut down file sharing hubs that help distribute movies, lock down equipment and storage media with anti-piracy measures and even trying to re-enforce the infamous broadcast flag, the last thing anyone would expect is for the MPAA to be accused of piracy!
Well, apparently this is the case as the MPAA is being accused of unlawfully making a bootleg copy of a documentary without the filmmaker's permission. The director Kirby Dick sent in his movie "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" for the MPAA to rate it and clearly asked in his e-mail for assurance that no copies of the whole or any part of his movie will be made. However, the MPAA had made a copy for Dan Glickman, the MPAA's new president to view. As a result, Dick mentioned that he is very upset and troubled about the discovery of this practice.
On the other hand, the MPAA claims that it did not break copyright law and claims that Dick's dispute is deliberately aiming to help 'advertise' his movie with the all the publicity this 'stunt' can lead to. They also say that they are entitled to make a copy without authorisation as they are not selling its copies for commercial gain. So far, a lawyer representing Dick has written to the MPAA demanding it to immediately return all copies of the film as well as explain who approved the making of the copy and all those who watched the copy. So far while the layer has no plans yet to sue the MPAA for copyright infringement, this may be possible later. Thanks to miffy, RTV71 and kamikazee who all used our news submit to let us know about this news:
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Dick said he was "very upset and troubled" to discover during a recent conversation with an MPAA lawyer that the MPAA had copied the film from a digital version he submitted Nov. 29 for a rating. ("This Film Is Not Yet Rated" was rated NC-17 for "some graphic sexual content," a rating upheld after Dick appealed.) The MPAA's copy of Dick's film was viewed by Dan Glickman, the MPAA's new president, the MPAA said. The filmmaker said that when he asked MPAA lawyer Greg Goeckner what right his organization had to make the copy, Goeckner told him that Dick and his crew had potentially invaded the privacy of the MPAA's movie raters. The full article can be read here. |
As the MPAA helped shut down many organisations that
assisted with DVD copying such as software manufacturers of both copying and file sharing software as well as certain hardware makers that got around DVD's copy protection restrictions, it is about time they got the feel of what it is like to be accused of piracy. It is also interesting to see how they mention that they were not selling its copies. Well, apparently a lot of those they sued never sold or profited in any way from copying copyrighted movies.
Source: Los Angeles Times
