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Does this mean that my backups to Barracuda Networks cloud service are no longer mine? This would kill cloud services.

You should probably give a heads up to Barracuda then. If they have lawyers on staff, they may want to submit an Amicus Brief.

Even if the brief is not successful, and even the cloud markets' growth gets stunted, many of the remaining customers will naturally gravitate towards a cloud hosting provider that has the reputation of championing their customers' rights.

After all, cloud service is just a fancy term for describing (distributed) shared hosting, and nobody wants to get penalized for the actions of someone else who happens to share the same shared host as they do.

"We are being asked to change our morality and principals to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.'" If I read it correctly, according to page 20 this well citation-ed paper music was not copyrighted for most of human history. http://www.rbs2.com/copyrm.pdf

So you submit that ethics are unethical? You would go back to things like Tuskegee syphilis experiment, INjecting people with cancer cells, or any of the other myriad horrors done in the name of science?

Here's an idea -- how about we use you as an experimental subject? I'm sure we can think of some horribly unethical things we could do to you.

So you submit that ethics are unethical? You would go back to things like Tuskegee syphilis experiment, INjecting people with cancer cells, or any of the other myriad horrors done in the name of science?

Here's an idea -- how about we use you as an experimental subject? I'm sure we can think of some horribly unethical things we could do to you.

Again you are mistaken. Copyright infringement is a civil matter and is why the plaintiff is a private person or organization instead of the government or "The people". There are many federal laws that cover civil matters, it's not a new concept. Here is a link that better goes into the differences.

As for your delivery, pull the stick out of your ass, being told you are wrong isn't the end of the world, welcome to the internet.

I didn't say it wasn't illegal, I said it wasn't a crime. Copyright infringement for no financial gain (by which I mean, not selling the copied works) is part of the civil law, as opposed to the criminal law.

When a crime is committed, the government files a litigation to stop and punish you, usually by imprisonment or even death. In a civil matter, what happens is that someone files a lawsuit against you to reclaim monetary damages - you're never going to jail for a civil suit.

The distinction is important, especially in countries of the Common Law like the US:
http://www.rbs2.com/cc.htm

Prosser, in both his article and in the Restatement (Second) of Torts at 652A-652I, classifies four basic kinds of privacy rights:

      1. unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another, for example, physical invasion of a person's home (e.g., unwanted entry, looking into windows with binoculars or camera, tapping telephone), searching wallet or purse, repeated and persistent telephone calls, obtaining financial data (e.g., bank balance) without person's consent, etc.

http://www.rbs2.com/privacy.htm

$54k is CERTAINLY excessive. As is $25k. This is not a criminal case. The payment is not a fine to discourage crime, it's a payment to cover the damages. She shared 24 songs. At $54k, that's more than $2k per song. And when you can buy those songs for $1 each, that's saying that she was personally and directly responsible for 2,000 people not buying each one of those songs. How is that in any way even possible? A single person sharing a single song will NEVER be directly responsible for _thousands_ of lost sales. It just doesn't work that way. And the RIAA has certainly not proven such a loss. And again, this is a civil case. The fine is not a punishment or deterrent, it is pure and simple restitution.

For a reference:
http://www.rbs2.com/cc.htm#anchor111111
"In general, a losing defendant in civil litigation only reimburses the plaintiff for losses caused by the defendant's behavior."

True enough for criminal cases such as car theft. For civil issues such as copyright infringement "punishment" has traditionally been refered to as damages, and it is only enough to compensate the party whos rights have been infringed.

http://www.rbs2.com/cc.htm

"In a civil case under tort law, there is a possibility of punitive damages, if the defendant's conduct is egregious and had either (1) a malicious intent (i.e., desire to cause harm), (2) gross negligence (i.e., conscious indifference), or (3) a willful disregard for the rights of others. The use of punitive damages makes a public example of the defendant and supposedly deters future wrongful conduct by others. Punitive damages are particularly important in torts involving dignitary harms (e.g., invasion of privacy) and civil rights, where the actual monetary injury to plaintiff(s) may be small. " Stolen from: http://www.rbs2.com/cc.htm

"The burden of proof is on you to back up your bullshit, and I'm a calling you on it. Quote some laws here, if you can."

I'll do you one better:

I'll point you at a book on the matter:

http://www.amazon.com/Netlaw-Your-Rights-Online-World/dp/0078820774

And I'll quote from here:

http://www.rbs2.com/email.htm

The executive summary of what I've been talking about and what you've been talking out your ass about:

"Reading e-mail that is stored on a computer is not an "interception" under 18 U.S.C. 2510, et seq., because an interception must be contemporaneous with the transmission of the message between different locations. Steve Jackson Games v. U.S. Secret Service, 816 F.Supp. 432, 442 (W.D.Tex. 1993), aff'd, 36 F.3d 457, 460 (5thCir. 1994). This holding has been accepted in several subsequent cases, including Wesley College v. Pitts, 974 F.Supp. 375, 384-390 (D.Del. 1997); U.S. v. Moriarty, 962 F.Supp. 217, 221 (D.Mass. 1997); Bohach v. City of Reno, 932 F.Supp. 1232, 1235-36 (D.Nev. 1996)."

--
BMO - Not a lawyer, but dammit I can read for myself.

And there is no double jeopardy rules in civil cases.

This is what scares me about civil law. We set up a government with limited powers for a good reason, and then we go and create a whole separate branch of law that isn't subject to those limitations. The standard of proof is different. You're not protected against double jeopardy. You're not protected against self incrimination. There's no protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, or ex post facto laws. You're not entitled to an attorney.

Despite the lack of all these protections, civil cases are decided according to the law, and their decisions carry the full force of law. The potential for abuse is absolutely staggering. In any sane country there would be only one body of law, and the protections listed above would always apply.

It seems that the government does a fantastic job of eventually telling on itself. There is really no reason to not trust what they have said on this issue.

BS! The US government has a history of doing horrible things, some of which have taken many years before coming out. For instance did you know that it was government policy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to forcibly Native American Indian women? This went on for many years. Or that the military used Blacks to do medical experiments on diseases like syphilis in Tuskegee which lasted 40 years, and only ended when it came to light what was being done? Not only that but Bush reclassified a lot of documents Clinton released, and you really believe everyone will find out what the Bush admin does?

In criminal law, it is always the government that is taking up litigation against the other party. In civil law, it is another private individual or corporation that starts the litigation process. Intellectual property (patents/copyright) violations are an example of the latter.

Difference between civil and criminal law.

Technically, they might be able to argue that placing music on a publicly accessible computer without purchasing a Copyright Music License from the Performing Right Society amounts to a criminal act.

Playing of recorded music or radio / tv
4 Any business (or individual) which plays music in public must obtain a Copyright Music Licence from the Performing Right Society. This applies to all businesses from Hotels and Clubs to corner shops or hairdressers. Anywhere music is reproduced in public a Licence must be purchased under the Copyright Act of 1911. `Public also includes staff members over five in number, eg kitchens, workshops. For more information see: www.prs.co.uk/musiclicence/

Here is something describing criminal and civil law, in the USA though the definition is probably universal:

http://www.rbs2.com/cc.htm

I am not an American but I always assumed dumpster diving was legal as long as you weren't going onto private property (such as jumping a fence).

A quick search pulls up:

Almost every human activity ultimately manifests itself in waste products and ... any individual may understandably wish to maintain the confidentiality of his refuse. State v. Smith, 510 P.2d 793, 798 (Alaska 1973) (nonetheless holding that police could search garbage without warrant).

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the police may legally search, without a search warrant, trash or garbage that individuals put out for collection. California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988). Read the case here.

The argument has been made that garbage from different residences is "promptly intermingled with other garbage in the truck such that its origin can no longer be identified." California v. Rooney, 483 U.S. 307, 322 (1987) (White, J., citing respondent's argument).

An interesting read here for those so inclined.

Suggestion: wrongful termination

Or try "employment lawyer." Beware: the US is largely employment-at-will. So, unless you're a minority, pregnant/a woman, handicapped, over 50, or in the military...you're pretty much screwed.

Shame, as it wasn't always that way, and the US is one of the few places where at-will employment is the norm.

Suggestion: wrongful termination

Or try "employment lawyer." Beware: the US is largely employment-at-will. So, unless you're a minority, pregnant/a woman, handicapped, over 50, or in the military...you're pretty much screwed.

Shame, as it wasn't always that way, and the US is one of the few places where at-will employment is the norm.

Sigh.

Differences between Civil and Criminal Law in the USA

How about: how does this bypass the Berne Copyright Convention?

It doesn't, nor does it bypass any national copyright law either. It's a service to deliver bits of information to a recipient without painting the sender's address all over the place, much like the U. S. Mail is a service to deliver atoms of matter to a recipient without painting the sender's address all over the place.

There is nothing in the Berne Copyright Convention requiring telecom carriers or mail delivery services to maintain logs of senders for the purpose of identifying those who distribute stuff potentially infringing someone's moral or financial rights. It's the obligation of the sender, not of the delivery agent, to make sure that the stuff being sent is in compliance with the law, copyright or other restrictions.

Sweden is a signatory. I know that most countries don't completely abide by all their treaties, Sweden seems to be the biggest violator of Berne in the developed world.

Can you back that statement up with some evidence? I believe our copyright legislation is quite in line with Berne, and I'm not aware of WIPO having any complaints about our way of enforcing it. The fact that the MPAA may be unhappy with the outcome of a number of lawsuits brought to court in Sweden does not make a treaty violation.

What about the appearant lack of moral rights of authors in the USA? As the author of that article points out, moral rights are specifically included in the Berne Convention, but there are doubts about how well these are protected under United States law. Of course, as those trying to defend their moral rights are seldom supported by big pockets of money, disputes like these are unlikely to result in international treaty reconsiderations.

You mean like aids testing on orphans or nonconsentual syphilis, cancer and hepatitis tests on people who were not even informed of the test or radiation testing on retarded children?

Regarding your points

* Companies can't "forbid" fraternization. What they can do is decide they will no longer employ you should you fraternize. You retain your Constitutional rights to sleep with the blonde in the next cubicle. But there is no Constitutional right to work for Company X.

* At-will Clauses are, generally speaking, legal. It is entirely possible for your employer to announce to out of the blue that your services will no longer be required. However, if you are a member of a protected class (disabled, minority, over 40, etc.) or you were fired for performing an act permissible as a matter of public policy (attending a political rally, filing a worker's comp claim), you may have grounds to challenge the termination. But every state has different laws in this respect. I suppose it's possible, even, that some courts have deemed anti-fraternization rules as against public policy.

The only problem is, Delta Airlines wasn't the first to register delta.com.

So would you have a problem with 'medical research programs' killing houndreds of blacks and countless others like mental patients, prisoners, soldiers?

Copyright infringement is a tort.

I had never heard of the concept of "at-will" employment (I'm Canadian) before you mentioned it, and having looked it up, I'm amazed that the U.S. has such a thing:

History of At-Will Employment Law in the USA

From the above site:
"... the USA is alone among the industrialized nations of the world in providing no protection against wrongful termination of employment."

This is just a variation on the heckler's veto argument. It's disappointing that it seems to work so well.

That's not necessarily true either - there has to be willful intent:

The Supreme Court recognized "the venerable principle that ignorance of the law generally is no defense to a criminal charge" in Ratzlaf v. United States. 2 Nevertheless, it held that in 31 U.S.C. S 5322, applicable to structuring financial trans- actions to avoid federal reporting requirements, Congress decreed otherwise and required proof that the defendant knew the structuring was illegal.

A related concept in law is "wilful blindness": the criminal defendant who should have known, and could have asked, but deliberately chose not to ask. The law regards "wilful blindness" as equivalent to knowledge. U.S. v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697, 700-701 (9th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 951 (1976). Cited with approval in U.S. v. Lara-Velasquez, 919 F.2d. 946, 950-951 (5th Cir. 1990).

Generally, ignorance or mistake of law is no excuse: i.e., it is no defense to the commission of a crime that the defendant was unaware that the acts were prohibited by the criminal law or that defendant mistakenly believed that the acts were not prohibited. The exceptions are: (1) Reliance upon statute later held unconstitutional; (2) Reliance upon judicial decision; (3) Reliance upon official interpretation. Sometimes, the mens rea aspect of a particular crime requires a certain belief concerning a legal matter. In such cases, if the defendant was ignorant or mistaken as to the legal matter, the prosecution may be unable to establish the mens rea required for liability and no conviction can be obtained.

etc, etc.

You want trade secret law, not copyright law.

For example, I might deem that the creation is so horrible (since I didn't put hard work into it) that if I were to release it, it would harm my reputation as a programmer (or writer, filmmaker, etc). Thus I have the right to keep a lid on it as long as I want.

U.S. law does not provide "moral rights" protection.

Civil tort, actually.

I was angry when I wrote that. Said something dumb.

check this out, it provides some good info

The rights to not have your work butchered and presented as your own or misrepresented as someone else's are protected even if you assign the copyright... at least that's the case in Canada.

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#rid-3 9073

I'm not sure about the U.S... A quick Google turns up stuff which makes me wonder if the U.S. is screwed up in this regard:

http://www.rbs2.com/moral.htm

As seen above, courts in the USA occasionally recognize rights equivalent to some moral rights of authors, and grant relief to an author. However courts in the USA have consistently avoided or condemned the concept of moral rights of authors, as demonstrated by the following quotations.[emphasis mine]

It proves the concept exists.

You used the term, you define what you meant by it.

The "I'm feeling lucky" one seems a good place to start: Moral Rights of Authors in USA. I could summarise it, but why should I -- read it yourself.

Forget the rights of the original creator.

I think what you're describing are refered to as 'moral rights', and apparently they exist in law in many countries, but not the US. Although, as the Findlaw article brings up, there are laws that prevent someone's name being attached to a work they did not create, and Clean Flicks might be crossing the line there.

--
Benjamin Coates

I hope you realize that merely pressing the power button of a modern PC or monitor does not turn it off, but merely put it to sleep. They still draw power, but the fans stop spinning. And a fan that doesn't spin, moves none of the air that the components (which are still quite capable of generating heat) require for cooling.

I was asleep, one night, with my ISP's newly-built DNS server sleeping (ie: in the ATX soft-off state, with the power cord still plugged in) on the floor beside the bed. When I woke up some hours later, it was puking blue smoke from its power supply. Everything survived, except the smouldering PSU, and the box still serves queries (with killer uptimes).

I've never had a computer catch fire while it was operating, however. Thus, my tendancy is to leaving everything running at all times, for fire prevention. ;)

On a more serious note, uou should just fucking unplug everything when you're done with it. And don't just plug everything into a power strip and use that as a master switch: I mean, unplug it -all-. Surge protectors are fire hazards, by themselves.

Don't forget to unplug any electronic lighting controls (yes, even the nice Leviton controls in the CEO's office need unwired daily), security lights (can we say superheated, over-charged gel cell batteries?), and pencil sharpeners (the electric motor uses coils, just like a heating element), as well. Oh, and your cell phone charger - do you know that the battery could EXPLODE if the charger were to fail? And none of this is to mention what would happen if, say, a loose connection on a ventillation fan were to arc and start flaming insulation inside a ceiling somewhere, where it'd likely burn for quite awhile before someone noticed.

And be sure to disconnect any telephones, and networking equipmen, and anything else which is connected to something else with copper.

In fact, now that I think about it a bit, it seems that the only way to prevent electrical fire disasters is to unplug the building, and throw the cables across to the other side of the street.

Better do the same with the gas, too. Just to be safe.

And make sure that all company vehicles have their batteries disconnected after use, and are parked off-site. There's always that non-zero chance that the radio will figure out a way to make fireworks from the tiny amount of current used to keep the clock on time.

I pity the first-shift people who have to bundle up extra warm in January while they wait for the building to re-heat after plugging it back in every morning, and especially those who get to put the cars back together every day, but I'm sure that they realize that it's all For The Good of The Company.

Huhh? What laws in other countries does this reference? What's this "moral right"?

• The right of integrity
  
• The right of attribution
  
• The right of disclosure
  
• The right to withdraw or retract
  
• The right to reply to criticism
  

Posted by Michael Fraase, 3/23/02 at 9:54:46 PM.

When elephants dance, its best to get out of the way. Thats exactly whats happening now as the entertainment industrythe recording, publishing, and motion picture industries, mainlyattempts a worldwide intellectual property power grab with two distinct targets. Think of it: a coup and a lock on all published content in the same year, amazing isnt it?

Target number 1 is the average customer: anyone who purchases software, an audio CD, an electronic book, or a movie on DVD. The entertainment industry sees customers as pirates, plain and simple. In their collective minds eye, we all have a wooden leg, eye patch, and a filthy talking parrot on our shoulder. While the Constitution grants customers certain rights with regard to copyrighted material, the entertainment industry very much wants to separate us from those rights.

Target number 2 in the sights of the entertainment industry are technology behemoths like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and Apple. These companies, in the perverse worldview of the entertainment industry, make the toolscomputers mostlythat allow customers to practice their piracy.

Let me point out that I am a copyright owner, as is everyone else who has ever created a work in tangible form. Thats all authors, for short. Authors are almost never members of the entertainment industry club. The entertainment industry hates authors almost as much as they hate customers. Sometimes, especially when authors get uppity, the entertainment industry hates authors much more than customers. Until recently, authors have always been seen to be at least a marginal threat while customers were seen as merely necessary annoyances.

To complicate matters by at least an order of magnitude, the consumer electronics manufacturersthe companies that make stereos, VCRs, and DVD playershave aligned with the entertainment industry. At least some of them, and at least to some extent.

Unfortunately for usboth authors and customerswere likely to get squished as these elephants dance. The intent of the entertainment industry, believe it or not, is to outlaw personal computers. As security and cryptography expert Bruce Schneier explains it to Mike Godwin: If you think about it, the entertainment industry does not want people to have computers; theyre too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc.

Copy-protected CDs

The recording industry is selling shiny plastic discs that contain music that cant be copied to or even played on some customers equipment. Philips, the owner of the CD format says these discs cannot be called CDs because they do not meet the standard of what a CD is. Sony, one of those weird hybrid companies that, as a member in good standing of both the technology and entertainment industries, finds itself on both sides of this issue says it cant guarantee the audio quality of these discs. The technology used to protect these discs sometimes prevents the discs from playing on computer CD-ROM drives, DVD players, and other devices specifically designed to play standard audio CDs.

Sales of recorded music are down 10% in the United States over the last year. The recording industry blames this downturn not on the economic recession, not on the crappy music that theyve released in the past few years, but on Internet piracy.

And its only going to get worse. Hilary B. Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) told Congress on 28 February 2001 that the practice of copy-protecting audio CDs would expand in the United States. If technology can be used to pirate copyrighted content, Rosen wrote in her response to a Congressional query, shouldnt technology likewise be used to protect copyrighted content? Surely, no one can expect copyright owners to ignore what is happening in the marketplace and fail to protect their creative works because some people engage in copying just for their personal use. Her pal, Michael Eisner, head of Disney, said he was tired of being finessed by the technology industry, whatever that means.

Unfortunately for Eisner, Rosen, Disney, and the RIAA, personal useand more importantly the rights associated with that use of copyrighted materialis exactly why copying of copyrighted material is not just allowed, but mandated by the Constitution. That some individuals illegally sell copied CDs or distribute copies of the music on the Internet is immaterial. In fact, fairly casual observation indicates that if customers are treated like criminals they will indeed begin to behave like criminals.

It has become common practice for music-loving computer owners to legally transfer audio CDs they purchase to .mp3 format files on their computers. The copy protection technology employed by the recording industry prevents such transfers by adding distortions to the music of the recordings. The industry insists that these distortions are inaudible when the disc is played on a standard CD player but result in pops when the music is transferred to a computer. In any case, its usually impossible to tell whether or not a disc includes the copy protection technology; in general, the copy-protected discs are not labeled.

Ironically, or probably not, .mp3 player manufacturers could easily defeat the copy protection technology, but they fear doing so would risk prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which prohibits the bypassing of copy protection systems. In 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that .mp3 players did not violate copyright law because customers have the right to space shift music they have purchased.

Moral rights

Interestingly, the act of using the copy protection technology is much more prevalent in Europe. Most European countries, unlike the United States, recognize an artists moral rights in the work they create.

Moral rights are a package of intellectual property rights granted to the original creator of a work, and include:

• The right of integrity;
• The right of attribution;
• The right of disclosure;
• The right to withdraw or retract; and
• The right to reply to criticism.

These moral rights are separate from the economic copyright that these days generally transfers from an author to a publisher and they can survive the author. The idea originated with the French, who believe that any creative work, by definition, includes the personality and character of the author. Where copyright is a property right that can be transferred, moral rights are part of the authors personality and character and non-transferable.

The first two moral rightsthe right of integrity and the right of attributionare especially important because they are codified as international law in the Berne Convention. The United States claims its intellectual property law complies with the Berne Convention, but this is just two instances where it doesnt.

The most important of these rights is the first, the right of integrity. Basically it prohibits an authors work from being distorted in any way that would harm the authors reputation and dates to the 1957 French law of droit au respect de l'oeuvre. Its a safe bet that a cross-reference over which the author had no control would be seen as a distortion of the work.

Seemingly, in Europe at least, an artist could make an argument against the production of a copy-protected version of her work on the sole basis of moral rights. Especially in the case of an audio CD to which distortion is intentionally added by the publisher.

In the United States, Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) appears to be taking the point position in questioning the behavior of the entertainment industry. He believes that instead of using copyright to obtain fair compensation for the works theyve licensed, the copyright owner industryincluding the recording industryis attempting to exercise complete dominance and total control of the copyrighted work.

And just how much money does an artist receive in the form of royalties? Use Moses Avalons royalty calculator to figure it out.

A DMCA rewrite?

Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) plans to introduce legislation that would regulateand maybe outright bancopy-protected compact discs. Boucher reportedly has concerns about customers buying copy-protected discs without knowing it and the compatibility problems inherent with the copy protection mechanism. In an interview with Wired News, Boucher said, The big problem initially is that consumers have no information that is complete and reliable about the disabilities which attend copy-protected CDs. These CDs will not play in DVD players, not play on personal computers (and) not even play on all CD players.

Boucher isnt talking about what kind of legislation he might introduce to accomplish his goal of protecting audio CD customers, and the possibilities are intriguing. At the simplest level, legislation may require copy-protected CDs to carry a warning label. At a more interesting level, Boucher may try to rewrite the DMCA. In fact, Boucher announced that he would introduce such legislation last July and reiterated his commitment to that approach in early March of this year.

Internet radio

Under the U.S. Copyright Offices interpretation of the DMCA, Internet radio may be a thing of the past. KFJC, KPIG, and RadioParadise may all be goners. Why is this tragic? Because any of these stations are orders of magnitude better than the sorry excuse for radio available on the traditional dial.

Internet radio is routing around an obsolete and unaccountable industrys safely padded environs and making a difference. Corporate radio sounds exactly the same from coast to coast because it is exactly the same. Sit and watch that website for a few minutes; if it doesnt nauseate you, itll damn sure hypnotize you.

Adding to the arsenal of tools deployed by big media is the Copyright Arbitration and Royalty Panel (CARP). CARP met secretly for the past several months and issued the CARP Report in late February. The keystone of this report is steep licensing fees for webcast music. Lets be clear: compulsory licensing is a good idea, consistent with the intent of copyright law. Usury licensing fees for small webcasters is not.

KPIG responded almost immediately with a plea to save the Pig from the digital slaughterhouse:

Independent webcasters such as KPIG are facing a grave threat to our existence. It may be an evil conspiracy on the part of the big record companies and corporate webcasters, ormore likelyits just a dumb mistake. In either case, KPIG could soon be liable for huge music usage fees ($5,000 - $10,000 per month) that would make it impossible for us to stay online. For background on the issue, see The Death of Web Radio? below and the SaveInternetRadio.org website.

Doc Searls, in his article Bizarre vs. Bazaar, eloquently sums up the combination of DMCA and CARP as the destruction of the Net as a commons and its replacement with a plumbing system for the distribution of content (a word hardly used in a shipping context before Big Media got all drooly over The Promise of The Net).

A brief history of copyright

Copyright, until this recent entertainment industry power-grab, has always been a delicatemaybe even precariousbalance between the rights of the author to benefit from his or her work for a short period of time and the rights of the rest of us to innovate and benefit from those works when they fall into the public domain.

The Constitution granted Congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. Originally, the Copyright Act of 1790 established the limited times of copyright protection of 14 years with an option for the author to renew the copyright for an additional 14 years if he or she were still alive. That copyright term was good enough for the first 100 years of intellectual property in the United States. During the next 100 years, Congress extended the copyright term 11 times.

Certain uses of a protected work that would ordinarily be seen as infringing are specifically allowed for education, criticism, etc. These uses are allowed under the fair use provision. The core concept of fair use is that, in general, any use that does not exploit the commercial value of the original is permissible.

The fair use statute recognizes four criteria by which a use can be determined to be fair or unfair:

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 wok as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

William S. Strong, in The Copyright Book: A Practical Guide , provides an interpretation for working writers:

As a general rule a critic or reporter should not quote at any one point more than two or three paragraphs of a book or journal article, a stanza of a poem, or a solitary chart or graph from a technical treatise.

The Net allows ordinary citizens to exercise their fair use rights in ways never imagined by the entertainment industry. Subsequently, the reaction is to pressure innovation by extending the copyright term for any given work. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that will likely determine the legitimacy of the most recent copyright term extension, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. This law extends the copyright term to the life of the author plus 70 years. In the case of works made for hire in which a corporation owns the copyright, the copyright term is now 95 years.

While one side of the entertainment industry was pushing, an activity that eventually became the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the other side was pulling. That activity eventually resulted in the DMCA. Designed specifically to control the uses that can be made of published works, the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copyright-protection technology. The result: the entertainment industry controls not only what you see and hear but the methods and devices with which you see and hear it. Even if the copy-protection is circumvented to enable the fair use of a published work, it is prohibited and deemed to be a criminal act.

Digital TV

According to Mike Godwin, digital television is the tipping point in the war between the entertainment and technology industries. Never mind that every time the entertainment industry shoots itself in the foot, the technology industry comes to its rescue. Remember in the 1970s when the movie industry was in a deep funk and that vampire Jack Valenti said that VCRs would kill it for good? As it turns out, the VCR revived the film industry. The film industry was failing not because of customer VCR usage but because they were putting out epically craptacular films. Just like the recording industry todaywhen in doubt blame those dang customers.

Anyway, Godwin says digital television is the flashpoint because its quality (technical, not artistic) is way too good and unlike DVDs, its unencrypted and has to stay unencrypted to be useful. Oh, and the pesky FCC regulations say that broadcast television signals must be sent unencrypted.

The purveyors of digital television think they have the answer: digital watermarks. They think thats the answer for the online distribution of music, and any other digital content as well. Unfortunately for them, in order for a watermark to be used to restrict copying of digital content, consumer devices used to play the content will have to have technology included thats capable of receiving those watermarks. That would require the cooperation of the technology industry, and that cooperation has not been forthcoming.

Godwin cites the theory of Edward Felten, a computer scientist at Princeton, holding that any sort of tagging system that is undetectable by the user will likely be easy to remove.

Digital rights management

Perhaps the weirdest part of all of this is that the technology industry is just as enamored of protecting intellectual property. Theyre just going about it in a minimally different way. Digital rights management (DRM) is the battle cry of the techheads. And where they differ from their entertainment industry brethren is the question of government mandates. The technology industry wants to lock up published content just as badly as the entertainment industry; they just dont want the government (or anyone else) telling them that they have to. Remember that the entertainment and technology industries both lobbied heavily in favor of the DMCA.

And then there are the schizoids, the companieslike AOL Time Warner and Sonythat are so large that they find themselves on both sides of the fence depending which way the wind blows.

SSSCA > CBDTPA

The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), kept on a leash but regularly trotted out by Senator Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, can best be thought of as a sort of appendix to the DCMA. It is clearly designed to further extend legal protections for digital content owned or licensed by enormous media conglomerates.

According to the draft language of the bill, it would be illegal to create or distribute any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies approved by the Commerce Department. Even though MIT professor and RSA Data Security co-founder Ron Rivest has referred to the proposed legislation as the Digital Rectal Thermometer Security Act its really just mandatory corporate welfare for media conglomerates subsidized by the actual creators and consumers of intellectual property.

Felony penalties for distributing copyrighted material without the certified security technologies fully enabled or using a computer that circumvents those technologies are up to five years in prison and fines up to US$500,000.

Even worse, the proposed legislation calls for manufacturers of digital devices and the media conglomerates to collaboratively develop a copy protection system. If, after two years, they cant come up with a mechanism both industries can live with, the federal government will specify a standard. Hollings bill fails to include the actual creators or users of content in any of the machinations.

Should we be surprised that four of Hollings top campaign donors are media conglomerates?

Predictably, the politicians split along party lines over the SSSCA. Or, more accurately, the split is along the lines of entertainment industry campaign contributions. Democrats, who received US$24.2 million in contributions from the entertainment industry tend to support the idea of legislating the protection of copyrighted material in digital form. Republicans, who received a relatively paltry US$13.3 million in entertainment industry contributions usually oppose the SSSCA, claiming it is too interventionist.

In mid-March 2002, the other shoe dropped. Senator Hollings, better known as the Senator from Disney, transformed the SSSCA into the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) and ceased his tip-toeing around. The CBDTPA is real legislation, and enjoys the support of five other co-authors: Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), John Breaux (D-Louisiana), Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California). Just think, one more author and they could have been the seven dwarves. The CBDTPA would require all digital deviceseverything from fax machines to MP3 players and computers (as well as the software that runs on them)to be equipped with embedded copy protection schemes, approved by the federal government.

Whats most disturbing about this is relatively paltry sum it took to buy this legislation. During the 2002 election cycle, only two of the dirty half-dozen were in the top 20 recipients of soft money from the entertainment industry. So far in the 2002 election cycle, Hollings has received only US$19,000 and Stevens has taken only US$39,621. To get the real story, we have to look back several election cycles:

Senator

2002

2000

1998

1996

Total

Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina)

$19,000

$32,750

$215,284

$43,300

$310,334

Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)

$39,621

$69,900

$109,521

Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)

$49,852

$49,852

John Breaux (D-Louisiana)

$120,920

$120,920

Bill Nelson (D-Florida)

$47,550

N/A

N/A

$47,550

Dianne Feinstein (D-California)

$211,638

$211,638

$849,815

Theres no question why Fritz Hollings carried the water for this puppy, is there? But check those senatorial links in the table carefully because they tell the even bigger story of who the top contributing industries were for each politician. In every case, the entertainment industry scored big in the top 20 contributors for every Senator. And remember the 2002 campaign cycle isnt over yet. Not hardly.

So, how much does it cost to get your bill through the Senate? Looks to me like itll come in right around US$1 million.

Enter DigitalConsumer.org

The technology industry was quick to respond to the CBDTPA threat by launching DigitalConsumer.org and its attendant Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. Launched by two of the co-founders of Excite, DigitalConsumer.org is basically trying to protect the fair use rights of customers in digital media. The groups principles, outlined in the Bill of Rights are deceptively simple:

1. Users have the right to time-shift content that they have legally acquired.
2. Users have the right to space-shift content that they have legally acquired.
3. Users have the right to make backup copies of their content.
4. Users have the right to use legally acquired content on the platform of their choice.
5. Users have the right to translate legally acquired content into comparable formats.
6. Users have the right to use technology in order to achieve the rights previously mentioned.

The depth and breadth of support this lobbying group will receive remains to be seen. Some of the precepts are in direct conflict with the interests of some of the largest technology industry members. Microsoft, for example, almost certainly wants to be the digital rights management company of record and is none too keen on, say, items 2, 3, 4, and 5.

A solution

The solution is actually quite simple and requires only three steps:

1. Revert the term of copyright to 14 years, immediately and retroactive to all existing works.
2. Recognize moral rights in the works authors create, like every other civilized country on the planet. Make it immediate and retroactive to all existing works.
3. Prohibit any corporation from owning a copyright. Corporations create nothing; theyre consensual hallucinations and exist at our pleasure. I dont know about you, but Im not much pleased any more.

The basis of the problem is found in a single court ruling: Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. In this 1886 dispute, the U.S. Supreme Court found that a private corporation was a natural person under the Constitution and enjoyed the same protections as a citizen under the Bill of Rights. Corporations from that point forward were granted all of the rights and freedoms of a private citizen, yet none of the responsibilities. We made a mistake; hey, shit happens. Its not too late to fix it.

(2) The determination of the conditions under which these rights shall be exercised is reserved for the national legislation of the countries of the Union. The means of redress for safeguarding these rights shall be regulated by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed.

Here are a couple of links from Google to good overviews of "moral rights" in the U.S.

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property/library/mora lprimer.html
http://www.rbs2.com/moral.htm

Raymond essay is disingenuous in that he evades the whole point of Kuhn and Stallman's essay. Kuhn and Stallman clearly are talking about freedom for the user. Raymond begs the question by addressing freedom for the programmer. Ultimately, which is the more important?

One delusion that some programmer's often operate under is that they are creating a work in isolation from everybody else's contributions. Most of what we leverage in our creative works has come to us for free, under the principles of academic freedom. In many ways, RMS has simply reformulated these principles into a binding form specific to computer software. I agree with his effort to eliminate the free riders that would attempt to appropriate the vast body of prior art for their own personal gain.

In my essay on Copyright Law, I asserted that the USA does not recognize "moral rights" of authors that are included in article 6bis of the Berne Convention, despite the claim of the USA that it adheres to the Berne Convention. These moral rights include:

• the right of integrity: mutilation or distortion that would prejudice the author's honor or reputation is not permitted. In French law, this right is called "droit au respect de l'oeuvre" and is mentioned in Article6 of the French Law No. 57-298 of 11 March 1957.
• the right of attribution: the true author has the right to have his/her name on the work, and a non-authors are prevented from having their names attached to the author's work. In French law, this right is called "droit à la paternité" and is mentioned in Article6 of the French Law No. 57-298 of 11 March 1957.

In other words, the US does not honor formally (or de facto, depending on how you interpret the above) the right to see attributement (when you don't hold the copyright), and indeed the caselaw (still from here) says:

Smith v. Montoro, 648 F.2d 602 (9thCir. 1981) (removal of actor's name from film credits was valid claim under Lanham Act).

Now I wasn't sure what this meant, so I found this on the "Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.)" including the preamble:

The Lanham Act is found in Title 15 of the U.S. Code and contains the federal statutes governing trademark law in the United States. However, this act is not the exclusive law governing U.S. trademark law, since both common law and state statutes also control some aspects of trademark protection. This index contains links to each of the sections of the Lanham, and was last updated in March, 2000.

Now Title VIII - False Designations Of Origin And False Descriptions Forbidden says:

1125. False designations of origin and false descriptions forbidden
(a)
Civil action.
(1)
Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which--
(A)
is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or
(B)
in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.

In other words (the bold above is mine), despite what the above essay said about our not respecting authorial attributement as the French do, in letter at least this Lanham Act seems to mean that you're fairly well covered in saying the legal convention is behind you. If you say "convention", it implies that that's how it's done to be sure to be legal, and is not as overtly negative as if you had said the law requires this.
In any case, first a nice letter, with a vague allusion to law, then if your former employer refuses to add your name, dig around this Lanham Act business a bit and send him chapter and verse (section and paragraph :]) along with a nice hyperlink so he can check out his legal obgligations. Either way, you seem covered. Good luck!

In my essay on Copyright Law, I asserted that the USA does not recognize "moral rights" of authors that are included in article 6bis of the Berne Convention, despite the claim of the USA that it adheres to the Berne Convention. These moral rights include:

• the right of integrity: mutilation or distortion that would prejudice the author's honor or reputation is not permitted. In French law, this right is called "droit au respect de l'oeuvre" and is mentioned in Article6 of the French Law No. 57-298 of 11 March 1957.
• the right of attribution: the true author has the right to have his/her name on the work, and a non-authors are prevented from having their names attached to the author's work. In French law, this right is called "droit à la paternité" and is mentioned in Article6 of the French Law No. 57-298 of 11 March 1957.

In other words, the US does not honor formally (or de facto, depending on how you interpret the above) the right to see attributement (when you don't hold the copyright), and indeed the caselaw (still from here) says:

Smith v. Montoro, 648 F.2d 602 (9thCir. 1981) (removal of actor's name from film credits was valid claim under Lanham Act).

Now I wasn't sure what this meant, so I found this on the "Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.)" including the preamble:

The Lanham Act is found in Title 15 of the U.S. Code and contains the federal statutes governing trademark law in the United States. However, this act is not the exclusive law governing U.S. trademark law, since both common law and state statutes also control some aspects of trademark protection. This index contains links to each of the sections of the Lanham, and was last updated in March, 2000.

Now Title VIII - False Designations Of Origin And False Descriptions Forbidden says:

1125. False designations of origin and false descriptions forbidden
(a)
Civil action.
(1)
Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which--
(A)
is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or
(B)
in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.

In other words (the bold above is mine), despite what the above essay said about our not respecting authorial attributement as the French do, in letter at least this Lanham Act seems to mean that you're fairly well covered in saying the legal convention is behind you. If you say "convention", it implies that that's how it's done to be sure to be legal, and is not as overtly negative as if you had said the law requires this.
In any case, first a nice letter, with a vague allusion to law, then if your former employer refuses to add your name, dig around this Lanham Act business a bit and send him chapter and verse (section and paragraph :]) along with a nice hyperlink so he can check out his legal obgligations. Either way, you seem covered. Good luck!

Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation.

A Google search for ("Privacy Act" and "e-mail") turned up

http://www.rbs2.com/email.htm

which generally says no if there's no clear expectation of privacy (e.g. not attorney-client, not trade secrets, etc), but...


However, under some circumstances, the sender
might sue the recipient for publicity given to private life, under Restatement (Second) Torts 652D (1977).


You'll have to ask a lawyer what those circumstances are.