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I laugh hysterically at the MPAA as I write this, since they’ve just been caught (and called out) committing a breach of copyright law.

When you are crusading against the American public for “rampant acts of piracy,” suing your own customers for pirating movies, you probably shouldn’t rip off a copy of Ubuntu, mutate it to have your name, logos, and “approved software” on it, and redistribute it without honoring the license (the GPL) it’s released under.

You also shouldn’t sue your bread & butter customers either, but the MPAA isn’t known for doing smart things.

One of the developers of the Ubuntu Linux distribution caught the MPAA in the act and used their own custom-tailored law, the DMCA (that they lobbied hard to get passed), against the bastards.

In case you’re still confused, this means the MPAA, who sues people for stealing their members’ stuff, stole a version of Linux, changed it around, and released it as their own, without acknowledging who it came from and who originally authored it. They scream “thieves!” as they steal on their own. Assholes.

More amusingly, the material is offline now because of a DMCA takedown request by the Ubuntu developers — the MPAA wouldn’t actually respond to legitimate requests for clarification or removal of the stuff. They ignore their own bought laws when they become inconvenient. Whoops.

Way to go, Matthew Garrett! I wish more people could stand up and kick some ass like you just did!