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Here's a link to the EFF's Broadcast Flag work.

Here's a PDF link to [then] Circuit Judge Edwards' decision in ALA v. FCC.

http://www.eff.org/Spam_cybersquatting_abuse/Cyber squatting/Kremen_v_NSI/20020123_eff_amicus_brief.h tml http://downloads.sex.com/corporate/lawsuits/pdf/25 80.pdf http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/kremen cohen72503opn.pdf

...the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard.

Need I remind everyone of the BNetD case?

For those to lazy to read TFA, Blizzard took these guys to court for reverse engineering and creating a Battle.Net client. In the end, it was ruled that the EULA overrides personal rights. Rediculous IMO.

Want more rulings like this?

Donate to the EFF They wrote briefs for these cases.

Remember: the rights you save may be your own.

- Neil Wehneman

P.S. More information is at the EFF coverage of the cases.

Want more rulings like this?

Donate to the EFF They wrote briefs for these cases.

Remember: the rights you save may be your own.

- Neil Wehneman

P.S. More information is at the EFF coverage of the cases.

Here is the New York decisions.

Unfonatly that link in the OP is very lacking on specific and explaining some details. Here is a quick description and judges reasoning.
1) the FBI asked for the cell towers used so they would have a rough idea of the location the person was located.
2) In most cases this has been easy to get since the Supreme Court has declared that a person has no expectation of privacy with the numbers that are dialed so also as the FBI says the information is relavent the courts allow easy access. The FBI claims that the tower being used for "control codes" is at the same level of expected privacy as phone number, they also used some other laws such as the Stored Communication Act to prove they should have that level of access.
3) in the New York case the judges ruled that this was not the case and the tower being used is different. "When the government seeks to turn a mobile telephone into a means for contemporaneously tracking the movements of its user, the delicately balanced compromise that Congress has forged between effective law enforcement and individual privacy requires a showing of probable cause,"

So it looks like Congress will probaly need to give some more specifications on what they mean.

Asides from the /. affect Forbes is going to suffer, imagine the brilliant move of torquing off a large section of one's current and future demographic? Brillian, absolutely brilliant.

Of course then there are the countless parodies - here's the anti-blog cover redone to mock the ginned-up hysteria:
http://www.blogs4god.com/node/626

Not to mention the crappy legal advice the column offered, which is nicely reubtted using the DCMA's own verbage:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004104.php#0 04104

Sheesh - didn't the editors ask for some research first? Or is that only the domain of bloggers and not 'real journalists'

Only reason I'm responding here is that the OP didn't do a very good job of explaining what this review is all about, and there's no reason people need to fish through hundreds of posts to find out what's really going on. Posting AC so you can mod this up (and so I can ask you to) with a clear conscience.

See this EFF article for more info - they mention an article by Seth Finkelstein on how to properly write a comment that is of sufficiently limited scope and that meets the requirements the USCO is looking for, so that you can get your suggestion approved.

Only reason I'm responding here is that the OP didn't do a very good job of explaining what this review is all about, and there's no reason people need to fish through hundreds of posts to find out what's really going on. Posting AC so you can mod this up (and so I can ask you to) with a clear conscience.

See this EFF article for more info - they mention an article by Seth Finkelstein on how to properly write a comment that is of sufficiently limited scope and that meets the requirements the USCO is looking for, so that you can get your suggestion approved.

• Start by not sounding partisan, you weren't always an 'activist', explain why a rational and average American like you would come to your conclusion.
• On that same page, leave whatever philosophy you might have on the approach of a plutocratic revolution where corporate rule enslaves mankind for another letter -- even if you do think it's the root of the problem.
• And again relating to the above, don't speak in a letter as if the recipient is the greedy benefactor of corporate dinners and exotic vacations. Even if they were, making them your villan will put them on the defensive, and no matter what perversions of rational thought are required they will find a way to justify ignoring your statements.
• Don't subscribe to write-in campaigns. Form letters are already ignored, and to combat such an easily abused practice you can bet many letters will be ignored just for resembling eachother or arriving from activism websites themselves.

My comment [PDF] from a few years ago (via the EFF) still appears in the top 10 pages for my name when you search on Google.

This go around, I don't know if I am any more confident. Mine does fall under one of the valid reasons for legal circumvention of not being able to watch legit videos purchased in other regions. Even though the case was marked "Region 0" it appeaars it was encoded as "Region 2" and I live in "Region 1". The problem is the blanket exceptions. I would be fine if there was a "affermative defenses" clauses in the law that allowed you to get around it for things like making backup copies, transferring media, etc. The only one allowed is artistic or scientific pursuits because those laws appear to supercede the others.

After the bnetd garbage, I've refused to purchase any new Blizzard titles. In my eyes, Blizzard has gone from one of the best video game makers in the world to pure evil, deserving nothing but derision. Perhaps you, armed with this fresh experience, will now agree?

Join to EFF and ACLU. Be happy to pay for membership. Donate, if you can.

I wonder how many europeans (as myself) are card-carrying members of ACLU. I certainly am and will be in the future as well.

http://www.aclu.org/

http://www.eff.org/

http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.htm l

The only real connection between programmers and roleplaying games is when Operation Sundevil (http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/SJG/)raided Steve Jackson Games' offices over the Cyberpunk RPG. I think the correlation you mention would also be found among polymer scientists, physicists, chemists, or any other field filled with moderately intelligent, nerdy people.
I'm kind of surprised not to see SJG/GURPS mentioned alongside TSR in the followups, it was a much more flexible and open system. Or Shadowrun? It was pretty interesting too.

Nobody's freedom of speech is being abridged, it's just their anonymity in doing it.

And anonymity is part of free speech. As early as the early 1800s the USSC, US Supreme Court, has ruled that part of free speech is anonymity. A more recent case is from 2002 when Supremes OK Anonymous Free Speech. Here's EPIC's webpage on Anonymity. I found this page from MIT also on USSC upholding anonymity in political speech. And this is EFF's page. Fact is is that the "Federalist Papers" written under the pseudonym "Publius" was written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John James, all Founding Fathers of the USA. They knew how important anonymous political speech was. You enjoy your freedom because they fought for those rights. If you live in the USA that is, but I don't know this. Thomas Jefferson, who did write the DOI, Declaration of Independence, also write pseudonymously

Here's a search of Findlaw on court ruling on privacy anonymous "free speech" "supreme court". Fact is is there's a long history of anonymous political speech in the USA with some of the Founding Fathers exercising it.

I've seen a few people say this, and I really don't understand it. Could someone explain? As I see it, the new iPod has increased battery life, it's a bit thinner and has a little larger display. Beyond that, it's the exact same device it's always been and functions the exact same way it always has -- except that it'll play some video now.

I personally think the video iPod is a brilliant strategic move. They've kept the device essentially the same, not upsetting a winning formula. They still made marginal improvements in the core music player in terms of battery life and size. But they've put video capability out there to test the waters and see if the legal video download market turns out like the legal music download market has. If downloading Lost and Desperate Housewives turns out to be a winner, you can bet that other content providers will come running.

So what am I missing? Why is the video iPod a "bad move"? It looks to me like they've managed to pilot a totally new service while continuing to give people the same device they already love.

I realize it would be so much cooler if iTunes 6 had the ability to rip video content and transfer it just like we do with audio, but I just don't think that's possible. Since most DVDs incorporate copy protection, I don't think it would fly under the DMCA. If Rick Boucher's legislation gets passed, we may see something like that. You should probably head over to the EFF Action Center and support it.

Yack

Wed, October 19 2005 - 11:33 AM
by: Gabe

Tycho and I remain free men. The fact is that Jack actually sent the fax to everyone but the intended recipient at the Seattle PD. There were a lot of names to remember I don't blame him. I've received literally thousands of emails in the past couple days. They are all commending us for standing up to Jack the way we did. Most of them go on to ask what we can do as a community to stop him. I have to admit that is tempting. The more I think about it the more I think it might not be in our best interest. Let me explain.

You can certainly mail the networks he appears on. You can even send letters to their advertisers. You can contact the senators he speaks with and demand they ignore him. If enough of us do that sort of thing and we do it long enough they will eventually get the message and drop him just like the National Institute on Media and the Family did. Would that be a good thing? I'm not sure.

Jack is not special. He is not a unique snow flake as they say. He is just the latest vocal opponent of whatever is "corrupting" our youth at the moment. When my dad was growing up it was rock and roll devil music. Then it was comic books then movies and rap music. Today it's videogames. If we were to succeed in getting Jack blacklisted from the major news outlets someone else would simply take his place. Imagine him as an actor playing a part in a play. The point is that Jack Thompson is not important. If he were to be fired a new actor would simply take up the role. The same lines would still be delivered in the same way and the same audience would pay to see it. We are actually fortunate that the current actor is so impotent in his role. Imagine what might happen if some charming, efficacious attorney took his place. The more I consider it the more I think we may be lucky to have Jack playing the part of the alarmist. The alternative might be someone who is actually capable.

-Gabe out

Actually, there is legal precedent on Google's side. Check out the Kelly v. Arriba Soft ruling from the 9th circuit a couple of years ago. Granted, this is a novel area of law, so there is no guarantee that the court in Google's situation won't be able to distinguish this case from Google Print, but at least its a start.

I haven't seen this solution posted yet, but if you connect to gmail via Tor http://tor.eff.org/ fuck knows what IP gmail will be seeing...

I'm certainly not saying they're doing this for the greater good, but look at Sony v. Universal (aka the betamax decision ), Sony was fighting for profits, but ended up establishing the substantial non-infringing use argument, inadvertently doing something for the greater good as a result of their "profit protecting". Also notable, the betamax format failed anyway, and the decision is now reviled by their entertainment divisions, the good part outlasted the greed.

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php/

AFAIK this was a requirement by the record labels

Dead wrong.

FairPlay is about vendor lock-in first and foremost. Convincing the RIAA that it would have anything whatsoever to do with preventing piracy (which it clearly doesn't) is just marketing.

I love my iPod as much as the next Apple fanboy, but DRM sucks no matter who's peddling it.

Use Tor. http://tor.eff.org/

To answer your question, (And from the TFA) http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php

Yes, there are many on that list.

And with your donation, you can claim the same.

https://secure.eff.org/

Just $25 can make a big difference when hundreds of people donate. If the site is busy (and it is at time of posting) just try back later. You will make a difference.

I want to know who the bastards are that are adding this technology to their printers so I can avoid them like the plague.

That's in the article:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php

For those interested in a quick summary, the docucolor example is the best place to look. (it has pictures!)

More information can be found on the EFF's printer-privacy webpage.

Also interesting is Andrew Bunnie's flat bed page scanner mod to use blue light instead of white. This made the yellow tracking dots easier to see, and the whole page could be seen at once to determine the pattern they made.

For those interested in a quick summary, the docucolor example is the best place to look. (it has pictures!)

More information can be found on the EFF's printer-privacy webpage.

Also interesting is Andrew Bunnie's flat bed page scanner mod to use blue light instead of white. This made the yellow tracking dots easier to see, and the whole page could be seen at once to determine the pattern they made.

Of course! Once copyrighted content is under your private use, you can do anything you want with it, as long as it is kept private.

See also: Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/USA_v_PenRegister/

For the record we invented those railroads of you, as well as the "automobile" (car).... and never claimed ownership of it, nope the biggest manufacturers are in the USA. There is I guess a huge misconception on the EU effort to open control of the Internet. As the http://www.eff.org/ states, the USA isn't completely defending freedom of speech, as their site notes numerous rulings and laws which curb these freedoms. And now with the so called terrorist threat it will be only worse. I admit that Europe is doing it's part as well, but hey selfreflection you see is a great good!

Now, let me alter some of your visions: Also in Europe we have an extensive railroad and road system, especially in the West. Hack, it's well reknowned that these railroads were the basis of the German succes in World War I and these roads were the basis of Nazi-German World War II succes!

Furthermore, we have cable too, and most Europeans surf the net on a broadband cable or DSL line, as well as we have clear water running from the tap. My country is known for having such fresh water from the tap, it's internationally only rivaled by the likes of perrier! So, please next time don't think the US is top of the hill on development, because then we start about the 20% of your population living bellow poverty level, like many people in Africa, making us Europeans wonder if we shouldn't sent some ships with food and development groups over there, as your government doesn't care for it's people!

Yup, hear, hear, let all rednecks come and claim our governments are a bunch of commies, we just laugh on that. Because, here we can choose between more than 2 president candidates, here elections aren't stolen and here the media doesn't commit volunteer censorship, nor it supports but one political party.......... well besides the Italian, but they are considered, hmmm, "different"... so, many of us our proud of Europe too....... It's not that we think the US is all bad, so let us cut the crap and focus on what this issue is about:

Internet is an international commodity, a technology invented mainly by the US DoD, but the European CERN has contributed significantly as well. However, as many people, nations and companies rely on it, world wide, we should see how we can open up. Simply saying the US is doing a great job isn't sufficient. That is like saying: our government is best and as such, we rule your country.......... were are the democratic values?

p.s. when I say Europe, it's a little arogant and wrong, as I mean Western Europe, and actually mainly North Western Europe!

While I certainly hope they find *some* theory upon which to bust the spyware folks, I'm not sure that tresspass to chattles is a good one.

See what the EFF has to say about that particular legal theory, albeit in the context of spam, here.

It's like having a pocket-sized TiVo

Actually, given that Tivo's main advantage is its ability to *record*, I think that the Archos PVPs, with their simple analog video-in jack, are a closer match. So as well as all the digital options for content, if you want to just grab some damn video, all you need is to plug the Archos into a video feed and hit "record". Low-tech, but acceptable, and I believe still protected by Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios.

And further, given Tivo's reluctance to enable free movement of content off the devices, I think a closer analogy for Archos is not Tivo but ReplayTV, with its DRM-free show sharing and ease of moving content between devices and over networks.

The video ipod is classic Apple: as much as possible a one-way street from Content Owners through Apple to Consumers, with the ipod remaining as tethered as possible to a Mac/iTunes for operation. Making it harder than it should be for ipod owners to create and share their own content.

For myself, I prefer more autonomy.

The New York supreme court ruled in Banco Nacionale de Mexico v. Narco News et al. (Dec. 5, 2001) that "this court finds that Narco News is a media defendant and is entitled to heightened protection under the First Amendment (New York Times Co. v Sullivan, supra, 376 US, at 270-280)". See: NY Supreme Court Rules Online Coverage Protected Speech.

The New York supreme court ruled in Banco Nacionale de Mexico v. Narco News et al. (Dec. 5, 2001) that "this court finds that Narco News is a media defendant and is entitled to heightened protection under the First Amendment (New York Times Co. v Sullivan, supra, 376 US, at 270-280)". See: NY Supreme Court Rules Online Coverage Protected Speech.

EFF action page to oppose the Broadcast Flag

Since I'd really like to know who the CongressCritters are who are supporting this, I found a link off the webpage to a letter of support: pdf here.In case that's slashdotted moementarily, heres the list of representatives

Charles Pickering
Edolphus Towns
John Shimkus
George Radnovich
Mike Ferguson
Marsha Blackburn
Mary Bono
Bart Gordon
Joe Terry
Ed Whitfield
Bobby Rush
Vito Fossella
Elliot L. Engel
John B. Shadegg
Albert Russell Wynn
Michael F. Doyle
Charles A. Gonzalez
Charles F. Bass
John Sullivan
Frank Pallone, Jr.

You can look up what disctricts they're from at www.house.gov, and contact them any way you see fit. Let 'em have it! ;)

>1. Blackmail/Kidnapping Photos. I'm pretty
>sure they've got to report this kind of
>thing. Besides, if you've kidnapped anyone of
>signifigance, you've got a hefty payday
>coming. 50 cent prints aren't a big
>expenditure for you.

Actually, given the recent revelations about embedded unit-specific codes in the output of inject printers (http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/), it isn't clear that you wouldn't be better off going to the local print shop. I suppose buying a new printer for each crime, with cash, from a small out of town store, and sitting on them until long after security tapes would have been rotated is probably the best option.

On a tangent, I remember taking fake "hostage" photos in junior high. Without so much as a comment, the a drug store clerk handed over an envelope full of shots of a bound and gagged 14 year old with a bloody face sitting before a masked captor holding a knife. Although our makeup job probably wasn't the greatest, I'm still surprised no one noticed. (I can't even remember why the hell we took those shots in the first place. I think it just seemed like a fun thing to do with a half roll of film.)

The problem is, that there is already judicial precedence on the issue.

Kendrick, Teri, et al. v. American Amusement Machine Association (docket no. 00-3643)
Appeal: Cert. denied, Oct. 29, 2001.

Issues: Does an Indianapolis, Ind., law against minors playing violent video games in video parlors violate the First Amendment?

Summary: The ordinance forbids any operator of five or more video-game machines in one place to allow a minor unaccompanied by a parent, guardian, or other custodian to use "an amusement machine that is harmful to minors," requires appropriate warning signs, and requires that such machines be separated by a partition from the other machines in the location and that their viewing areas be concealed from persons who are on the other side of the partition. The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ordinance does violate the rights of those under 18 years of age. Judge Posner wrote the decision.

Decision: In denying the appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court makes no ruling on the merits of the law or the challenge to it. It merely means that the case could not get the minimum vote of four justices needed to hear the appeal. It also means that all similar laws in the jurisdiction of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals are void under that court's ruling.

Also check here http://www.constitutioncenter.org/education/ForEdu cators/DiscussionStarters/BanningViolentVideoGames .shtml

and here http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers /walsh.html

So this is nothing new people. Ever since the ID brought us a world where we could literally kill and watch Nazi's die (even before that really). This has been an ongoing debate.

The one thing you MUST realize is that this is not a bill being pushed by the Right-Wing Conservative Nut Jobs (granted they aren't really all against it), this is being pushed by DEMOCRATS. You want to know who hates freedom of speech? Hillary Clinton, after the Columbine murders ordered the surgeon general to find a link between school shooting tragedies and Quake. He found no conclusive link, but that didn't stop her, Lieberman, and the rest of the gang from going hog wild trying to censor video games. I lean left politically, but you can bet your ass I don't agree with censorship.

Do what I did, I joined the EFF http://www.eff.org/ and joined the ACLU http://www.aclu.org/

I mentioned this in my journal almost 2 years ago (yet another rejected submission:) All links are still good, mostly covering the e-book and fair access for the blind.

There are over 10 million visually impaired people just in the US who are being blinded by the DMCA. On the back page of Software Developer, Warren Keuffel has a commentary (free reg) that summarizes what he found to be issues still brewing over the use of the DMCA to prevent people from implementing technology designed to translate eBooks into Braille. XML is being used now to facilitate the translations of eBooks and other electronic formats and to help disabled people get simple access to reading material that others of us may take for granted. The DMCA effectively blocks many of these new innovations (go figure). Is short, the American Federation for the Blind has sent comments the US Copyright office, Congress is looking at the issue, The Association of American Publishers is fighting it, all the while fair-use and disabled students continue to suffer.

All of them?

All of them?

It's funny... there's biased reporting, and then there's outright lies:

From the article:
A well-meaning U.S. Congressman, Rick Boucher of Virginia, is the author of the legislation in question. He first tried to make circumvention of copy-protection mechanisms legal back in 1998, when Congress was debating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. His effort to amend the bill failed.

Erm... Wouldn't that be more accurately stated as: "Congressman Boucher tried to keep circumvention of copy-protection mechanisms from becoming illegal."?

On October 28, 2000 the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) took full effect

Obviously, everyone has an opionion that will color what they do and say. I think what most people mean when they say "biased" is when the discoloration becomes blatant and unreasonable, as in this case.

I'm sitting off an ISP that plugs into Level-3 so this blackout is definately causing me problems. I can't get to Penny Arcade or Megatokyo (clearly this is a crisis). So I'm using Tor to get around it. Yeah, it's really slow at times, but it works.

( And as impossible as it sounds, there are more important sites I can't get to either, like the support site for a couple bits of software we use rather heavily at work. )

Article above In two messages from September of 2004, Proud Citizen discussed a member of the Smyrna Town Council, Patrick Cahill, referring to Cahill's "character flaws," "mental deterioration," and "failed leadership," and stated that "Gahill [sic] is...paranoid."

EFF Article

One article makes it sound like its teenagers calling each other fags, and the other points to actual political opinions.

Either way, this is how NOT to react. Don't these people know how to take anything lightly?

Karl Auerbach, who served on the ICANN board as the first (and last) North American representative for the short period that ICANN allowed elected representatives on their board, basically (with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation) had to sue ICANN to get access to ICANN records so he could perform his board duties. Archives on that legal fight are here:

http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/DNS_control/ICAN N_IANA_IAHC/Auerbach_v_ICANN/

Karl's opinions (and blog) may be found on his web site:

http://www.cavebear.com/

While I don't agree with Karl on several issues, I agree with his general assessment that ICANN is not looking after your (or my) interests. Karl has written on ICANN's abuse and misuse of their status many times - browse his blog. So long as the U.S. government, and the root name servers it controls, continues the accepted convention in following ICANN there is no good end in sight to its misuse of its position.

Now compare ICANN with the ITU. The ITU (International Telecommunications Union, formerly CCITT) has been around over 100 years and has members from just about every country on the globe. (ITU lineage predates the UN by many decades.) The ITU define standards (a.k.a. "recommendations") that have made it possible for you to pick up your phone and be able to call anyone else anywhere in the world who has a dialable phone number. Without them, the global telephone system and the global Internet almost certainly wouldn't exist as we know it.

If no harm or censor of content has come to the global telephone system under the gentle auspices of the ITU, then I think fretting over ITU control of the Internet root domain name servers is probably misplaced.

Well giving them money certainly won't help. DO NOT BUY FROM THE RIAA. Check RIAA radar before purchasing.

When people stop buying from RIAA labels, the labels are going to go to the government screaming piracy because they can show what they think the numbers should be they will blaim the loss of revenue from piracy. There will be no consideration of a Boycott. Then congress will start taxing things like burnable CD, digital media players, to make up for the lost revenue due to piracy. They've already tried to have laws passed allowing them to break into people's computers so they can investigate music piracy.

Congress only listens as long as the bribe money keeps coming. Do not fund RIAA lobbyists by buying from RIAA labels.

You're indies labels will be forced to start supporting the RIAA as well, because the equipment they use to press the CDs can be used to press pirate CD, the RIAA will demand a tax or surchange there. If they have them pressed overseas they will find a way of getting revenue from that too.

Indies don't need plastic. They have internet distribution. All the indies need is a paypal.

You reall want to stop the RIAA? You need laws like RICO, and Sherman Anti-trust. You need lots of independent lawsuits to bankrupt them. The RIAA and MPAA are predatory cartels, if you want to stop them boycotts aren't going to do squat, you have to sue them into oblivion.

That requires money be spent on lawyers and bribing congressmen. If you decide to take that route, please use proceeds saved by not buying RIAA albums to do so. You might want to pool your resources with others by donating it to someone like the EFF as well.

DO NOT BUY FROM THE RIAA. Check RIAA radar before purchasing.

Two separate issues:

Region Coding has to do with price discrimination, i.e. the desire of the media companies to charge different prices in different countries depending on what people will pay by preventing you from buying a DVD in Africa, and reselling it in the US. It is a techonology that they apply for economic reasons, and has nothing to do with the consumer. It is perfectly legal to buy a DVD that will ignore the coding (though they are much more expensive than regular ones). Computer programs that play DVDs ignore this coding too.

Making personal copies (warning: link discusses the copyright regime of the USA) has to do with copyright law. It's not about giving your copy to someone else, but about creating more copies. Just because you're allowed to modify your PS2 (for example, to play games bought in other regions) doesn't mean you are allowed to freely copy the games without paying for them.

What's more, watermarking as a deterrent/detection method for piracy is supported by the EFF. This won't be particularly useful for DVDs (as there's no way to link watermark with purchaser), but it could be very useful for DRM-free Internet distribution.