The MPAA has been trying to take out Hotfile for about a year now, with limited success, largely because Hotfile is not run by an insane man who calls himself Kim Dotcom (the founder of Megaupload the world’s best Modern Warware 3) but rather a CEO who is actually trying to work with these people to address their concerns, only to get slapped in the face constantly.
Hotfile, though, has slapped back in the latest round of their trial. Some background: it’s already been ruled that Hotfile wasn’t involved in direct copyright infringement, so now the MPAA has to demonstrate it’s “inducing copyright infringement,” i.e. they’re letting users upload whatever they want and just idly twiddling their thumbs. The problem, of course, is that they have to demonstrate that’s what users were actually doing.
Which they supposedly did in open court, until Hotfile brought in Professor James Boyle of Duke University, founding member of Creative Commons and generally about the last guy the MPAA wants to see in court.
What Boyle found in the Hollywood study:
- Licenses were ignored, so if somebody was downloading a movie in the public domain, or with a Creative Commons rule applied, it was assumed to be infringing copyright.
- Legitimate uses for games, such as game mods, were treated as pirated games or methods to crack demos.
- The top two downloads from Hotfile were open-source software files designed to jailbreak the iPhone.
- Over half the content uploaded to Hotfile has never been downloaded: the Hollywood study failed to examine uploads. Boyle points out this means the files are being backed up, not distributed.
Gee, the MPAA getting its facts wrong? We’re shocked. SHOCKED WE SAY!
(Image via KNK on Flickr)