The MPAA, the lovely people who rate movies and provide those wonderful anti-piracy warnings before your movie and the locak cineplex have been accused of making illegal copies of movies.

MPAA accused of DVD piracy Jim Emerson / January 26, 2006 This is one of those "you couldn't make it up" items. As Roger Ebert reported from Sundance, director Kirby Dick ("Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist") premiered his new documentary "This Film Has Not Been Rated," about the secretive inner workings of the MPAA ratings board. Dick finds that their standards (sex vs. violence, studios vs. independents) are slippery, and that the people on the board itself are not who they've always been said to be: Some are parents, but none have underage children, and parental guidance for those 18 or younger was the whole idea behind the ratings in the first place. But it gets better. Turns out, John Horn of the LA Times reports, that the anti-piracy campaigners at the MPAA actually made an illicit copy of Dick's movie for their own purposes when it was submitted for a rating. Unbelievable. Writes Horn: Michael Donaldson, a lawyer representing Dick, has written the MPAA demanding that it "immediately return all copies" of the film in its possession, and explain who approved the making of the copy and who within the MPAA has looked at the reproduction. [...] "We made a copy of Kirby's movie because it had implications for our employees," said Kori Bernards, the MPAA's vice president for corporate communications. She said Dick spied on the members of the MPAA's Classification and Rating Administration, including going through their garbage and following them as they drove their children to school. [...] The standard the MPAA is using for itself appears to be at odds with what the organization sets out for others: "Manufacturing, selling, distributing or making copies of motion pictures without the consent of the copyright owners is illegal," the MPAA's website says. "Movie pirates are thieves, plain and simple…. ALL forms of piracy are illegal and carry serious legal consequences."