The Motion Picture Association of America ( MPAA ) has been accused of stealing code from a blogger. Known for its stringent clampdowns on movie-sharers, the MPAA has been picked up by a blogger who noticed the organisation was using his code.
British developer Patrick Robin created Forest Blog , an ASP-based blogging platform. It's available for anybody to use, providing they link back to the Forest Blog website. The problem is that the MPAA hasn't linked back. You can use the software sans links, but you need to pay.
The MPAA hasn't, and was running a blog - now down - using the code.
Robin has since received an email from Richard Kroon at the MPAA. Despite clearly being in breach of the terms and conditions, he defended the MPAA's actions by sending a letter making such claims as: "The blog was never advertised to the public in any way...[or] assigned a domain name..."
"The blog was only ever used for testing purposes," it continues. "Should we have decided to make the move to production, then we would have paid the 25 pounds that would have authorized us to run a version of the blog without the logos and links."
For a last word, over to Robin: "Whilst that all sounds fair enough, I doubt I'd get away with pirating a few movies if I didn't advertise them and only used them for testing purposes."
Couldn't have said it better ourselves.
