[Nettime-nl] Dutch "anti-piracy" group pirates graphics for its website

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

Fwd from: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com>
To: <politech@politechbot.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 4:03 PM

Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 18:36:30 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Paul Wouters <paul@xtdnet.nl>
To: libbenga@flashmail.com
Subject: Re: Dutch anti-piracy group targets file swappers

Hi Jan,

A friend of me pointed out the following article on The Register:

> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32290.html
>
> Dutch anti-piracy organisation Protection Rights Entertainment Industry
> Netherlands (BREIN) is going after individual music files swappers and
> will bill or prosecute people who offer large amount of files through
> services as KaZaA, Gnutella and Grokster.

A while ago I checked their website and found an animated flag on their site
for going to the English version. Though it is no longer linked, you can
still
get it from their website at:

http://www.anti-piracy.nl/images/uk_fl_md_wht.gif

The old version, including the old flag, can be retrieved from the WayBack
machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020601045842/http://www.anti-piracy.nl/

I checked that image, and found that indeed it is an image taken from the
company "Animation Factory", which has the icon online at:

http://www.animationfactory.com/free/flags_nations/nations_g_to_n_variant_pa
ge_great_britain_fl.html

Or specificlly:
http://aunimages.animfactory.com/animations/flags/nations_g_to_n/great_brita
in_fl_md_wht.gif

I did a fingerprint on both images, using md5 checksum calculation, and the
files yielded the exact same fingerprint of
a07fe67b8a49144643ecc6c55d84b634.
In other words, these images as 100% the same.

Animation factory has the following licence, listed at:
http://www.animationfactory.com/sales/use.htm

> Terms of Use for our FREE
> images:
> Visitors to Animation Factory may use our collection of free images
> only for their personal projects, such as personal websites and emails.
> In no way may our free content be used in commercial and professional
> projects, web sites, presentations, or emails without first purchasing
> a license from Animation Factory.
>
> By using these images, you agree to place full credit and a link to
> Animation Factory when an image or design of ours is publicly displayed,
> such as on a web site. Click here for information on credits and linking
> to us.

Since there is no link to animation factory, nor was their ever a link to
them, we can conclude they were not using the free licence.

There is also a commercial licence:

> Purchasers of Animation Factory products:
> (Premium Memberships, or any Animation Factory CD-ROM)
> Paid customers of Animation Factory may use, modify, or publish Animation
> Factory images as they wish in any personal, commercial or professional
> project for decoration or illustration purposes, with the exception of the
> following:

[ reselling to your own customers not allowed ]

I did contact a few local jounalists at the time, whom as far as I
know didn't follow up on the story. But since they *did* change their
flag, I strongly believe that Stichting Brein, or their webdesigner,
did pirate the original flag from Animation Factory, and when rumours
started circulating, they decided to quickly hdie the facts by grabbing
another icon flag. Ofcourse I could be wrong, and they could have actually
purchased the CD.

I never did the social engineering to find out whether they paid for
their icon. I did not speak to Brein or Icon Factory. But I do get the
impression that indeed our anti-piracy lobby pirated an icon from the
net for their own website.

Paul



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