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Full text of the JUSTICE Act at http://www.eff.org/files/HEN09874.pdf or http://www.juliansanchez.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/JUSTICEAct.pdf

EFF's) blog post on the bill http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/eff-supports-justice

Feingold's press release http://feingold.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=317927

My Dailykos diary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/17/19226/5990

Facebook "Pass the JUSTICE ACT" group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=134538932549

Full text of the JUSTICE Act at http://www.eff.org/files/HEN09874.pdf or http://www.juliansanchez.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/JUSTICEAct.pdf

EFF's) blog post on the bill http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/eff-supports-justice

Feingold's press release http://feingold.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=317927

My Dailykos diary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/17/19226/5990

Facebook "Pass the JUSTICE ACT" group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=134538932549

The proposed settlement, announced late on Friday, calls not only for Facebook to discontinue Beacon, but also back the creation of an independent foundation devoted to promoting online privacy, safety and security.

That's great, if only something like that existed already, they could avoid the cost of starting a whole new organization.

http://www.eff.org/

Hey when some twits ringtone goes off are you going to find a way to charge for that "performance" too?!

Er... Yes.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/06/ascap-wants-be-paid-

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/23663

Right-to-Repair Law To Get DRM Out of Your Car

Right to repair proposal

Congressmen want automakers to cough up diagnostic codes

The EFF's Fred von Lohman, however, pointed out that there's a certain irony in this widespread public support and Congressional interest. What the bill suggests is that the sort of market created by the DMCA, in which companies are given the right to encrypt and protect information of their choosing, shouldn't apply when it comes to autos. To be clear, there are implementation differences. The DMCA could still apply in that third-party tools that provide access to encrypted data in a car would still run afoul of the law. But the need for these tools would be severely reduced by the fact that the manufacturers would be required to provide an equivalent. That would also, presumably, eliminate most of the incentive for manufacturers to take action against the providers of third-party tools.

From Car Makers Put FPGAs In The Driving Seat

ProASIC3 devices are also designed with an on-chip 1024-bit non-volatile flash ROM (FROM) and a built-in 128-bit AES decryption core, which facilitates independent, secure, in-system programming (ISP) of both the FPGA core array fabric and the FROM itself. This allows designers to implement a number of secure features. For instance, an AES master key can be preloaded into the device in a secure programming environment. Users can then ship 'blank' parts to an insecure programming or manufacturing centre for final personalisation with an AES encrypted bit stream.

Actel Drives FPGAs 'Under the Hood' Into Critical Automotive Powertrain and Safety Systems

    Actel also announced today that Delphi Corp., a leading global supplier
of mobile electronics and transportation systems, will be using the Actel
ProASIC3 FPGA in a production engine control module being designed into a
heavy-duty diesel engine. Additionally, Magna Electronics has selected the
Actel ProASIC3 FPGA for its automotive vision systems (see release "Magna
Electronics Chooses Actel's ProASIC3 FPGAs to Enable Automotive Vision
Systems" also announced today).

Magna Electronics expansion in Rochester Hills to focus on developing electric car program for Ford

Magna Electronics discussed plans for what it calls its intelligent power systems group during a news conference at the Rochester Hills City Hall. The expanded unit, which is expected to add 90 employees over five years, will develop hybrid and electric drivetrain systems and electronics that control motors.
The parent company, which is working with Ford Motor Co. to develop a battery-electric small car by 2011, ...

Magna Powertrain and Hyundai announce joint venture

>> "'Anyone who would give-up ESSENTIAL liberty for *temporary* security, deserve neither.' - Benjamin Franklin. Also while we may be able to trust a President Bush or President Obama with the ability to monitor our internet transactions..."

*WE* ???!?!! Speak for yourself. Now, read what you posted. Notice anything disturbing about it? You quote Ben Franklin, and in the _next_ sentence you make the assertion that it's OK to give the current and previous presidents power to warrantlessly intrude in citizens' affairs. Thus, you deserve neither liberty nor security.

Do you seriously think that, somehow, presidents are immune to the temptation to abuse this raw, unchecked power? The abuse was manifold under the previous president, and these trangressions were well documented in the press (YOU can easily find the press accounts strewn across the interwebs). Unfortunately, the Obama administration continues some aspects of the warrantless wiretapping program.

>>"IMHO people who trust government are either fools, or they don't know history"

Yes, and since *YOU* TRUST the current and previous administrations to warrantlessly wiretap, you've shown that you fall into a 3rd category: those who are fools AND don't know history. I suggest you start here http://w2.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/fisa_faq.html or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act and give consideration to how FISA and subsequent laws apply to domestic spying (i.e., protection of liberties). One thing you are aware of is that nixon abused his power; it seems you're not aware that the Church Commission was created direct response to nixon's abuse of power, and from the Church Commission came FISA -- and from FISA we get NO WIRETAPS WITHOUT A WARRANT. Then be sure to take a portion of your beer money and donate it to the EFF.

For over 10 years I've observed the running joke "oh, this is /. -- no one ever RTFA", but in this case it ain't funny. If you had even bothered to skim the article --or even the final paragraph-- perhaps you'd have paused to THINK before posting such crap. Hell, even the authors' names in the friggin summary should be telling you something (if not, turn in your geek card).

To those who modded this crap "5, Insightful", I ask "WTF?!"

I'll reply by posting the same thing another commenter did. The EFF says it is not DRM. It is a controller chip with no encryption.

Nice try at trolling. This was debunked shortly after the March 2009 story you're pimping.

Epic Fail!

Google doesn't want to have to deal with subpoenas for information any more than libraries do. That's why they anonymize the data after nine months.

Google makes no claims about anonymizing or deleting all of the data they cull and attach to any Google (or Youtube, Chrome, etc.) account you have, and once they have it attached to your identity, not just an IP that could lead to a subpoena that leads to your identity, why should they even care about keeping search IP logs?

Google doesn't want to have to deal with subpoenas for information any more than libraries do. That's why they anonymize the data after nine months.

Like Obama?

Critical infrastructure [the internet] should be nationalized

No thanks. The NSA had to threaten Telcos/ISPs with a lack of government projects to get all their subscribers' net traffic.
How much easier would it have been if they owned the pipes themselves?

No one wants the goobermint in their internets

It's worked OK so far....
Do you really want the next Dick Cheney/Karl Rove "in charge" of the internet?

This is the part that scares me most. The idea that someday I may not be able to backup my CDs or DVDs, due to Windows blocking that action, troubles me. The U.S. Supreme Court has declared every user has the right to make a backup, and they even have a right to record live programs (time-delayed viewing). Who is Microsoft (or RIAA/MPAA) to overrule the supreme court and say "nope; not allowed".

The Court system, not Microsoft, has also upheld that the DMCA prevents a person/company from manufacturing, selling, or importing software that can rip protected DVDs (and in theory, protected CDs). See: Universal City Studios v. Real Networks.

The only real reason this isn't a big issues with CDs is the action Philips has taken against companies that attempt to copy protect CDs.

It needs to be redesigned specifically so that entry points were available everywhere, to everyone, without any registration.

What do you mean by "it" here, the Internet?

What you are asking for (once you tune out the hyperbole of "everyone/everywhere") is not an architectural problem, but a political one.

Any one organization, co-op or consortium could provide the service you ask for. One consortium that does in fact is the EFF's TOR. While onion routing is complex under the hood and that complexity leads to a dialup-like user experience, the alternative would be obfuscation provided by the Network Service Provider itself. The Pirate Bay has shown us what that is like however. If you "hide" all of your clients from the rest of the world, then you will be held responsible for their actions when they hack, threaten, or disseminate spam and trojans.

Still, if you are so gung ho that such services should be offered then start your own ISP and let us know how it goes. Offer service for less than a kazillion in my area, mebe I'll even sign up. *shrug*

...if they fraudulently claimed a DMCA takedown notice when there wasn't one.

Committing fraud via the DMCA, if that's what Flicker has done, is major bad mojo. Diebold Election Systems paid over $125,000 for a wrongful DMCA takedown notice:

http://www.eff.org/cases/online-policy-group-v-diebold

>>>Go read the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. Wow.

Our Congressional representative don't read bills. Why should I? (ponder). Well here's an executive summary: "There's a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended.

"Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response.

"One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks.

"Furthermore, the bill contains a particularly dangerous provision that could cripple privacy and security in one fell swoop:"

The Secretary of Commerce-- shall have access to all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access...

"In other words, the bill would give the Commerce Department absolute, non-emergency access to "all relevant data" without any privacy safeguards like standards or judicial review." CONTINUED HERE - http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/cybersecurity-act

For those who are interested, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has put together a Surveillance Defense Project manual which discusses the basics of government search and seizure powers in the United States (among other things). There are other sources available on the same and related topics (the searches are left as an exercise to the reader), but basically the only way to completely preserve one's rights when dealing with the authorities is to refuse any cooperation, other than name and id, from the very start and continue that refusal until one's attorney is present and one is acting under advice from that attorney. Of course, our individual rights are being constantly diminished in this country so your mileage may vary, but at least in theory if you want to protect your 5th amendment right against self incrimination you must never cooperate, not even partially, until you are acting under the advice of your attorney, even if you have not yet been arrested or detained (i.e. this applies to any interactions with the authorities under any circumstances).

For those who are interested, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has put together a Surveillance Defense Project manual which discusses the basics of government search and seizure powers in the United States (among other things). There are other sources available on the same and related topics (the searches are left as an exercise to the reader), but basically the only way to completely preserve one's rights when dealing with the authorities is to refuse any cooperation, other than name and id, from the very start and continue that refusal until one's attorney is present and one is acting under advice from that attorney. Of course, our individual rights are being constantly diminished in this country so your mileage may vary, but at least in theory if you want to protect your 5th amendment right against self incrimination you must never cooperate, not even partially, until you are acting under the advice of your attorney, even if you have not yet been arrested or detained (i.e. this applies to any interactions with the authorities under any circumstances).

http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity

Read that so you realize why you're still wrong.

"Imagine a graffiti artist" breaking the law and thus forfeiting his right to anonymity?

WTF does that have to do with anything?

Oh right, it's yet ANOTHER stupid fucking straw man because you don't have the intellectual ability to debate intelligently.

You're WRONG. You keep posting the same stupid shit, and you're STILL WRONG.

All the stupid logical fallacies in the world won't change that.

Citation?

Apple has claimed that Psystar's selling of OS X on non-Apple hardware is illegal. I don't recall them claiming jailbreaking is illegal.

Here you go.

Jailbreaking an iPhone constitutes copyright infringement and a DMCA violation, says Apple in comments filed with the Copyright Office as part of the 2009 DMCA triennial rulemaking. This marks the first formal public statement by Apple about its legal stance on iPhone jailbreaking.
[...]
Apple's copyright infringement claim starts with the observation that jailbroken iPhones depend on modified versions of Apple's bootloader and operating system software.
[...]
As for the DMCA violation, Apple casts its lot with the likes of laser printer makers and garage door opener companies who argue that the DMCA entitles them to block interoperability with anything that hasn't been approved in advance.

Apple's arguments here are probably bullshit, as the article notes. But I wouldn't fault anyone for skipping the iPhone because of this, when there are plenty of other phones that are designed to run arbitrary code and whose manufacturers won't call you a criminal for doing so.

> This has absolutely no bearing on whether or not Microsoft will be allowed to continue shipping Word.

The permanent injunction itself explicitly allows Microsoft to continue shipping Word. All they have to do is remove the custom XML feature. It looks like they changed my link to the Slashdot story about it, and I don't blame them, but the original linked to the Groklaw story on the permanent injunction and you can read the terms of it here.

The judge's order spells out how they're allowed to deal with documents containing custom XML in future Word versions. They're *only* forbidden to ship current, infringing versions. They do NOT have to license the patent unless they believe that they need to keep the feature. Even if it was completely impossible to remove for some reason, the absolute worst they could possibly have to do is to revert their source control to the version of Word before they added the feature, then rebuild from there.

The injunction is nowhere near as bad as it appears to be in the press. I thought my original summary made clear exactly what the terms of the injunction were, but they appear to have trimmed that part, too. I remember quoting a fair bit of the judge's order which would have made things a lot clearer.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

While I agree with you in principle, I have to believe that Microsoft lawyers could find some way to make a case out of it if they wanted to. And they just might do that if they were ever losing the format wars. That said, they greatly prefer to FUD about competitors infringing on patents, rather than doing anything, but I have to believe that would change if they ever felt they were losing.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

RealMedia should apply for a DMCA Excemption? (Although other attempts at exceptions for this purpose have failed)

"And before any of you jump in to point out that the DMCA is just a U.S. thing, you had better keep in mind that the DMCA is just the U.S. implementation of the WIPO COpyright Treaty [wikipedia.org], so these types of court cases are probably in the pipeline for your country soon too!"

Your prediction is 100% correct.

At the last attempt at copyright reform in Canada (Bill C-60 last year), the government proposed specifically giving consumers the right to make backups of DVDs or transfer video or audio to other media devices (format conversion), while simultaneously bringing in WIPO-compliant DMCA-like provisions that would have made circumvention of CSS copy protection on those DVDs illegal, and made development or sale of any tools to do so illegal. When reporters and others brought up the pointlessness of bringing in "new rights" that were impossible to legally exercise, the minister of the day had a tough time offering a rational explanation.

Fortunately, the combination of that level of stupidity, the resulting public outrage, and the minority government situation led to the bill dying a quiet death. And, now that the minister in question has been replaced, there are ongoing public consultations to help prepare a new bill (last time there no real consultation). It seems to have finally sunk in that they made fools of themselves and that the the public isn't going to let the government get away with only listening to the media lobby. Maybe they'll propose something sane this time.

Canada is lucky that the U.S. took the lead on this stuff. I really appreciate the crap that people in the U.S. have to go through. It means Canada and other countries benefit from being able to cite many U.S. examples of the problems the DMCA created (my favorite are the lawsuits over 3rd-party printer cartridges and garage door openers). These laws have terrible implications for both consumer rights and for maintaining competition in industry. What the U.S. needs to do is amend the law so that you don't have the stupidity of having fair use rights, but not being able to (legally) exercise them the moment someone applies some copy protection. The DMCA puts *way* too much power in the hands of copyright holders. The court case in the article makes that clear -- perhaps the ruling is legally correct, but if so, it shows that the law needs to change.

I have a hunch Chrome OS is more about taking on Apples tablet, which introduce a more or less full fledged OSX install which, and mark my words here, will be locked down just like the iPhone and it's App store. Spiffy interface and a killer App store will mask the gilded cage your in and the total utter control Apple will have over your computing experience. Popsci has a excellent write up on how the Apple Tablet could ruin computing. http://www.popsci.com/gear-amp-gadgets/article/2009-08/how-apple-tablet-could-ruin-computing

Could they go further, possibly introduce an App Store for their desktop OSX platform, oh but to use it you have to accept EULA that gives them a kill switch for your applications?

Apple is close to the unique position of being arbitrarily make something illegal on their newest computing platform. That is if, of course, they suceeed in making Jailbreaking outright illegal. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal Yes it's ok to be disturbed.

This no doubt worries Google. Google really does not like any barrier to getting their applications and projects to the market (have you noticed too?). Apple could shut them out of a platform on a whim. They don't like that risk.
Oh wait, it has happend, with Google Voice.

As established by intellegent /.ters here Chrome will not be killing Windows, barely chewing away some market share around the fringes.

In the PC world Apple has a small market share, but they own 70% of the smartphone market. Google's response to this was Android and Android Market which has done wonders to free up the smartphone market, Microsoft certainly wasn't up to the task this time around.

Apple Tablet would no doubt sell like hotcakes and you can bet Apple netbooks will follow soon after. Chrome is an attempt to get their first, stop a repeat of the iPhone market domination.

I'm waiting to see if I'm wrong.

I've suspected Google really has something up their sleeve with Chrome OS. You get the impression they've only just started on this, but it's also obvious it has been in development in secret for a long time, the announcement timed only to take a little thunder of Microsoft. I would go so far as to say the two were developed in paralle, perhaps even had working code perhaps a year before Chrome went BETA.

Can but ain't. They're all queuing up to opt-in;

Some ISPs, including one of the market leaders Orcon, have clearly stated they will opt out and instead offer voluntary filtering software to their subscribers.

Hopefully we IPREDator before we get the filters

Sorry, but IPREDator in recent discussion, has been flagged as not quite the knight in shining armour. Best we fall back on the likes of Tor or I2P.

Reading that, it makes a lot more sense that RMS was arguing

> The difference between source code and object code and the practice of using EULAs would give proprietary software an effective exception from the general rule of 5-year copyright -- one that free software does not share.

That makes FAR more difference than the line from the summary, which gets things all wrong:

> a point that many anti-copyright proponents don't realize â" the GPL itself is a copyright license that relies on copyright law to protect access to source code

No, we really do realize that. We just want to find other ways to deal with the problem. See also this (and note who wrote it). That said, he is correctly described as a purist. In other words, you either agree with him, or he'll say you're wrong. There's no convincing him of anything that I've seen.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

In November 2008, Apple sent a series of legal threats to the operator of BluWiki, alleging that these hobbyist discussions about interoperability ...

Right because we wouldn't want hobbyists out there devoting their free time to making a hardware device more supported, interoperable, functional, etc. That would be horrible. It's funny how my operating system of choice was created from just that.

You know, I have to ask: what's Apple's motive here? Because if I made a hardware product and someone developed a new novel way to utilize it, my sales would increase. Sure people might not be using my software that goes with the hardware but who cares? Sales of these devices can go nowhere but up. All I can think of relating this to is game consoles. Which--up until the PS3 & Yellow Dog Linux--they have been very wary of people using for alternative purposes for the sole reason that pricing schemes have long involved a loss on the console with massive profits raked in on licensing titles to the console. So you don't want your XBox360 turned into a Linux server never to play a game again or Microsoft just took a loss (not sure if they still take losses on that console, just an example).

So what's up, is Apple selling iPods at a loss with the expected return being iTunes Music Service sales? Or even the monetary value they assign to having iTunes and Quicktime on the consumer's computer?

If a hobbyist or start up company or anyone figures out a way to utilize iPod hardware in new ways, don't consumers have a right to purchase/use this? I don't recall signing a contract when I bought my iPod shuffle. And, as a consumer, I will state that the more functionality the better. This is why I hate that Apple bullies people out of using their iPods with different software and stops hardware makers from integrating with iTunes directly. It's borderline monopolistic in the same way IE was bundled with Windows.

... discussions about circumventing the company's music-playback software for iPods and iPhones ...

After digging through the EFF documents, I'm not sure who to believe here. The story, the EFF and the wiki operator claim it was a discussion about doing this and it was not actually implemented. But from Apple's latest letter:

As you know, Apple's objection about the "iTunesDB Pages" (as referenced in your complaint in this matter), sent to OdioWorks over seven months ago, centered on the publication of certain Apple code on those Pages. Since that time, Apple has stopped utilizing the code in question, rendering the code obsolete for the purposes at issue in this action. Publishing that code is no longer of any harm or benefit to anyone.

So I am to believe that there was a potential exploit in the Apple code that the wiki pages talked about exploiting and Apple has since removed/patched that code to be non-exploitable? I don't think Apple backed down, I think they just stopped discussion until they could render the exploit a non-issue.

You have the word wrong. It was "recite" not "cite." And I was quoting one of the legal briefs (which was, I believe, arguing that there's no "inventive step" if I remember the context correctly). Basically, it means that they're patenting a discovery--something they observed in the natural world and there's no invention to speak of. It's sort of like patenting "things fall when I drop them" and trying to tell people not to drop things without paying me.

You might think I'm making a straw man from this, but that's exactly the sort of thing they're patenting. They're patenting a well-known process of figuring out how much of a drug has been absorbed by a patient's body by looking at the levels of metabolites of that drug (metabolites are what's left over when your body has used up a drug). The main difference is that they apply it to a specific drug.

Note also that the Mayo Clinic has their own version of the test, which uses a different process (but which looks at the same metabolites). They're still getting sued for infringement precisely because they look for those metabolites.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

> If you invent a test for a certain metabolite and I make another test for the same thing that works in another way, how have I infringed?

Well, Prometheus Labs seems to think that the Mayo Clinic has infringed, even though the Mayo clinic came up with their own test for the same drug metabolites.

That's why I wrote in the summary that they're trying to patent the knowledge itself, even though the actual arguments in court are over the fine points of patent law. They're arguing over whether or not you can have a patent on a procedure when there's no "post solution activity." I.E. the patent covers the activity of diagnosing how much of the drug the patient needs.

Now, I'm sure there are decent patent lawyers who will opine that this state of affairs is absurd and that this shouldn't be patentable in the first place, but at least one court has agreed with Prometheus Labs, which is what makes this more newsworthy than just another absurd patent application that hasn't even been granted.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

> Then another clever person takes your idea and uses it to make a better/faster/cheaper test, that is how patents spur the progress of science and the useful arts.

They Mayo clinic already has their own version of this test, which they invented. They're being sued anyhow. It's in the article proper, but I couldn't really include everything in the summary given how much information there is in there. It was long enough as is.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

From EFF.org

The undisputed documents show that AT&T installed a fiberoptic splitter at its facility at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco that makes copies of all emails, web browsing, and other Internet traffic to and from AT&T customers, and provides those copies to the NSA. This copying includes both domestic and international Internet activities of AT&T customers. As one expert observed, "this isn't a wiretap, it's a country-tap."

Of course, we may never know all the details thanks to Bush, Obama and all the other assholes that voted for FISA2008:

• Prohibits the individual states from investigating, sanctioning of, or requiring disclosure by complicit telecoms or other persons.
• Protects telecommunications companies from lawsuits for "'past or future cooperation' with federal law enforcement authorities and will assist the intelligence community in determining the plans of terrorists."

That was a lie promulgated by the Bush administration. The device copied _all_ communication that traveled through this facility, domestic and foreign. There is good evidence also that this wasn't the only place were AT&T, or other carriers, were imposing dragnet surveillance.

That was a lie promulgated by the Bush administration. The device copied _all_ communication that traveled through this facility, domestic and foreign. There is good evidence also that this wasn't the only place were AT&T, or other carriers, were imposing dragnet surveillance.

Can anybody clarify for me?

It is all very clear, just Amend Title 10, California Code of Regulations, Chapter 5, Subchapter 4.7, Section 2632.5 to read as follows.

(Will someone mod this funny?)

So MM not just varies, it is quite the opposite of yours. Apple's business tactics show that one should avoid their products, even if they're technically better. Sleeping with the enemy is dangerous.

Dear misinformed,

Due to the advent of technological advancement and the internet, formerly scarce works have become common and easily downloaded due to the non scarce nature of information, this has got westerners and excessively pro corporate, pro business peoples panties in a twist from which they have never recovered. Capitalist philosophy only makes sense when an item a person wants to consume is scarce, otherwise the "evil" socialist economics can work (and piracy is a lesson in that it works FYI). Therefore copyright has become a highly charged issue because nature of information and political economic ideology of western capitalism are at odds.

According to neoclassical economics because of the non scarce nature of digital works, their worth should be driven down towards zero and many businesses should be going bankrupt, note that this has not happened and the Movie industry has recently broken box office records. Please refer to Dark Knight released in 2008 in the following list below of top grossing box office movies of all time.

http://www.movieweb.com/movies/boxoffice/alltime.php

The nature of copyright and software licensing has always been questionable from the outset, because the public was not informed enough to mount resistance to the idea of software licensing and EULA's. So many industries got their way by way of public ignorance. Industries later gathered together lobbying more as the internet rose to power and their response to non scarcity of information was in the form of the DMCA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

Which added to the already dubious practice of licensing software (individuals never own their software) which most nerds have always thought dubious at best (See: Linux)

The advent of the DMCA and licensing prevents legitimate owners of software from outright owning and modifying what they bought due to crazy EULA's and liscensing that weaseled it's way into "normalcy" due to public technological ignorance, which attempted to limit software owners rights to ownership and rights to develop their own software to work with the software they already own. This has pissed off the informed who understand these issues. See: Bnetd

http://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd

Corporations and the bad kinds of capitalists alike have been trying to wrest individual ownership from the people by infringing on their individual rights to own the products they buy. Software companies have always been one of the worst industries due to the idea of licensing software to individuals, rather then individuals being able to own software outright and do whatever they wish with it.

Enterprising individuals like John carmack who released open source doom, etc, and Volition Inc of Freespace 2 fame (see: http://scp.indiegames.us/ ) have been breaths of fresh air for the informed among us as they understand the deeper issues of software patents, copyright and software ownership by and large.

John carmack does not believe in software patents, and is tired of the stupid shit that such patents and overzealous and excessive copyright abuses, to see his frustrations and problems with such see here:

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2004/07/4048.ars

The slashdot community has been getting pissed at the lack of reasoning power in hypercapitalist america, it seems in general that america has an excessive amount of brain dead people and anti-intellectualism, and the rise of super corporate indoctrinated nerd drones, this anti intellectualism and lack of intellectual depth increasingly found in certain americans or others so indoctrinated against intellectual understanding is epitomized in the following link

You can't be serious about that? Clearly it does apply.

Fair use serves a crucial role in limiting the reach of what would otherwise be an intolerably expansive grant of rights to copyright owners. Were it not for the fair use doctrine, each of the following activities would be infringing:

        * whistling a tune while walking down the street (public performance)
        * cutting out a New Yorker cartoon and posting it on your office door (public display)
        * photocopying a newspaper article for your files (reproduction)
        * quoting a line from The Simpsons in an email to a coworker (reproduction)
        * reverse engineering of computer code (reproduction)
        * "time-shifting" a radio or television program (reproduction)
        * playing an excerpt of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" in a copyright law course (public performance)
        * quoting from a novel in a review (reproduction)

If you ever took an art class, you know that they use such things as pictures and then ask you to create your own art from it. If this case is found guilty of copyright impingement, then art classes will be outlawed or drastically changed so that one cannot create art from a photograph.

It is not a photocopy, it is art, it is not an exact copy, it is different in a certain way as an art form goes.

If this case is valid, then artists everywhere will lose their rights and freedoms to create art just like it.

If their message is clear, concise and not disagreeable, why can't they convince us with a logical argument?

Silly rabbit, their trix aren't for you. Their plan is to help grease the path for the fuckers in Congress trying to get this POS Cybersecurity Act of 2009bill passed. Once a good portion of the Internet structure becomes nationalized, any full disclosure of vulnerabilities could be considered as posing a national security threat and thus would have to be kept secret. What this means, of course, is that any software vendor providing a product that constitutes a major portion of the federal government information infrastructure as well an the internet commerce and banking, will be protected from full disclosure of vulnerabilities in their product by the federal government based on national security policy.

As this relates to "anti-sec", they want to build the impression that will be amplified by a scaremongering media that the Internet is being besieged by warring factions of evil hackers. There will even be some useful idiots pointing to the ramblings of these assholes as proof that even the sec community is divided on issue of FD. Which it is, but mostly debate revolves around the timing of disclosure and not whether to disclose at all. This is a sham war designed to put pressure on Congress members to pass a really, really, bad bill.

I think the timing of this incident, along with recent botnet attacks and other media grabbing "cyber" events within the few months just before this bill was introduced, couldn't be more perfect to create a campaign to justify the takeover of the Internet infrastructure by the federal government. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/cybersecurity-act

Since I wrote the summary, the EFF has a new page up with some analysis and commentary.

the IG report does confirm that the warrantless surveillance involved "unprecedented collection activities," beyond the surveillance program of Al-Qaeda touted by President Bush. The report described the scope of the additional spying only as "Other Intelligence Activities." Collectively, the so-called terrorist surveillance program and the Other Intelligence Activities were referred to as the "President's Surveillance Program." The report does not use the program's code name, Stellar Wind, which remains classified. Given the scope of the Nixon Administration's illegal spying (which led to FISA in the first place), it is sobering to consider that the Other Intelligence Activities were unprecedented.
[...]

The report damns the effectiveness of the program with faint praise. [...]

The IG report provided a dramatic summary of the dispute in March 2004, when dozens of Bush Administration officials nearly resigned in protest over the Other Intelligence Activities. The Department of Justice could find no legal support for these activities, and found that the factual basis for prior legal opinions was substantially incorrect. [emphasis mine]

that last bit is referring to some of John Yoo's embarrassingly shoddy 'legal' work, which (now 9th Circuit Judge-for-life) Jay Bybee signed off on.

Yeah, the government could never data mine our e-mail or divert major percentages of our data transactions through the NSA's equipment, and then they could never get the congress to issue blanket immunity to the telcom companies who colluded with the illegal actions ... oh wait, they already did! Some people are sheep with blinders on, I swear. Talk about crazy!

http://www.eff.org/cases/att

AT&T ... they aren't keeping a database of my URL lookups7.

Until the NSA asks them to. Let's not pretend that AT&T isn't evil.

There's a difference between "people" and law enforcement however. Case law has been shown to allow for general vicinity locating but anything more accurate requires a warrant:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/celltracking/lenihanorder.pdf

However this can vary by jurisdiction so YMMV.

Now if someone wanted to track you on their own and can do so, that's their prerogative.

I think the reason the *.A.As get so much coverage is because thanks to their treasonous bribery...err I mean lobbying, any pretense of having functional copyrights and patents have long been replaced by illegal laws written in backrooms with bribes trading hands to ensure that the top 4% get even more truckloads o' cash.

I mean for Pete's sake, Steamboat Willie is STILL under copyright! Is it encouraging the "arts and sciences" to be cutting checks for something made when planes were made out of cloth and antibiotics were just a dream? Hell no! The laws have gotten so corrupt they are a joke! There is pretty nobody out there now that "isn't a criminal" thanks to asshats like the RIAA saying ripping you CD to your iPod should be criminal since you didn't cut them a check first, and you watch, they'll pull some more treasonous bribery...err I mean lobbying and that will become the law of the land. I mean is there anybody that thinks 1.9+ million verdicts are fair? Meanwhile these same thieves use a little scam called Hollywood Accounting to fuck the actual creators of the works out of the pittance that they get compared to the blood sucking leech multinational corps.

So if you want to know why the RIAA stories keep getting played, it is because they are proof that our courts are broken and our laws are corrupt. After all, in a sane and just society nobody would even be able to keep a straight face while arguing that 150 year+ copyrights are fair or benefit the artist. Yeah, and I'm sure that those checks to Disney are keeping Zombie Walt in fresh paints so he can work on "The Little Mermaid 27" which of course is an excellent example in hypocrisy, as Disney and their pals kill the Public Domain while robbing it of ideas as fast as their thieving hands can grab. Sadly short of violent revolution I simply see no way we will take back the country or even the planet from the super corps. After all, what use is your vote if they can walk in five minutes after the election with their checkbook and buy the politicians vote, and legally I might add?

Oh, I see. Thanks! Well, I did not know that, I am even not iPhone user... So "jailbreaking" is a bullshit, actually. Because there is no any BSD jail, but just a restrictions that are sort of environment mangling themselves? In that case I am not surprised that people can break through and Apple is gonna have a long story here (sounds like this part Apple took wrong and trying to fix it politically: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal).

His contribution to the swedish EFF (if such a thing exists?).

EFF Europe is a branch, they should try to employ more people though.. FFII is a similar organization that just figihts against software patents. Not sure why he would contribute to these organizations though.

All that is (in fact...) coming from the government that wants to force ACTA onto the world.
http://www.eff.org/press/archiveso/2009/05/06

Yes, the military-industrial complex owns the government.

Although your item #3 is above is technically correct, it distorts the story badly:

Nonetheless she could have appealed the penalty,

Yes, she could and did appeal the penalty.

[She] decided instead to appeal the ruling that she was guilty instead on the basis of a dubious technicality which was unlikely to change the final jury verdict.

The word "instead" here is incorrect or misleading.

You call it a "dubious technicality," referring I assume to the making-available legal theory. However, the making-available argument was the linchpin of the RIAA's argument in the first trial, and the subject of fairly heated debate. Personally I consider this argument to be bunkum and balderdash, but federal judges have weighed in on both sides. It's no technicality, it is a live wire of case law.

It was not a pointless retrial -- when the judge gives the jury rotten instructions, a citizen damn well deserves a new trial.

She lost in court, was given a penalty that while high, was actually on the lower end of the possible outcomes.

No, the law says penalties range from $750 to $150k per offense, so the median there is $75375, and so a per-offense fine of almost-$80k is on the higher end of possible outcomes (exceeding the median, to be precise). Moreover, the real story here is that the penalty wasn't just "high," it was stratospheric compared to the worth of the items in question.

I agree with you on the facts of the case though -- the evidence was squarely against her, she (IMO) lied to the jury, and deserves some penalty. The important question is how much, and that is where the debate should lie. Pretending this punishment is anything but manifest injustice and a cruel absurdity is, I think, misinformed or disingenuous.

> From TFS : all new computers ship with the 'Green Damn' Internet censoring program. Is that a typo or the reaction of Chinese men, when they discover, that they can't surf porn anymore?

I'd say that it's both, but the typo isn't quite accidental. Maybe I shouldn't have used it there, but what can I say? I guess I'm a bit prone to abusing language as a form of protest. The Chinese do it too. I suggest looking up the issue with the "grass mud horse" or "river crab" (harmonious) society. Both of those terms have been used to evade censorship, too, incidentally.

For whatever it's worth, the correct name of the censorship software is "Green Dam" though I have no idea if we'll have to start calling it something else due to censorship. Incidentally, the Chinese net censorship initiative is called "Operation Golden Shield," so they like use colour adjectives for some reason. I'm not really sure why.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

P.S. In the unlikely event that people are wondering if I'm the same guy as before, given that I sometimes use the Facebook link as well as the EFF donate link, I am. I didn't start it, but I do endorse the Facebook group, which I believe was started by the fine folks at Against Monopoly. I'm not, personally, a Libertarian, mind you, though I find a lot of common ground with that group. My personal views don't mesh well with any particular political group, save perhaps the Pirate Party, which has a rather limited party platform.

'Get cheapest phone you can find with GPRS and USB.'

Yes, but not just one. Buy several and dispose of them regularly (if you're paranoid or at real risk, after a single use). But don't bulk-buy as that tends to attract attention:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1499905

To minimise the risk of tracking, keep the phone switched off when it's not in active use and make sure that 'off' means 'off' - if in doubt, remove the battery:

https://ssd.eff.org/wire/protect/cell-tracking