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The story the EFF is putting forward is actually incomplete and VERY misleading. The guy is being accused of a LOT of things; changing students grades, "jail breaking cell phones" (since when is THAT a crime?), massive copyright infringement, and harassment, to which the e-mail in question is related.

Considering all of THAT, data storage devices are practically MANDATORY for the warrant. And considering that iPods can, and frequently ARE, used as USB hard drives, they're fair game.

Also, we ARE talking about an iPod Touch, as mentioned in the second link in the /. story.

Link to the full warrant affidavit: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

Thanks EFF for being a liar. The police have probably cause to seize the computers, not because they are black with white font (zOMG!) but because a reliable named witness told them the student was engaged in changing grades for other students.

From the warrant application: "[The witness] advised Officer Eng that Mr. Calixte has changed grades for other students by accessing the Boston College computer system.... It should be noted that [the witness] is not only a named witness to these allegations but also a reliable witness in another investigation which he brought to our attention.... [The witness] reported to me that he has observed Mr. Calixte hack into the B.C. grading system that is used by professors to change grades for students...."

Also, emails were sent out from an anonymous Yahoo! account claiming that the witness (who is roommates with the suspect) was gay. The IP address of the client sending the Yahoo! message corresponded to a computer whose MAC address was registered to a computer whose computer name had only been used on the computer of one student at B.C. -- the suspect.

Clearly, there's probable cause enough here for a search warrant.

Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Please tell me that someone else here actually read the full warrant.

I did, but then I read the motion. The warrant application has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

... and using the police to do it! That is entirely what this story is about. Did anyone bother to go to EFF's Web site and examine the "Exhibit-A" PDF document from the case? It happens to be an actual copy of the Application for Search Warrant. You really should read it.

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

The most enlightening part is the "Basis of Probable Cause" section, which states that the origin of the entire thing was "domestic issues" between Calixte and his (redacted) roommate. It then goes on to detail multiple allegations made by said roommate about Calixte and his criminal expertise with computers. The twit even blamed his own computer crashes on Calixte!

There's nothing to see here, folks. It's just one person getting back at another for real or perceived injustices, and the all-too-eager police being used as pawns (which of course they always are in every situation).

His assets weren't seized for the use of "scary voodoo operating systems". Oh, and for future reference, his name is Riccardo Calixte.

Application for the search warrant:

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

Here's a summary.

I) Why do we want his stuff?
      a) we think it's been used to commit a crime
      b) we think it contains evidence of said crime
II) What do we want to take?
      a) anything that can hold data (PCs, peripherals, phone, etc)
      b) documentation that may contain his passwords (computer manuals, post-its)
      c) evidence of ownership over systems used in offenses at the time of offenses
III) Where are we gonna find his stuff?
      a) his room.
IV) Why do we think we need to take his stuff?
      a) his roommate said that Riccardo hacked into the university computers to change peoples grades
      b) Riccardo was suspected of stealing a computer from the university previously
      c) the roommate's computer started acting funny after getting into arguments with Riccardo
      d) e-mails were sent out to the whole university saying that the roommate was gay
      e) network administrative staff said that according to their records, Riccardo did it
      f) Network Admin says: those e-mails came from their dorm, from a computer with the same name as one registered by Riccardo. additionally, a profile was posted on a gay dating site, screenshotted, and included in the e-mail. the only computer to visit said site within 5 days of the incident was Riccardo's. he accessed the site frequently 2 days prior to the e-mail.

It continues with more info as to why the originating officer is a good candidate to evaluate this stuff.

I think that's enough probably cause to warrant further investigation; but that's just me. I would encourage you all to actually read the thing, not just take my word for it, but hopefully this will quell some of the "omgz he wuz arestid fur uzing l1nuxz!!1" comments.

Read the search warrant application - the article and EFF summary is bad; there was definitely enough evidence to at least justify the search warrant.

I suggest you actually read the warrant application. Slashdot is sensationalizing it to be the warrant is based on "running Linux is suspicious behavior" when that's nowhere close to the reason why the warrant was issued.

If someone pretends to be you, and misrepresents themself as you for the purpose of defaming you. This is the kind of misrepresentation that can amount to fraud.

I'm pretty sure that defamation is only covered under tort law, and isn't actually a criminal offense where the police would need to get involved. Fraud on the other hand is a criminal offense, but I don't see any evidence from the warrant that would support a charge of fraud. The warrant states that he is being charged with "Obtaining computer services by fraud", though it refers to an incorrect section. Note however that this law says "the words "commercial computer service" shall mean the use of computers, computer systems, computer programs or computer networks, or the access to or copying of the data, where such use, access or copying is offered by the proprietor or operator of the computer, system, program, network or data to others on a subscription or other basis for monetary consideration." Signing up for a social networking site under a fake name wouldn't qualify, in my layman's opinion. Going on for two pages about how it was likely that the defendent created the profile/website is, in my opinion, irrelevant.

The defendent is being charged with "Unauthorized access to computer systems". This could be the "altering grades" thing, but the case for this seems pretty weak prima facie. The only evidence presented is the testimony of the guy's roommate, i.e. the person that was "outed" by the fake website. There's one line in the warrant about how this roomate saw the defendent change grades. The roommate appears to be heavily biased against the defendent, and I'm not convinced we should take his word over the defendent's. Now, I'd be slightly more convinced if the officer had obtained some evidence from the university system that grades HAD been changed.

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

After reading that, it became clear to me, that the EFF are wrong in this case. There was much more evidence in there that any reasonable computer person would say, yes that's probable cause.

"Probable cause", not "plausible cause"; see U.S. Constitution, Amendment IV

You're right...although the courts have interpreted the burden of proof needed for probable cause to be so low that it could almost be called plausible cause. Of course, for seizing and holding onto equipment like this, the evidence showing probable cause should not be trivial. I think that's why the EFF supporting memorandum makes a big deal about the burden placed on the suspect given that he does not have access to his laptop, his cell phone, and other personal items.

The EFF's main page for this matter is http://www.eff.org/cases/re-matter-search-warrant-boston-college. On that page is a link to the search warrant application itself: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

From the search warrant the basis for probable cause includes:

1) reports (including eyewitness reports) that Riccardo has changed grades in the past
2) Riccardo has a reputation for "hacking"
3) reports that Riccardo is known to install circumvention software
4) reports that Riccardo is known to jailbreak phones
5) reports that Riccardo is known to violate software licensing & illegally downloads movies

sounds like your typical Comp Sci major... but

1) domestic issues between Riccardo and the "gay" student
2) a profile on a gay website was created in the name of the "gay" student, but there was only one machine in Ricarrdo's hall (Gabelli) that had been used in the previous 5 days to visit that website. It was registered to Riccardo
3) the message that was sent to the campus mailing list was in Ricarrdo's residence hall, ran Linux, and used a name that Ricarrdo had previously used to register a computer on the BC network
4) apparently, another computer that Ricarrdo had registered on the network had made frequent visits to the gay website in the two days prior to the email outing the "gay" student
5) both the machine Ricarrdo registered and the machine used to send the message run Linux. In the five days prior to the email, only two users in Gibelli hall had computers running Linux.
6) Riccardo is a suspect in a stolen laptop case

Also, the comments about him using "two different operating systems for hiding his illegal activity. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on" and "being seen with 'unknown laptop computers'" both came from the victim, *NOT* from the police investigator.

The EFF's main page for this matter is http://www.eff.org/cases/re-matter-search-warrant-boston-college. On that page is a link to the search warrant application itself: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

From the search warrant the basis for probable cause includes:

1) reports (including eyewitness reports) that Riccardo has changed grades in the past
2) Riccardo has a reputation for "hacking"
3) reports that Riccardo is known to install circumvention software
4) reports that Riccardo is known to jailbreak phones
5) reports that Riccardo is known to violate software licensing & illegally downloads movies

sounds like your typical Comp Sci major... but

1) domestic issues between Riccardo and the "gay" student
2) a profile on a gay website was created in the name of the "gay" student, but there was only one machine in Ricarrdo's hall (Gabelli) that had been used in the previous 5 days to visit that website. It was registered to Riccardo
3) the message that was sent to the campus mailing list was in Ricarrdo's residence hall, ran Linux, and used a name that Ricarrdo had previously used to register a computer on the BC network
4) apparently, another computer that Ricarrdo had registered on the network had made frequent visits to the gay website in the two days prior to the email outing the "gay" student
5) both the machine Ricarrdo registered and the machine used to send the message run Linux. In the five days prior to the email, only two users in Gibelli hall had computers running Linux.
6) Riccardo is a suspect in a stolen laptop case

Also, the comments about him using "two different operating systems for hiding his illegal activity. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on" and "being seen with 'unknown laptop computers'" both came from the victim, *NOT* from the police investigator.

The concern isn't that he committed libel (crime) by sending out email to a list of people that outed the informant by linking him to a gay personal ad that he probably created (fraud). The problem is that he a suspect in several other crimes including a stolen laptop as detailed in the motion to quash:

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/CalixteMemSupport.pdf

While there is probably quite a bit for the defense to attack in how this warrant was obtained, my biggest concern is how it was handled. I suspect the following description is more common than we would like to know:

"... seized, among other things, Mr. Calixte's cell phone, his iPod, computers, disks, and "postit" note on which Calixte was in the process of taking notes about the officers' actions during the search. Christopher left a Property Receipt with Mr. Calixte listing items seized during the search. (Kessel Decl. Ex. C.) The seized post-it note does not appear on that receipt."

That's the type of bullying that makes me sick.

The actual quote and 'other evidence' are courtesy of the student's roommate, with whom he apparently doesn't get along with and had attempted to turn him in previously as having a stolen college laptop.

Reading the actual warrent request is a hoot.
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

he has "fixed" computers so that they cannot be scanned by any system for detection of illegal downloads and illegal internet use, "jail breaks" cell phones, possibly stolen ones, for people so that the phones can be used on networks other than they are meant for and downloaded program software against the licensing agreement for free.

minus the cracked software, the other stuff is ludicrous.

..since his problems with Mr. Calixte his brand new computer has crashed and he suspects that Mr. Calixte is responsible....(he has the password cause he set it up for him)...The computer has been looked at by several experts and none of them can resolve the problem.

The search warrant also specified that firewalls and printers could be seized...firewalls?

Read the document.
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

There's probable-cause in there unrelated to linux and gay mailings.

Really? Have you read the warrant application?

'(a) On two occasions web-based email accounts (gmail and yahoo mail) were used to send email to a mailing list at BC. The yahoo message included the IP address of the client used to send the message. This IP was 136.167.207.174 - indicating the sender was on the BC campus, and was using a wired connection in Gabelli residence hall'

I thought Calixte was a master hacker. Would any of you slashdot geniuses like to show him how to use a proxy.

'I met with xxxxxxxxx to discuss these allegations further. At this time he advised me of the following. Mr. Calixte is a computer science major with is considered a master of the trade amongst his peers. He is also employed by Bostton College I.T department. xxxxxxxxx stated he was aware of Mr. Calixte's reputation as a "hacker" prior to him being assigned into his room'

Mea culpa--EFF does link to the warrant application, as Exhibit A to their motion for emergency relief, although they don't exactly highlight that fact. http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf Reading over it, the mention of the two OSes is clearly part of the "Basis of Probable Cause," and not merely meant to identify which items are covered by the warrant.

Never mind. I'm retracting.

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf

I think the EFF does a lot of good things -- but their PR blurbs tend to leave out enough critical info that I am beginning to dismiss them out of hand.

Good call. The warrant affidavit goes into some detail about the alleged crimes. The informant is not anonymous and had provided credible information for other investigations. That is generally enough to meet the fairly low burden of probable cause.

Certainly, there's a lot there for a defense attorney to attack. For example, the person whose property was searched has allegedly played a prank on the informant. That goes to credibility at trial, though, not to whether the informant can provide evidence sufficient to make out probable cause.

It's not as scary if you read the application for search warrant instead of the slashdot headline. The detective who filed the application had interviewed the suspect's roommate, who said that, among other things, he had "observed [the suspect hacking] into the B.C. grading system that is used by professors to change grades for student," that he suspected the suspect of damaging his brand new computer, and that the suspect had posted a fake web site profile of the roommate. Other evidence, such as network reigstration information, supported the detective's belief that the suspect had engaged in at least some of the alleged activities.

The evidence needed to show plausible cause for a search warrant is very low, but it certainly isn't as low as merely using a Linux operating system. This search warrant is not evidence that the sky is falling.

Here's an interesting discussion on whether Obama's gift to the Queen violated the law: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/first-sale-president-obama-and-queen-england. It's an interesting proposition. If he is in RIAA's pockets, would he not be more concerned about illegal distribution of copyrighted works? There are three possibilities here:
- he just sucks at gift-giving, and picked up something he had laying around the house.
- he wants to give what is most precious to his donors: intellectual property and entertainment.
- he wants to put the spotlight on how absurd it is that his gift to the queen is potentially illegal.

Now, granted, the last point is really grasping at straws, and it is highly unlikely that this was a conscious decision.

But really - what if people start to point out that not only was the gift pretty lame, but it might or might not be illegal? Could the RIAA be forced into making a public statement on whether this stuff is legal or illegal? This could be RIAA's biggest marketing fiasco yet....

That does sound awesome, as long as you don't mind being a criminal, at least in the eyes of Apple.

Why are ISPs trying to turn into cell carriers (for ones which aren't already) and squeeze every last penny from consumers. On one side, at least someone is honestly selling what they can provide, but at ridiculous pricing tiers. I can easily imagine them trying to charge for certain ports, and applications. One more reason to donate to the EFF
If I hadn't lost^H^H^H^H ever had faith in the FCC I'd wish they would do something about this debacle before it gets really out of hand. Wait, what am I talking about? That happened long ago. I'd like to see something positive happen with their latest proposal though.

Don't forget the other threat to government and industry information policy: The EFF.

(On that note: please donate to the EFF.)

Oh, you mean fixing the mess Bush caused by re-approving his warrantless wiretapping?

Obama Administration Embraces Bush Position on Warrantless Wiretapping and Secrecy

Yea, fixing it alright. It was 1983 under Bush, Obama will make it 1984.

To be clear, "Xvid" is an encoder (like DivX) and it makes MPEG4 ASP video streams. Calling a file an "Xvid" file is like calling a photocopy a "Xerox". It might have been created with a genuine Xerox machine but just looking at the paper, you wouldn't know or care.

You hope.

I don't think you should get flamed for this. I agree with you that this particular case in the article (soundtrack for a slideshow) is a poor example of fair use at best.

There are four considerations for fair use in US copyright law:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The case holds up well on points (1) and (4), it is not for profit and is for a very limited audience. On (2) and (3), it's used without modification and is not changed enough to be transformative (even if the audio quality was degraded), so it completely fails these points.

However, There are plenty of other cases where most if not all aspects of fair use are clearly present, but the content was removed anyway. In one case, WMG ordered the takedown of a video of a girl singing 'Winter Wonderland'. Also, numerous AMVs (Anime Music Videos) have been taken down that provide parody of and artistic commentary on the original subject materials. It is this blanket, cluster-bomb approach that is the problem. It's completely unfair (and illegal) for content holders to tread on our fair use rights, even if it is in the name of the supposedly noble cause of fighting piracy.

...he suggests that users boycott YouTube...

Good idea. I also suggest making a donation to EFF.

EFF lawyer and Peolsi were on Wed night with Olberman. Embedded vid on the EFF site here.

Mod parent up. And GO DONATE. Their new "NSA" tee is pretty cool... last year's tee is cool, too, and still available if you don't have one yet.

"The grounds for this motion are that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction with respect to plaintiffsâ(TM) statutory claims against the United States because Congress has not waived sovereign immunity, and summary judgment for the Government on all of plaintiffsâ(TM) remaining claims against all parties (including any claims not dismissed for lack of jurisdiction) is required because information necessary to litigate plaintiffsâ(TM) claims is properly subject to and excluded from use in this case by the state secrets privilege and related statutory privileges."

IANAL, but this sounds like "you have NO RIGHT to sue us, GTFO" - and it's obvious even to a layman. Subtlety isn't their strong suit, is it?
Full motion to dismiss: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jewelmtdobama.pdf

This isn't change we can believe in. This is change for the worse.

...and contributing to the EFF, the ones actually pushing this issue.

Better hurry. Those dollars aren't going to be worth two dead flies once Obammy gets done with the Federal Reserve.

you assume the Obama DOJ is looking to continue the program, rather than simply support the Defense of AT&T.

Yes, and there are deeper currents to this that are also worth considering. While we should not stop criticizing moves like this no matter who is in the White House, I've been wondering if this and related moves (like the continued abuse of the state secrets privledge) are really designed to avoid setting a precedent. Specifically, the precedent of not defending previous administrations. Because, you know, current administrations have a habit of becoming previous administrations after a few years, and if every incoming president legally screws the people who just left, that would tend to cause productivity problems.

All of which is beside the point from the citizen's perspective. It's our responsibility to tell these people that even if we voted for them, we think their actions suck. I'm pleased to see that so much of the opposition to the White House is coming from the political left. Nods to the posters above who mentioned giving to the EFF. I've been giving monthly for a while now. Do you?

(A preemptive response for those who say the EFF never accomplishes anything is on their website.)

...and contributing to the EFF, the ones actually pushing this issue.

In what is going to be a landmark, open-and-shut case, the Phoenix Police Department is going to have to put their Kevlar kneepads on when the Electronic Frontier Foundation convinces the judge to throw the book at the cops.

By the way, with kidnappings, and murders on the rise in Arizona relating to the Mexican Drug Lords (MDLs) south of the border, when was the last time anyone in the local news media actually made it a cover story that the MDLs are already in the United States and planning to go to war with ill prepared American police departments?

It became quite clear the MDLs were interested in going north when one of the local police departments in the St. Louis, Missouri area had a sting at a local gas station that was selling AK-47s and Claymore mines to local gangbangers. The only other possible group of people interested in that market would be domestic terrorists.

When the cops aren't doing their job, someone has to speak out.

The potential for evil in the Google has only been questioned for a year or so

Incorrect. Many of us turned mistrustful of Google in 2005, when they launched google.cn. And the EFF has been saying for years that Google ought to purge its users' search requests after a reasonable period (say, six months): they don't trust Google to keep it forever safely.

I propose that some internet entity accept such publications and put them on the net. Someone like http://w2.eff.org/patent/ could put them up so there would be central location that could be searched for public domain prior art. This would establish the date and the content after the original vanished into the either.

I don't get why people assert that they have the right to media in a different format to the format in which they purchased it.

It probably has something to do with this.

A company has made something and is selling it. You can accept the deal or not, but you can't override their right to set the terms of the sale.

The US Copyright Act disagrees with that. See, e.g. UMG v. Augusto.

The question is "do you have a right to anonymity when making political editorials?" That's a different question than "do you have the right to make anonymous political editorials?" The answer to the latter question is "of course". The answer to the former question is "of course not".

Horseshit. The Bill of Rights exists because of anonymous free speech. Also, the Supreme Court has a long history of protecting anonymous free speech. You are entirely wrong in every point you make.

The right to anonymous speech is enshrined in the highest law of the land. Whether or not the statements are hurtful is irrelevant. Your political example is particularly clueless.

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

The parent poster is correct in framing this as a possible abuse of power. It is probably not illegal to reveal someone's identity. It can be illegal to use political power to discover someone's identity.

Your homework assignment (i.e. if you want to debate this without looking like a total idiot) is to prepare an argument against internet anonymity with reference to libel and slander. The links I provided should give you plenty of ammunition. Also, if you dig back through slashdot, there was a recent case in the maryland supreme court (IIRC) involving a fast food franchise trying to subpoena the identities of some critics on the internet, which may or may not have been covered in one of my links. Do note that such an argument is not relevant to the facts of TFA.

The question is "do you have a right to anonymity when making political editorials?" That's a different question than "do you have the right to make anonymous political editorials?" The answer to the latter question is "of course". The answer to the former question is "of course not".

Horseshit. The Bill of Rights exists because of anonymous free speech. Also, the Supreme Court has a long history of protecting anonymous free speech. You are entirely wrong in every point you make.

The right to anonymous speech is enshrined in the highest law of the land. Whether or not the statements are hurtful is irrelevant. Your political example is particularly clueless.

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

The parent poster is correct in framing this as a possible abuse of power. It is probably not illegal to reveal someone's identity. It can be illegal to use political power to discover someone's identity.

Your homework assignment (i.e. if you want to debate this without looking like a total idiot) is to prepare an argument against internet anonymity with reference to libel and slander. The links I provided should give you plenty of ammunition. Also, if you dig back through slashdot, there was a recent case in the maryland supreme court (IIRC) involving a fast food franchise trying to subpoena the identities of some critics on the internet, which may or may not have been covered in one of my links. Do note that such an argument is not relevant to the facts of TFA.

So AT&T now respects the need for court orders before they cut off service. Good to hear. It sure would have been nice if the company stood up for the rule of law when the Bush Administration decided it didn't need a court order to wiretap.

First off, AT&T is not a private company. It's a publicly traded company.

http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=ATT

Second, AT&T cannot do whatever they want, even if they were a private company. There are laws in place that govern everything from employment to the actual business of communications that prevent "private companies" from running afoul of the consumer's rights.

Consider Comcast and their throttling of BitTorrent traffic. If we consider your theory of private companies being able to do whatever they want under the guise of it being a "business decision" to be correct, Comcast should be able to get away with bandwidth throttling of BitTorrent, right? Wrong.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/fcc-rules-against-comcast-bit-torrent-blocking

Companies, whether they are privately owned or publicly traded, have laws and regulations that they are supposed to abide by. AT&T can't make a decision, no matter how good it is for the business, if it violates the law. While the system of laws and regulations doesn't always work, it does provide some measure of defense against companies trampling all over the consumer.

These guys can be very, very helpful about issues like this:

http://www.eff.org/

Fair use is an affirmative defense, you can't just claim it as a right but have to prove your use was "fair" in court.

As a site owner, I believe he is protected by the safe harbor provisions; the takedown notice likely identifies the forum poster as in violation and not the site. So he can just pass along the take down notice to the poster and let him deal with it. But to retain safe harbor protections he will have to take the message down until there is a resolution.

A good site to visit is eff.org. I believe you can forward the take down notice to them and they will either take on the case or forward it to a lawyer that might help for a fee. Or maybe that's just for cease and desist orders? Anyway, the site is a good place to start looking for information.

I'm not a lawyer.

IANAL, so get one if you need legal advice, but here's the lowdown as I understand things:

There are these huge fines, that are thousands or hundreds of thousands of times the actual damages (e.g. download a song that costs $1 and you could pay a $100,000+ penalty to the RIAA, though they usually ask for "only" a few thousand dollars). I say "$100,000+" because someone will complain if I get the statutory damages wrong and it's actually $150k or $170k or something like that as a maximum. That's per work, BTW, though there are some oddities where an album might be a "work" instead of the individual songs. They actually tried to change that to make sure that they could get statutory damages for each song in an album (or each work in other types of collections), only to get shot down when asked for a case where they hadn't gotten enough money in damages. "Statutory damages," BTW, are where the government decided that it would be hard to figure out how much money people actually lost, so the legislature will make up a range and it's just presumed to be reasonable, so that people have one less thing to argue about in court. Provided the range of damages is reasonable, this can be a very good thing.

But then there's also a case that says 10x the actual losses in damages can be an unconstitutional abrogation of a right called "due process" [of law]. That right is written into the constitution, so the legislature can't take it away (though it doesn't stop them from trying).

There are also related arguments saying that, because the fines are so huge compared to the losses, this is really a criminal case being tried in civil court. The difference between the two is that you don't get a free public defender in civil court (like you do in criminal courts), and you lose several other important legal protections like a presumption of innocence that you should be allowed in a criminal case (the RIAA is only being asked to prove a "preponderance of the evidence" ... in other words, that the accused is more likely to be the one who infringed their copyrights than not).

There is legal precedent to support all of this, but I recommend that you read the paperwork linked in the story if you want to find out about it all. People have a tendency to complain a lot if you leave out some detail they care about, or gloss over a distinction they feel is important and that's only magnified when you're dealing with lawyers or geeks (let alone folks who are both). And I'm reduced to doing factory labor right now, rather than coding or sysadmin work, to make ends meet thanks to this crappy economy and I don't really have much more time than Ray does :-)

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
(I'm not affiliated with the EFF, I just support their goals.)

> There are about 30 device claims drawn to an e-book reader. Bilksi has absolutely no bearing on those; an e-book reader is definitely patentable subject matter, despite what IDontBelieve wants to believe.

For one, while it seems to have left the question of general purpose computers not being a 'particular machine' open, it also cast doubt upon it. I suppose that may have been dicta instead of holding, but it was encouraging. (And I've seen plenty of lawyers with diverging opinions, so I'm of the opinion that nobody really knows yet. You can easily guess what I hope will be the case.)

Next, I never said that the hardware wasn't patentable subject matter, only that all the software/DRM claims were questionable after Bilski. But the complaint isn't very clear at all. It just says "we think they infringe upon this patent... somehow." You're probably right that it's a terrible patent to bust. I honestly expect them to settle.

Even though hardware is patentable, have you seen their descriptions of it? I'm reading the complaint, and apparently computers are composed of little blocks like "LCD" and "power module" that aren't very specific. Other than the fact that it contains a DRM module (which are pretty common in lots of devices), they look like a pretty standard block diagram that's nearly equivalent to any number of things, including a general purpose laptop or desktop computer (seriously, other than the secure DRM chip, there's nothing in there that's not in a general computer, though God knows, that DRM chip may be enough to make it a 'particular machine') ...

But the hardware parts weren't really the focus of my submission (in fact, they weren't discussed), so I don't get where you came up with the idea that I don't think hardware can be patented. Give me some credit, okay?

Even so, did you look closely at those 'hardware' diagrams? You can see all this 'hardware' in the complaint (PDF). The block diagrams are, shall we say, far less than novel to anyone who knows what's inside a monitor or general purpose computer. Does it become a 'particular machine' just because I come out with a diagram that could describe just about any computer or game console? I hope we'll get some clarity soon on what (isn't) a 'particular machine'. Frankly, if they want a real circuit diagram, I need to see some specific devices (i.e. a '2N222', not a 'CPU' or 'data stripper').

About the only original things I see are the menus for the ebook service (they're bland and the sort of thing anyone might come up with, but I can reasonably believe they're original). Not having a Kindle, I have no idea if it might infringe upon those.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property