Slashdot Mirror

Of course one could argue that P2P software and networks are a similar struggle - of freedom to compute versus the tyrannical licensing of megacorps. But it's only true if the individual user is using P2P to trade in OSS or freeware. It doesn't hold water if you're using it to fill up your 120GB drive with mp3s you don't have albums for or to grab an image of the corporate edition of Windows XP Professional.

Now if you're serving up ISOs of Mandrake 8.2, distributing your band's songs, grabbing artist-released films, or sharing your amateur pr0n photo shoot, more power to you.

The court hit the nail on the head there. I can hear the MPAA and MIAA screaming all the way from the Netherlands.

Of course one could argue that P2P software and networks are a similar struggle - of freedom to compute versus the tyrannical licensing of megacorps. But it's only true if the individual user is using P2P to trade in OSS or freeware. It doesn't hold water if you're using it to fill up your 120GB drive with mp3s you don't have albums for or to grab an image of the corporate edition of Windows XP Professional.

Now if you're serving up ISOs of Mandrake 8.2, distributing your band's songs, grabbing artist-released films, or sharing your amateur pr0n photo shoot, more power to you.

The court hit the nail on the head there. I can hear the MPAA and MIAA screaming all the way from the Netherlands.

there are artists and lables out there speaking up against the RIAA for example Projekt Records founder Sam Rosenthal has said that Napster was one of the best marketing tools ever devised. Artists like Negativland have spoken out on freespeech censorship and copyright issues.
As an artist, my own bands are up on MP3.com fully downloadable and available for purchase if you are so inclined.
say what you will about MP3.com, i can still give away my music to people and you can still download it there.
It is becoming the realm of Indy lables and the old punk DIY ethic that is taking a stand against the RIAA and the recording industry. As an Artist and music lover, I am offended to see bills like This be presented. Support indy lables and bands by buying the cd from them directly - or go see their shows & buy a t-shirt. Most of the artists I know, made more money from their independently produced cds that they are selling than their major label counterparts. if you get bored check out my 2 projects The Winding path and Arriviste if you want to make a diffrence - support artists that are fighting to make a diffrence.
matt

S2048 is not in committee. It got introduced directly into the Senate. Go here for the table of contents for March 21, 2002 of the Senate Congressional Record article57 is statements on introduced legislation & pages S2269, S2270, S2271, and S2272 contain the statements. (dunno if those last 5 links will work - Thomas says they're "temp")

It seems pretty weird to have a hearing about an issue, but no legislation officially introduced (though we can gather Eisner & co had seen the draft), then have the leg. go directly to the main body. Allows speakers to say whatever they want without needing to stick to the intent/result of the pending leg., but the leg. can be tweaked at the last minute to suit public perception. Maybe it's a common occurance, though?

The senate reconvenes April 8th, but the only thing on the agenda is the energy bill. Who knows when this will come up for debate???

S2048 is not in committee. It got introduced directly into the Senate. Go here for the table of contents for March 21, 2002 of the Senate Congressional Record article57 is statements on introduced legislation & pages S2269, S2270, S2271, and S2272 contain the statements. (dunno if those last 5 links will work - Thomas says they're "temp")

It seems pretty weird to have a hearing about an issue, but no legislation officially introduced (though we can gather Eisner & co had seen the draft), then have the leg. go directly to the main body. Allows speakers to say whatever they want without needing to stick to the intent/result of the pending leg., but the leg. can be tweaked at the last minute to suit public perception. Maybe it's a common occurance, though?

The senate reconvenes April 8th, but the only thing on the agenda is the energy bill. Who knows when this will come up for debate???

S2048 is not in committee. It got introduced directly into the Senate. Go here for the table of contents for March 21, 2002 of the Senate Congressional Record article57 is statements on introduced legislation & pages S2269, S2270, S2271, and S2272 contain the statements. (dunno if those last 5 links will work - Thomas says they're "temp")

It seems pretty weird to have a hearing about an issue, but no legislation officially introduced (though we can gather Eisner & co had seen the draft), then have the leg. go directly to the main body. Allows speakers to say whatever they want without needing to stick to the intent/result of the pending leg., but the leg. can be tweaked at the last minute to suit public perception. Maybe it's a common occurance, though?

The senate reconvenes April 8th, but the only thing on the agenda is the energy bill. Who knows when this will come up for debate???

S2048 is not in committee. It got introduced directly into the Senate. Go here for the table of contents for March 21, 2002 of the Senate Congressional Record article57 is statements on introduced legislation & pages S2269, S2270, S2271, and S2272 contain the statements. (dunno if those last 5 links will work - Thomas says they're "temp")

It seems pretty weird to have a hearing about an issue, but no legislation officially introduced (though we can gather Eisner & co had seen the draft), then have the leg. go directly to the main body. Allows speakers to say whatever they want without needing to stick to the intent/result of the pending leg., but the leg. can be tweaked at the last minute to suit public perception. Maybe it's a common occurance, though?

The senate reconvenes April 8th, but the only thing on the agenda is the energy bill. Who knows when this will come up for debate???

S2048 is not in committee. It got introduced directly into the Senate. Go here for the table of contents for March 21, 2002 of the Senate Congressional Record article57 is statements on introduced legislation & pages S2269, S2270, S2271, and S2272 contain the statements. (dunno if those last 5 links will work - Thomas says they're "temp")

It seems pretty weird to have a hearing about an issue, but no legislation officially introduced (though we can gather Eisner & co had seen the draft), then have the leg. go directly to the main body. Allows speakers to say whatever they want without needing to stick to the intent/result of the pending leg., but the leg. can be tweaked at the last minute to suit public perception. Maybe it's a common occurance, though?

The senate reconvenes April 8th, but the only thing on the agenda is the energy bill. Who knows when this will come up for debate???

S2048 is not in committee. It got introduced directly into the Senate. Go here for the table of contents for March 21, 2002 of the Senate Congressional Record article57 is statements on introduced legislation & pages S2269, S2270, S2271, and S2272 contain the statements. (dunno if those last 5 links will work - Thomas says they're "temp")

It seems pretty weird to have a hearing about an issue, but no legislation officially introduced (though we can gather Eisner & co had seen the draft), then have the leg. go directly to the main body. Allows speakers to say whatever they want without needing to stick to the intent/result of the pending leg., but the leg. can be tweaked at the last minute to suit public perception. Maybe it's a common occurance, though?

The senate reconvenes April 8th, but the only thing on the agenda is the energy bill. Who knows when this will come up for debate???

It's odd that there's no reference on their page to the CBDTPA that's been introduced (S.2048). I realize it isn't in their committee (it's now in the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee), but it is still relevant to what they're requesting comments on.

If you're going to comment on the CBDTPA, I strongly suggest you actually read the text. Whining about how it will kill fair use, for example, won't win you any points, since the bill requires that any security measures respect the limits on the copyright owner, including fair use, and explicitly requires that people be able to make recordings for personal home use. You might reasonably object that such a goal is incompatible with all of the other requirements that such a system would have, but don't claim that they haven't considered the consumer at all in this.

I sent in my comments by e-mail; as others have reported, I got it back with a link for re-submitting it using their Web site, which I did. I didn't get any acknowledgement, nor has it been posted to the Web site yet. As at least one comment was posted the day it was written (based on a comment that included the day's date), I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe it was too long, but I didn't get a rejection, either. I don't think it was of lower quality than the comments that I've read so far (and certainly better than some). I updated what I said to reference the CBDTPA instead of the SSSCA and resubmitted it (indicating it was a resubmission), but I still haven't heard anything, and nothing's been added to their Web site since yesterday.

As a side note, they should split up the user comments into a separate page for each day; the current page is over 600K for one week's worth of comments (March 18-March 25, with nothing posted on March 23). For anyone checking to see new comments, it'd save a whole lot of bandwidth and time.

"I want to stress, however, in the strongest terms possible, that the standards agreed to by industry would not be permitted to thwart legitimate consumer copying of programming in the home, for time shifting purposes, for example. Similarly, the technologies and encoding rules would be required to take into account the need to preserve fair use of otherwise protected content, for educational and research purposes for example. Specifically, our bill requires that encoding rules ``take into account limitations on exclusive rights of copyright holders, including the fair use doctrine.'' In addition, the legislation specifies that no copy protection technology may prevent consumers from ``making a personal copy for lawful use in the home'' of non pay-per-view television programming. I want to be clear on this point, no legislation can or should pass Congress in this area that does not seek to protect legitimate consumer copying and fair use practices."

When you actually talk to the Congresscritter make sure to convert S-2K back to S-2048 or they'll be wondering why you're ranting that a bill to amend the IRS code to provide depreciation allowances on certain property is going to kill the technology industry.

Or, "Screwed on Arrival".

Thanks for the insight. As someone who once dealt with record companies as an artist (on a small level at least) I have always known that they are slimy.

Its too bad that things like CARP will destroy the possibility of using the web for alternative distribution channels of "indie" music. I feel like our rights are under attack from so many different angles nowadays that I don't even know how to respond.. * sigh *

By posting source code or a patch to fix security holes he is effectively describing a way to circumvent a security measure. That is to say, while his intent may be to promote the security of the system, by doing so it is also describing a way to exploit the system. And according to the DMCA, it's how it's used that determines whether the developer goes to jail.

In the language of the DMCA, he is offering to the public, providing, or trafficking a technology that circumvents a technological measure that controls access to a work protected under copyright. This is described in Section 1201(a)(2) and it's subsections.

Now wait a second, you're saying, the DMCA covers copyright control mechanisms, not computer security systems. But due to the broad nature of the DMCA, it can also be construed to cover technological measures that protect the integrity and security of computers, computer systems, or computer networks. In fact, some of the authors state this in their committee report in the joint explanatory statement section.

So they adopted section 1201(j) (the so called "good faith" clause) in an attempt to resolve this issue. This section creates an exception for "security testing." But 1201(j) is overly restrictive in it's allowances of exceptions. Section 1201(j)(4) allows an individual to produce the technological means for the sole purpose of security testing. But there are several big problems. For one, they define security testing so that the authorization of the owner or operator of the computer system must be obtained first. It's not clear whether this is the copyright owner of the software, or the person who is operating the system (the "user"). Either way, consent must be granted. A second issue is in section 1201(j)(3), factors determining whether a person qualifies for exemption. One factor is that the information derived from testing was used solely to improve security of the system. A distributor of security solutions cannot guarantee this, it's impossible. I rarely use words like impossible, but when I'm faced with a word like solely, I think it's justified.

Sigh, I think I need to wrap it all up. Ironically Sklyarov is offered more protections in the DMCA than Alan Cox. Under the encryption research section 1201(g), one of the factors for exception is whether the person is engaged in a legitimate course of study, is employed, or is appropiately trained or experienced, in the field of encryption technology. Sklyarov is a PhD student researching cryptanalysis at Moscow University and he's employed in the field of encryption technology. In addition, the information he derived from his research he was disseminating to the broader crypto community, satisfying 1201(g)(3)(A). The fact that the FBI arrested him right after this act is no doubt another example of the sense of humor the universe has.

The analogy given in the committee report in regards to security testing is that of testing of a simple door lock. Well, it's permissible to publish documents on lock picking, yet they just made it illegal to do the same for electronic systems. Source code muddles the line between expression or idea, and product.

And I didn't even get to the good shit. The parts requiring analog device manufacturers to contain copy control technology (1201(k)(1)(A)). Or the part exempting broadcasters or cable systems (or their feeds) from the laws regarding removal or alteration of copyright management information, if it would cause them "undue financial hardship." (1202(e)(1)(A))

It's a complex issue, perhaps what is needed is a simple law.

Josh

By posting source code or a patch to fix security holes he is effectively describing a way to circumvent a security measure. That is to say, while his intent may be to promote the security of the system, by doing so it is also describing a way to exploit the system. And according to the DMCA, it's how it's used that determines whether the developer goes to jail.

In the language of the DMCA, he is offering to the public, providing, or trafficking a technology that circumvents a technological measure that controls access to a work protected under copyright. This is described in Section 1201(a)(2) and it's subsections.

Now wait a second, you're saying, the DMCA covers copyright control mechanisms, not computer security systems. But due to the broad nature of the DMCA, it can also be construed to cover technological measures that protect the integrity and security of computers, computer systems, or computer networks. In fact, some of the authors state this in their committee report in the joint explanatory statement section.

So they adopted section 1201(j) (the so called "good faith" clause) in an attempt to resolve this issue. This section creates an exception for "security testing." But 1201(j) is overly restrictive in it's allowances of exceptions. Section 1201(j)(4) allows an individual to produce the technological means for the sole purpose of security testing. But there are several big problems. For one, they define security testing so that the authorization of the owner or operator of the computer system must be obtained first. It's not clear whether this is the copyright owner of the software, or the person who is operating the system (the "user"). Either way, consent must be granted. A second issue is in section 1201(j)(3), factors determining whether a person qualifies for exemption. One factor is that the information derived from testing was used solely to improve security of the system. A distributor of security solutions cannot guarantee this, it's impossible. I rarely use words like impossible, but when I'm faced with a word like solely, I think it's justified.

Sigh, I think I need to wrap it all up. Ironically Sklyarov is offered more protections in the DMCA than Alan Cox. Under the encryption research section 1201(g), one of the factors for exception is whether the person is engaged in a legitimate course of study, is employed, or is appropiately trained or experienced, in the field of encryption technology. Sklyarov is a PhD student researching cryptanalysis at Moscow University and he's employed in the field of encryption technology. In addition, the information he derived from his research he was disseminating to the broader crypto community, satisfying 1201(g)(3)(A). The fact that the FBI arrested him right after this act is no doubt another example of the sense of humor the universe has.

The analogy given in the committee report in regards to security testing is that of testing of a simple door lock. Well, it's permissible to publish documents on lock picking, yet they just made it illegal to do the same for electronic systems. Source code muddles the line between expression or idea, and product.

And I didn't even get to the good shit. The parts requiring analog device manufacturers to contain copy control technology (1201(k)(1)(A)). Or the part exempting broadcasters or cable systems (or their feeds) from the laws regarding removal or alteration of copyright management information, if it would cause them "undue financial hardship." (1202(e)(1)(A))

It's a complex issue, perhaps what is needed is a simple law.

Josh

TITLE 17
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

Personally, as a Finn, I would never consider moving to a place where

• over 20% of adults are having trouble reading
• corporate interests result in laws like the DMCA
• the foreign policy threatens the safety of the entire world
• etc...

Well, to each his own, I guess.

PS. The $42000 speeding fines were recently dropped to about $5000 in court.. ;-)

• An Idea - Programming is a creative process. You can fight me on this one if you want, but the programmer(s) have to come up with the heuristics/algorithms for dealing with a problem/situation before they can write the code that accomplishes their goal.
• Source Code - A syntactically-structured organization of text that carries semantic meaning based on the grammar of the language it was written in. The syntax and semantics of any programming language can change over time (K&R vs. Traditional vs. ANSI C, for example), and old programs won't necessarily work without a compiler designed for the syntax/semantics of the time the program was originally written in.
• Object code - A sequence of zero's and one's that describe a manipulation of electron flows through the CPU of a specific computer architecture.

IANAL, but with the way the American legal system is in place now, this is what seems to be the digs. Source code is copyrighted - algorithms can be patented. Object code can be neither.

Source code is a personal interpretation of an algorithm - a description in a particular language of a method for manipulatig anabstract quantification of a problem. That it happens to be realized on a computer is irrelevant - if a group of children understand the syntactic structure and semantic content of C++, you can write a parallel quicksort algorithm on a chalkboard, give them each cards with numbers on them, and have them quicksort the numbers. Source code is not a method - it is a description of a method. For all intents and purposes, it is a literary work, at least according to the U.S. Copyright office.

Algorithms are methods - the RSA cryptographic protocol and the Lempel-Ziv compression/decompression algorithm are methods. They were patented, and the patent for RSA expired (Lempel-Ziv compression is still patented, AFAIK).

If I take some source code, change all the while loops to for loops, change all the variable names to arbitrarily-assigned integers, and add an instruction to "do nothing for 5 minutes" between each basic block of actions, have I fundamentally altered your method? No. Your source code? Yes. Your resulting time/space complexity? Probably. This is why a "clean-room" implementation of existing code doesn't violate copyright. Person A didn't see Person B's code - if neither of their code looks the same, and each accomplishes the same result, how can you prove that A copied B's, or vice-versa? A similar argument follows for object code.

As for the moderators to this post, you should be able to recognize someone puffing up his/her ego by sacrificing accuracy. It certainly does not warrant the scores I'm seeing.

For those who actually want to learn more about copyrights, fair use, and how they apply to you, start your research at the Stanford Fair Use website. The next logical step for US citizens would be to visit the US Library of Congress site on copyrights. Good luck!

Yeah, I mean, bipartisanship stopped the Tauzin-Dingell "Internet De-regulatory" bill from being passed.

Oh wait. It didn't. Friggin' hope the Senate kills that bill.

to the bill at all at the congress website. What is the deal, do they really not want us to know about what is going on? I'd love to jump on the phone with my state reps and chew their ear about why this is bad, but I'd like to have some legs to stand on with them. They really don't care to hear about 'some bill called the SSSCA' which I can't even give a bill number for.

Guess what. In this day and age you don't have to guess about things. You can look it up. Here is the link to US Copyright Office (part of Library of Congress). Here is a summary of the pertinent info:

Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author

When the hell was this done, and by whom?

Last week, by The US Copyright Office.

Nice to read a high modded comment with some actual intelligence behind it!
For the record, here is the part about 100% of lines being DSL capable within 5 years. And here is the part protecting unbundling and choice of ISPs.

Cheers,
BKR

Nice to read a high modded comment with some actual intelligence behind it!
For the record, here is the part about 100% of lines being DSL capable within 5 years. And here is the part protecting unbundling and choice of ISPs.

Cheers,
BKR

Stop screaming the Slashdot line, read the bill, and you'll find out that you're bitching about a bill that does what you're asking for, Slashbot.

Stop screaming the Slashdot line, read the bill, and you'll find out that you're bitching about a bill that does what you're asking for, Slashbot.

I know the Slashbots would have you believe this is terrible, but it's actually a good thing for consumers. It's similar to the way long distance was rolled out-- by government mandate. And if it makes you feel any better, Qwest will hate this more than you. They're going to have to shell out major $$$ for the equipment to do this.

But it also requires the ILECs to provide broadband access on 100% of all lines within 5 years. Reference the text of the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:2:./tem p/~c10702RoqH:e24518:
Doubtful that the competetive DSL providers would've done that.

This is more similar to the way long distance was rolled out that anything else.

Frankly, the ILECs will hate this. Rolling out DSL to all their COs will cost major bucks. But it worked for long distance.

This is more similar to the way long distance was rolled out that anything else. Frankly, the ILECs will hate this. Rolling out DSL to all their COs will cost major bucks. But it worked for long distance.

• `(a) DEPLOYMENT REQUIRED- Each Bell operating company and its affiliates shall deploy high speed data services in each State in which such company or affiliate is an incumbent local exchange carrier (as such term is defined in section 251(h)) in accordance with the requirements of this section.

• `(A) Within one year after the date of enactment of this section, such company or affiliate shall attain high speed data capability in not less than 20 percent of such central offices in such State.
  `(B) Within 2 years after the date of enactment of this section, such company or affiliate shall attain high speed data capability in not less than 40 percent of such central offices in such State.
  `(C) Within 3 years after the date of enactment of this section, such company or affiliate shall attain high speed data capability in not less than 70 percent of such central offices in such State.
  `(D) Within 5 years after the date of enactment of this section, such company or affiliate shall attain high speed data capability in not less than 100 percent of such central offices in such State.
  

• Before calling, read the bill (or at least the CRS summary - see below) and know if the Congressman is sponsoring the bill.
• Staff members use Thomas, a database by the Congressional Research Service, to find out what the bill actually does. Pick a few specific points from the summary (H.R. 1542 summary) that you have a problem with; be informative and able explain why the bill will harm the Congressman's constituents.
• Call the DC office, not the district office. Make sure the caller id information shows an area code that is in the Congressman's district.
• When calling, be polite and friendly. Ask to speak to the staff member that is working on the Tauzin-Dingell Broadband Deployment Act. It will probably be the staffer that works with technology or communications. Do not just start talking about the bill to whoever answers the phone, he or she is probably not the one with the answers.
• Be short and to the point. Don't expect any direct answers to questions if the answers are likely to conflict with your opinions.
• If your Congressman is one of the 112 co-sponsors of the bill, ask why. Politely.
• No matter what the outcome of the call, thank the staff member for his or her time.

• Before calling, read the bill (or at least the CRS summary - see below) and know if the Congressman is sponsoring the bill.
• Staff members use Thomas, a database by the Congressional Research Service, to find out what the bill actually does. Pick a few specific points from the summary (H.R. 1542 summary) that you have a problem with; be informative and able explain why the bill will harm the Congressman's constituents.
• Call the DC office, not the district office. Make sure the caller id information shows an area code that is in the Congressman's district.
• When calling, be polite and friendly. Ask to speak to the staff member that is working on the Tauzin-Dingell Broadband Deployment Act. It will probably be the staffer that works with technology or communications. Do not just start talking about the bill to whoever answers the phone, he or she is probably not the one with the answers.
• Be short and to the point. Don't expect any direct answers to questions if the answers are likely to conflict with your opinions.
• If your Congressman is one of the 112 co-sponsors of the bill, ask why. Politely.
• No matter what the outcome of the call, thank the staff member for his or her time.

[T]he law would have to be interpreted, as it's always been vague about derivative works. Based upon everything I've heard (from real, living lawyers) doing something like this for fun and COMPLETELY -not for profit- is totally legal.

"
The Library's mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations."

I can see the fiscal reasons for not archiving software, but perhaps its time for the library to address these issues. If a case were made for the benefit of Congressmen and Congresswomen, then I think it would be hard for big business to lobby against it.

Am I missing something? I don't recall any "two legitimate uses" clause in the DMCA.

Does anyone know what they're referring to? And, if this "two use" exception exists, was it brought up during the DeCSS proceedings?

-Rene Ruiz

Found this in the full Copyright Office notice:

In support of its request for the detailed information, RIAA argues that the information it seeks from the Services is ``easily provided, [] not burdensome, and in fact, is currently provided by a number of licensees who have obtained licenses through negotiations with the RIAA and/or Sound Exchange.'' RIAA Petition at 10-11. RIAA further justifies the need for the additional reporting requirements on the basis of differences in statutory requirements for the different licenses and on the basis of the different business models used within the different categories of Services. RIAA petition at 9. Other interested parties, however, may find the requirements too stringent and burdensome in spite of RIAA's assertions. Such parties should identify any problems they perceive with the proposed regulations and explain with specificity the reasons why the regulations are unworkable or unduly burdensome, or exceed the needs of the copyright owners.

So...all you interested parties, identify those problems and explain with specificity! This doesn't sound like a set-in-stone deal. Yet.

To whom should these comments be sent?

ADDRESSES: An original and ten copies of any comment shall be delivered to: Office of the General Counsel, Copyright Office, James Madison Building, Room LM-403, First and Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, DC; or mailed to: Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP), P.O. Box 70977, Southwest Station, Washington, DC 20024-0977.

By when should these comments be received?

DATES: Comments are due by March 11, 2002. Reply comments are due by April 8, 2002.

Have at 'em. Please, please, PLEASE don't just bitch about this here on Slashdot. Me, I don't run a streaming server. I don't know the technical ins and outs of what it takes. I do, however, watch and listen to the DNA Lounge's webcasts with regularity. A lot of the posts here sound like they're written by people with more than half a clue, and if their knowledge can keep the Bastards from shutting this and other broadcasts down, eleven printed copies of nearly exactly what was written here sent to the above address will be very powerful pieces of paper, indeed.

I'm no lawyer, but this sounds like pure bullshit to me.

It's common practice for corporate lawyers to send vague threatening (but totally unfounded) e-mails to people when they don't like what they're doing, even if they have no intention to fight a losing legal battle.

Here's why I think this is stupid:

- The anti-circumvention clause deals with access to a copyrighted work. There doesn't appear to be a copyrighted work in question here.

- There is an explicit exception for reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability, with a sentence like, "... to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs." Which seems to be almost precisely what they are doing.

FYI, the text of the DMCA is here: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap12.html .

Even if you can't afford a lawsuit, please guys, make it expensive (in some sense) for corporations to make these kinds of threats. That can mean fighting back a little and racking up legal fees, that can mean spreading the word on fansites and such and causing an *increase* in popularity (when what they want to do of course is to stifle the project). It can mean starting up your own similar project and making them have to track you down and threaten you, too.

Personally, I've had a couple of these run-ins myself. For the first one, I got help from the FSF and the lawyers finally backed off. Most recently, I had a run in with some type foundries over my program "embed" ( http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~twm/embed/ ); simply letting the lawyer know that I wasn't willing to back down without a fight convinced them to give up.

A "computer program" is a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result.

FYI: This is the section of the DMCA sited in the letter.

1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems...

...b) Additional Violations.

(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product,
service, device, component, or part thereof, that-

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.

(2) As used in this subsection-

(A) to "circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure" means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure; and

(B) a technological measure "effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.
ORIGIONAL TEXT HERE.

Um, have you actually tried searching the LoC recently? It's there. Or rather, its here.

I remember that some foreign works, which fell into the public domain due to technical reasons, were returned to full copyright by one act (Interestingly enough, I believe that included the Lord of the Rings.) That was years ago, though.

The last extension did not remove stuff from the public domain. (See the law itself. It has three sections: Copyrights for stuff after 1977, stuff that was created but not published befor 1977, and "subsisting copyrights") When they say that it was retroactive, they mean it extended the copyright term even for books published before the law was passed, not that it put stuff in the public domain under copyright.

20 year old doctoral thesis which have never been read still maintain LC call numbers. The book in question was issued a LC Call Number E183.8.N5C63 and ISBN # 0-87113-169-2. Last time I went to loc.gov to look for it, it was not there.I think the absence of the title from the Library of Congress is highly suspicious.

This is not my paranoia, this is the single most believable conspiratorial evidence I ever saw after working at Disinfo for almost 2 years. I've seen all the crazy and stupid stuff, I have waded thru the crackpots, and I'm pointing out information which may have been erased by the Federal government. I do not want this to be true, and I am not enough of an expert to declare that I have uncovered the truth. Unfortunately, obviously you are not either :)

Please try again.

Here is the spooky part:

There was one title (Cockburn, Leslie. Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration's Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Arms Pipeline, and the Contra Drug Connection. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987) cited here, which I could find very little proof of ever existing. All the retail sites provided no records. The Library of Congress gave me no results. Other than the link I placed above, it is very difficult to prove this book was ever printed.

The only proof I could find was at eBay of all places. I have a hard copy of the book, which I bought for $3.95. The book does indeed have an ISBN number and Library of Congress call number.

Is there any possible reason for the lack of records regarding the publication of this book other than cover-up, censorship, book-banning, and historical whitewashing?

Please disprove this conspiracy theory.

Claiming ownership is common practice with some of the more obnoxious sites. See, for example, AudioWeb's terms of service, which include "Content you post to AudioWeb becomes the sole property of AudioWeb."

If you have code on SourceForge, it would be a good idea to register copyright, so as to make an explicit claim of ownership prior to any further changes at SourceForge.

If the original poster works like most contract programmers do, he's almost certainly an employee for the purposes of determining whether or not his code belongs to his client as work made for hire. See this circular from the Copyright Office.

The Associated Press reports that "U.S. companies and other groups applied for 342,035 H-1B work visas in 2001, up 14 percent from 2000, before the economy tumbled.", "The number accepted also rose by 40 percent..." and "About half ... are for computer related jobs." The article cites research by UC Davis Professor Norman Matloff saying that "wages of computer programmers and engineers working in the U.S. on the visas are 15 percent to 33 percent lower than those of U.S. citizens".

Mark Shevitz of VisaNow is quoted as saying, "I think it surprised everyone. All that you hear about in the media is these huge layoffs and the tech industry is just shedding workers."

Finally, the article reports "Bay Area companies Oracle, Cisco Systems, Intel and Sun Microsystems were among the top users of the program in 2000, as were universities such as Harvard and Yale. The INS did not have numbers available on how many applications the companies filed last year amid layoffs.

----

BTW: It is illegal to use the H-1B program to lower wages from the rates prevailing in the absence of the program.

Here's information posted by an anti-H-!B activist at another site:

Additional information provided by an h1b activist (although I encourage people to avoid political action, there are far more effective things they can do with technology to deconstruct the edifice that did this to us because it is, after all, in existence because of technologists -- the real ones, not the Wired magazine ones):

80% of the US public opposed H1-B expansion. Part of what makes the bill increasing H1-B Visas so unusual is that it was so unpopular and was passed with very, very little debate.

Zazona is the most comprehensive site on the H1-B issue. Corrective legislation is now in a US congressional Committee. The philosophy of HR 3222 has been supported by a diverse group that includes Buchanan Supporters, Nader Supporters, and the National Urban League. HR 3222 is a compromise-it roles the level of new H1-B Visas back to 1998 levels and puts in place an unemployment adjustment mechanism.

H1-B Visa expansion was advocated by the ITAA. Organized opposition to H1-B includes:the AEA and the Programmers Guild.

You can Look at H1-B applications by company,state,city. You can write your Congressional representatives if you have a problem with the current H1-B situation. You can also write your state representatives. The only aspect of the H1-B issue that is in state jurisdiction is use of H1-B labor at state institutions. However, state representatives are influential in their parties-if your state representative writes a letter to congress it could mean a lot.

USPTO = US Patent and Trademark office. Where do you see anything about *copyright*. Last I checked the US Copyright Office was a part of the Library of Congress

Don't you people know you people know the difference between patents, trademarks, and copyrights?

Patents: More or less a government enforced monopoly on the marketing of a unique idea or invention. The general idea is that, let the inventor make some money off of it, then once the patent expires, it becomes free for anybody to use the idea.

Copyright: Covers the publication or copying of materials, such as printed media, sound recordings, works of art, etc.

Trademark: This is protection of something such as a logo or a name that is unique in the owners field of business. Consider that nobody could use the slashdot name or the likeness of the slashdot logo in association with an online message board, as there is a trademark on it.

Now, that doesn't seem so damn complex does it???

USPTO = US Patent and Trademark office. Where do you see anything about *copyright*. Last I checked the US Copyright Office was a part of the Library of Congress

Don't you people know you people know the difference between patents, trademarks, and copyrights?

Patents: More or less a government enforced monopoly on the marketing of a unique idea or invention. The general idea is that, let the inventor make some money off of it, then once the patent expires, it becomes free for anybody to use the idea.

Copyright: Covers the publication or copying of materials, such as printed media, sound recordings, works of art, etc.

Trademark: This is protection of something such as a logo or a name that is unique in the owners field of business. Consider that nobody could use the slashdot name or the likeness of the slashdot logo in association with an online message board, as there is a trademark on it.

Now, that doesn't seem so damn complex does it???

I would bet that Macrovision's 98+ patents preclude anyone from coming up with a similar scheme of copy protection. Lovely how that works out where your monopoly is codified in federal law.