RIAA and BPI Use “Pirated” Code on Their Websites - Polidicks

[QUOTE]It turns out that even the most vocal anti-piracy advocates are guilty of infringing the copyrights of others on the Internet. TorrentFreak has discovered that the websites of the music industry groups RIAA and BPI have removed the copyright notices from popular web software, violating the open source licenses these scripts are distributed under. deleteCopyright is a double-edged sword, and those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other. Two weeks ago we reported that the new Healthcare.gov website had stripped the copyright notice from one of the scripts it used. This blatant act of ‘piracy’ prompted us to take a closer look at the websites of several anti-piracy organizations, and today we present our findings. As it turns out the U.S. Government is not the only one violating copyright licenses. The websites of music industry groups RIAA and BPI also use infringing code. On both sites we found open source JQuerys scripts that are released under the MIT license. This license permits any person or organization to use, copy, modify, merge, distribute, or even sell copies of the software. There’s only one condition users have to agree to; that the original copyright notice stays intact.[/QUOTE] Source: [URL="http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-and-bpi-use-pirated-code-on-their-websites-131102/"]TorrentFreak.com[/URL] Some of the pictures of the stolen code: [IMG]http://torrentfreak.com/images/bpi-script.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://torrentfreak.com/images/bpi-min-orig.png[/IMG]

Deja Vu eh?

Hello pot, I'm a kettle, I'm black too! Who didn't see this coming?

Well what do you expect, the ones that are the most vocal are usually hiding in the closet with stuff like this. I bet even some of the proprietary code that they use in the software they use also has crap load of this as well.

[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;42733444]Hello pot, I'm a kettle, I'm black too! Who didn't see this coming?[/QUOTE] The point of that phrase is that kettles are usually silver, not black. It's about seeing your own faults in people who don't have them.

Why go to the trouble of removing these licenses from the code knowing that sooner or later someone is going to realise what they did? It does not make sense.

This isn't purposeful. The code was minimized, likely through an automated script, removing all whitespace and comments making the script smaller when downloaded. It's extremely unlikely this was purposefully done, especially considering the code in question is MIT licensed code from jQuery (one of the most popular open-source javascript libraries on the internet), meaning they had nothing to gain from removing the copyright anyway. EDIT: [url=http://www.bpi.co.uk/Scripts/jQuery.tmpl.min.js]Viewing the current source code, the comment has been re-added.[/url]

ninja'd

Reminds me of that "patch" one video comapny released, (Don't remember now, I think it was EA or Ubisoft) which was basically a cracked .exe which was essentially the RELOADED/SKIDROW crack.

[QUOTE=jmazouri;42733604]This isn't purposeful. The code was minimized, likely through an automated script, removing all whitespace and comments making the script smaller when downloaded. It's extremely unlikely this was purposefully done, especially considering the code in question is MIT licensed code from jQuery (one of the most popular open-source javascript libraries on the internet), meaning they had nothing to gain from removing the copyright anyway. EDIT: [url=http://www.bpi.co.uk/Scripts/jQuery.tmpl.min.js]Viewing the current source code, the comment has been re-added.[/url][/QUOTE] But the second image is also minified. Does the mit license (or other licenses) say anything about minifying? Is it legal to send a minified version to a client as long as the license is there on the webserver?

[QUOTE=CapsAdmin;42733679]But the second image is also minified. Does the mit license (or other licenses) say anything about minifying? Is it legal to send a minified version to a client as long as the license is there on the webserver?[/QUOTE] Not saying it isn't still illegal, just that they weren't out to remove the license of their own accord. Also, the source javascript from jQuery is minified by default, but they likely have some part of their deploy process or something on their webserver that automatically minifies any scripts that go through, even if they're already minified.

[QUOTE=proch;42733654]Reminds me of that "patch" one video comapny released, (Don't remember now, I think it was EA or Ubisoft) which was basically a cracked .exe which was essentially the RELOADED/SKIDROW crack.[/QUOTE] [img]http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8942/maxpayne2.jpg[/img] Rockstar used the Myth crack of Max Payne 2 for the Steam release, not knowing when opened in a hex editor, it has a giant MYTH logo.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure It wasn't Rockstar. Maybe it has happened twice? :v: Or I'm just mistaken. Hilarious either way.

[QUOTE=proch;42733897]Hmm, I'm pretty sure It wasn't Rockstar. Maybe it has happened twice? :v: Or I'm just mistaken. Hilarious either way.[/QUOTE] I'm guessing deadlines can make you do these things.

[QUOTE=proch;42733897]Hmm, I'm pretty sure It wasn't Rockstar. Maybe it has happened twice? :v: Or I'm just mistaken. Hilarious either way.[/QUOTE] Never mind. Found the one you were talking about. [url]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/ubisoft_pirates_fix_from_pirates/[/url] [img]http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/07/18/reloadedrsv2.jpg[/img] Ubisoft used the Reloaded crack for a Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 patch. It baffles me that this has happened [I]more than once.[/I]

[QUOTE=agentgamma;42733872][img]http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8942/maxpayne2.jpg[/img] Rockstar used the Myth crack of Max Payne 2 for the Steam release, not knowing when opened in a hex editor, it has a giant MYTH logo.[/QUOTE] To be fair, I wouldn't be able to tell that that's a logo without knowing what the fuck it was for.

[QUOTE=agentgamma;42733872][img]http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8942/maxpayne2.jpg[/img] Rockstar used the Myth crack of Max Payne 2 for the Steam release, not knowing when opened in a hex editor, it has a giant MYTH logo.[/QUOTE] If that didn't look like laziness on their part I'd almost say they did it in spite of the pirates. It's freely distributed code that the authors aren't in a position to make any kind of official claim to, and nobody's going to complain about them using it on their own software.

[QUOTE=Splarg!;42735687]If that didn't look like laziness on their part I'd almost say they did it in spite of the pirates. It's freely distributed code that the authors aren't in a position to make any kind of official claim to, and nobody's going to complain about them using it on their own software.[/QUOTE] They'd be honored more then anything.

[QUOTE=agentgamma;42733956]Never mind. Found the one you were talking about. [URL]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/ubisoft_pirates_fix_from_pirates/[/URL] [IMG]http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/07/18/reloadedrsv2.jpg[/IMG] Ubisoft used the Reloaded crack for a Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 patch. It baffles me that this has happened [I]more than once.[/I][/QUOTE] Perhaps its a lot easier to just use a crack then it is to go around removing the DRM themselves which is the reason why they did it anyway.

[QUOTE=Paramud;42733557]The point of that phrase is that kettles are usually silver, not black. It's about seeing your own faults in people who don't have them.[/QUOTE]I've only seen that phrase used to describe hypocrisy, not psychological projection.

[QUOTE=jmazouri;42733604]This isn't purposeful. The code was minimized, likely through an automated script, removing all whitespace and comments making the script smaller when downloaded. It's extremely unlikely this was purposefully done, especially considering the code in question is MIT licensed code from jQuery (one of the most popular open-source javascript libraries on the internet), meaning they had nothing to gain from removing the copyright anyway. EDIT: [URL="http://www.bpi.co.uk/Scripts/jQuery.tmpl.min.js"]Viewing the current source code, the comment has been re-added.[/URL][/QUOTE] Government of Canada uses minified JQuery code and they kept the comments. Shouldn't be an issue.

[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;42733444]Hello pot, I'm a kettle, I'm black too! Who didn't see this coming?[/QUOTE] Them, they did Nazi this coming.

[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;42736403]I've only seen that phrase used to describe hypocrisy, not psychological projection.[/QUOTE] That's because no one knows what the fuck they're talking about when they use old phrases.

[QUOTE=agentgamma;42733872][img]http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8942/maxpayne2.jpg[/img] Rockstar used the Myth crack of Max Payne 2 for the Steam release, not knowing when opened in a hex editor, it has a giant MYTH logo.[/QUOTE] LOL, "Fucking goddamnit, it's my first day on the job and this is my 2nd job programming and I'm at fucking Rockstar. And I have to make the .exe for the whole game. Fuck....fine gonna grab a crack from an older game, change some file paths and no one will fucking know."

is "TORRENTFREAK" really the best choice for a source on this? is there another source?

[QUOTE=bull3tmagn3t;42740560]LOL, "Fucking goddamnit, it's my first day on the job and this is my 2nd job programming and I'm at fucking Rockstar. And I have to make the .exe for the whole game. Fuck....fine gonna grab a crack from an older game, change some file paths and no one will fucking know."[/QUOTE] No its more like Rockstar don't like to subject their customers to two forms of DRM so anything they have put on steam has had whatever protection it had in it removed. Either properly by themselves or in some cases (seems to be the older games) they have used cracks. I think the older games just need no-cd cracks anyway. They are doing their customers a favour, people should be grateful. They could have left it in and had it cause problems for people or not re-release the games at all.

[QUOTE=Paramud;42733557]The point of that phrase is that kettles are usually silver, not black. It's about seeing your own faults in people who don't have them.[/QUOTE] Are you saying it's bad to be black? Racist. You make me [B]sick. [/B]

[QUOTE=Paramud;42738515]That's because no one knows what the fuck they're talking about when they use old phrases.[/QUOTE] Wiki says it's just an alternate explanation of the phrase.