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Media companies are very very large, and, as a result, have an enormous financial intrest in Washington.

They aren't nearly as large as the hardware manufacturers and the telecom and ISP industries (which stand to lose BIG TIME if the Internet and PCs are neutered). The ITAA is on our side on this issue - and they represent FAR more money than the RIAA and MPAA combined.

Let the
"Honorable" Charles F. Eick know what you think of his decision:
give him a call at (213)894-5234, fax to(213)894-3335, or write him:

The Honorable Charles F. Eick
United States Magistrate Judge
United States District Court
United States Courthouse
312 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

If you would like to send a letter of protest to the "Honorable" Judge from Disney, you can get the contact info here, Telephone number (213) 894-5234, or Fax (213) 894-3335. Be sure to thank him from the bottom of Disney's wallet.

This poster's name secretly replaced with Folgers Crystals

According to the paper, this judgement was based on an earlier finding:

"In the early 1980s, courts began facing the issue of whether video games were forms of expression entitled to First Amendment protection. Courts almost unanimously held that video games lacked the expressive element necessary to trigger the First Amendment."

Ok, so what games were common in the early 80's? Pac Man? Asteroids? I can see how this decision came about with that kind of content. Probably the only expressive games around were MUDs, but text-based games hardly satisfy the "video" requirement. This was just a technological limitation at the time.

"The court went on to hold that the plaintiff had succeeded in establishing only that video games are
more technologically advanced games than pinball or chess, and that technological advancement alone does not impart First Amendment status to what is an otherwise unprotected game."

This is clearly flawed. If movies and books are protected, why not games that are based on them? How about movies/novels that are based on games? The only thing really different about games is that they are interactive. But wait...would a magazine or a dictionary be considered a game? Reading an index and flipping through pages is quite interactive. Even a T.V. becomes a video game when one uses the "controller" to surf through commercials in order to find the best shows.

Judge Limbaugh's ruling is available in PDF.

You can get the Judge's opinion here (96k pdf).

...or, to get the opinion directly from the court, click here.

While this is an obvious knee-jerk reaction to the Candyman fallout - it's also been tried before. Check out PSINet, Inc. v. Chapman, 108 F.Supp.2d 611 (W.D. Va. 2000) (enjoining application of law imposing criminal liability for the commercial display of sexually explicit materials harmful to juveniles).

Oh, but this is narrowly tailored, you say? Whatever. Wait until they start slugging out what gets blocked and what doesn't, then come talk to me. This is just more posturing for the constituents.

STATE REP:"Dum da dum! I will protect your children from pedophiles, voters! Let me just unplug this twisted pair here..."

[GZZOK! Pennsylvania goes black.]

STATE REP: "Oops."

I'm betting on an ISP-obtained injunction by the end of the week. Anyone care to start a pool?

How about:

3) The protection system can not prevent ANY fair use - or else circumvention is legal.

One could say it is impossible for a program to know what is legal fair use.

True.

That is a good argument for why we shouldn't give computer programs legal powers (as the DMCA does in regard to "protection" [restriction] devices) since they can't deal with the subtleties of what is legal and what isn't.

Giving a computer program the legal right to decide what is illegal is an improper and harmful (and likely unconstitutional) delegation of power from the courts and legislatures. The courts will just enforce the "decisions" of the code - see the DeCSS case - fair use wasn't allowed as a defense - the mere fact DeCSS did what the CSS code tried to forbid made it "illegal" (at least in Judge Kaplan's eyes)

Stop electing Republican presidents who appoint Republican federal judges. This includes those of you who passively elect Republicans by voting for spoiler candidates or not voting at all. Read the lower court opinion in Eldred. This opinion completely ignores the argument, raised by the plaintiffs, that a First Amendment right inheres in the public to have copyrighted material eventually become part of the public domain. The Court of Appeals opinion is typical of modern Republican judicial writing, belittling and mocking the Constitutional arguments raised by the plaintiffs. Fortunately for everyone except Microsoft and Disney, the grant of certiorari means that there are at least four votes in the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court's decision.

The original ruling I am referring to is the ruling of the DC court of appeals, which I believe is the most recent ruling.

Here is a link to the text

There is also some nice excerpts on the open-law page.

I believe the copy protection is designed to create an error so bad that the CD-ROM refuses to read and pass on the data to the system.

If that is the case, the firmware would need to be hacked - which would "violate" (*) the DMCA.

(*) Making a CD-ROM deal more gracefully with errors shouldn't be considered "circumvention" and there is also the interoperability exemption, fair use, the provisions of the US Constitution, etc.

But in Judge Kaplan's court, those parts of the law (or the Constitution) that protect you do not count, only the ones that can be used to attack you.

Also, it may be that in a year or two cdparanoia is as "illegal" (again, by an unconstitutional law which is wrongly interpreted) as DeCSS.

It's text, but I assume it's official

Microsoft has real history of coming from behind. They came late [...] they now own it. They came late [...] and they now own that as well.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, approaches the stability and conformance to standards of IE on Windows

Read the whole report where these statistics are pulled from here

Table 6 contains the arrest/conviction figures. The conviction numbers are only those convicted in 2000. They're not counting those arrested in 2000 but went to trial (and possibly convicted) in 2001 or later. In this case not convicted doesn't equal aquitted or charges dropped. It means not convicted in the calendar year of 2000

As the saying goes "Figures don't lie, but liars figure."

The main worry about obscenity, the main reason for its proscription, is not that it is harmful, which is the worry behind the Indianapolis ordinance, but that it is offensive.

http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/op3.fwx?yr=00&num=3643 &Submit1=Request+Opinion

Read the average EULA

You can read the proposed Civil Settlement (pdf) and the responses as well. They also are pdf files being just scanned images of the letters recieved.

The responses are interesting, most of the ones I have read from School Districts indicate that they are afraid that they get very little value out of the settlement, since the software will be donated, and the hardware will be largely used requiring more maintenance than the benefit it provides. In efffect the schools are saying that they will be saddled with a much greater percentage of the total cost of ownership than Microsoft. So if the intention is to punish Microsoft and reward the schools this is the wrong way to go about it.

You can read the proposed Civil Settlement (pdf) and the responses as well. They also are pdf files being just scanned images of the letters recieved.

The responses are interesting, most of the ones I have read from School Districts indicate that they are afraid that they get very little value out of the settlement, since the software will be donated, and the hardware will be largely used requiring more maintenance than the benefit it provides. In efffect the schools are saying that they will be saddled with a much greater percentage of the total cost of ownership than Microsoft. So if the intention is to punish Microsoft and reward the schools this is the wrong way to go about it.

There was a deadline of last Friday to submit comments. Perhaps the Judge will request additional comments later in the case. Many of the public comments submitted thus far can be found here: http://www.mdd.uscourts.gov/Opinions152/Microsoft_ lidigation/MicrosoftLitigation.htm Other comments, including those by Apple and Red Hat, plus related material can be found here: http://www.applecon.com/ms%20settlement.htm That site was prepared by Jeffrey Mackie-Mason, an economist who is a consulting forCalifornia class action plainiffs. It seems like it would be a good place to keep checking to see if there's another round of comments requested.

Yes, it would be more useful to read the actual court ruling or a more detailed news report than the Yahoo/CNet story.

The heart of the case was not whether a court - any court - can usurp ICANN's UDRP, but whether attempts to earn a declaratory judgment in the U.S. can be started under U.S. anticybersquatting law without the trademark holder making an ACPA threat.

This case could apply whether the trademark holder is outside the U.S. or not.

Jursidiction from a geographical standpoint is pretty much decided at the get-go in UDRP cases.

The District Court's web site has the (redacted) Special Master's Report (PDF) which gives the technical details.

Whoever did the redacting didn't know much about the technology; it's frequently possible to infer what's been removed from context.

After reading the report, I understand why the judge ordered the networks disconnected from the Internet. If I were in his place, I'd have ordered the systems shut down completely.

The report is a case study in gross mismanagement of information systems; this isn't about holes in any vendor's software, but about people who, it seems, simply didn't care about data security or integrity.

This District Court page has copies of the other recent orders in the case, too.

The District Court's web site has the (redacted) Special Master's Report (PDF) which gives the technical details.

Whoever did the redacting didn't know much about the technology; it's frequently possible to infer what's been removed from context.

After reading the report, I understand why the judge ordered the networks disconnected from the Internet. If I were in his place, I'd have ordered the systems shut down completely.

The report is a case study in gross mismanagement of information systems; this isn't about holes in any vendor's software, but about people who, it seems, simply didn't care about data security or integrity.

This District Court page has copies of the other recent orders in the case, too.

This will not be a laughing matter in five years. The 2600 DeCSS linking case ruled it is illegal to even link to illegal sites. It's only a matter of time before KPMG's attitudes become de facto.

[begin obligatory slashdot rant] This is truly a bizarre turn of evens as this ruling raises some fundamental questions about intellectual property rights and free speech on the Internet. You would think it is legal to link to a page against the author's permission. You would also think the likes of Madonna and Julia Roberts couldn't steal registered domains containing their names. All of these have been called into doubt as we descend down this slippery slope.

The corporate chokehold on individual freedoms needs greater vigilance. If you asked someone twenty years ago what they thought of random drug testing, stealth eavesdropping techniques, etc., you would probably get a much more appalled response than you would today. What are we in danger of not being appalled about twenty years from now?

More sites on this topic, esp. 46-49 of this ruling.

Just so its clear to users on Shaw... Shaw is exempt :
Contracts with all the Contract Parties except Shaw shall be and hereby are rejected

Um, er, no. That's the Ninth Circuit, the Sixth Circuit covers Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio. The U.S. Courts website provides a map. It is indeed liberal. It used to get reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court a lot.

However, the Ninth circuit is also the home turf of the movie industry. I suspect a number of judges know which side their bread is buttered on. The same is probably true of the Sixth Judicial District of the California state court system.

There is also an article in the Washington Post which mostly gives the same information we have already but also cites the case more specifically as "Macromedia v. Adobe, C01-3940". So the next step is Findlaw which can get us to the web site of, say, the district court for Northern California (disclaimer: I'm not sure that is the right district but it is a decent guess). That web site seems to say there is lots of fascinating information on PACER but that's a pay service. So I think I'm more or less at a dead end (although I didn't try, say, searching the patent databases looking for macromedia owned patents which look plausible).

As for why PACER costs $$$, they answer that on the PACER site as follows:

Why are there user fees for PACER?

In 1988, the Judiciary sought funding through the appropriation process to establish the capability to provide electronic public access services. Rather than appropriating additional funds for this purpose, Congress specifically directed the Judiciary to fund that initiative through the collection of user fees. As a result, the program relies exclusively on fee revenue.

There is also an article in the Washington Post which mostly gives the same information we have already but also cites the case more specifically as "Macromedia v. Adobe, C01-3940". So the next step is Findlaw which can get us to the web site of, say, the district court for Northern California (disclaimer: I'm not sure that is the right district but it is a decent guess). That web site seems to say there is lots of fascinating information on PACER but that's a pay service. So I think I'm more or less at a dead end (although I didn't try, say, searching the patent databases looking for macromedia owned patents which look plausible).

As for why PACER costs $$$, they answer that on the PACER site as follows:

Why are there user fees for PACER?

In 1988, the Judiciary sought funding through the appropriation process to establish the capability to provide electronic public access services. Rather than appropriating additional funds for this purpose, Congress specifically directed the Judiciary to fund that initiative through the collection of user fees. As a result, the program relies exclusively on fee revenue.

Clearly she is already showing her bias, because only a biased judge would think that MS doesn't want to delay a rememdy, that MS is guilty as found after appeal, that MS might try to raise (er, is raising) its prices in the future, that MS is trying to muscle into other areas by using its OS monopoly, that....

PS Please remember that irony is still alive.

Clerk's Office
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001

I'm going to verify the address tomorrow, but in the meantime, I suggest that everyone write her a letter informing her of this issue. Tell her that any remedy she proposes for Microsoft must address the bootloader issue. Be sure to tell her, in simple terms, what this issue really is. Include the URL to the Byte article so that she can read more about it.

The Sklyarov hearing was supposed to be at/will be at the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California.

Her Bio is here. No mention of anything to do with computers, but she was an attorney in the DoJ for 3 years.

Obviously the most important fact about this announcement is that we have a new (and hopefuly more competent) judge involved.

First the good news, Judge Kollar-Kotelly has worked as an attorney for the Department of Justice before and should therefore be sympathetic to the limited resources available to them compared to the big money behind Microsoft.

More good news, she's decided against the Big Banks before and in favour of the credit unions in one of her previous decisions.

She also appears to have seen through the foolishness of some patents in another one of her judgements, this time against the pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb.

It was ruled that the original judge (Thomas Penfield Jackson) would not preside over the penalty phase of the trial since it was determined (fairly or not...) that he was biased against Microsoft, based on statements he made durring the trial. The DOJ denied these charges presumably because they wantedan advantage durring the penalty phase.

This new article identifies Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly as the presiding judge for the penalty phase.

--CTH

While the /. article is factually correct, it missed the main point of the action today. The big thing that happened today is that they selected the judge (Kollar-Kotelly) who will be re-hearing the penalty phase. Kollar-Kotelly is a Clinton appointee. There's a biography of her here, but it doesn't tell much about her politics. Anyone know what her attitude is likely to be?

I see two other Adobe Systems, Inc. cases on there plus the Skylarov case (which Adobe isn't officially involved in, but it was their actions that brought about the arrest.

-S

The fact that using a computer is so essential to modern life that teaching that skill universally has become embedded in our national educational policy must inform our understanding of the ADA's disability definition.

I know almost zero about Chapter 11, but I do know it means that a company doesn't necessarily have to pay its debts to all its creditors. Is it possible for Loki to take my money and not send me my game? Unlikely, I'm sure, but is it possible?

I'm sure they can fail to ship me the game if they actually go out of business. If the Ch11 thing doesn't go well, how soon could that happen?

I know Slashdot is a lousy place to ask this sort of legal question, but given the current economic climate in the tech industry, I suspect some people know a fair bit about this sort of thing.

While I don't want to disagree that there are a lot of stupid decisions that have been made, have you READ the Microsoft decisions (Findings of Fact) (Appeals court)? Both Jackson and the Appeals Court (using Jackson's analysis) break down technology issues remarkably well.

They may not know it, but they're capable of learning it.

This appeal is on one issue - Judge Jackson. The Appeals Court threw out Jackson's remedy (the breakup) to be reconsidered by a new judge. Microsoft is trying to get the Supremes to throw out the rest of Jacson's rulings, and get them reconsidered by a new judge as well.

... the district judge should have been disqualified as of September 1999, the date of his earliest known violation... Such disqualification would require vacatur of the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law.

The Appeals Court didn't buy this strategy. They said they reviewed the record, and that there was no 'actual bias' prior to the remedy. Microsoft disagrees, and says that they don't have to show 'actual bias', just the perception of it. In this petition, MS relies heavily on two precedents, the biggest being some other case where the Supreme Court said there didn't have to be 'actual bias' to throw out a lower court ruling.

This petition sounds valid on the face of it. (I don't get why the appeals court didn't throw out Jackson's findings, personally. IANAL, thank god) But MS is probably stretching the precedent they clearly want to apply.

Those instances of reverse engineering do not seem to involve circumventing a measure which controls access of a copyrighted work, or the exercise of an "exclusive right" of a copyright holder.

Therefore the DMCA would appear to not in fact apply.

Ask a lawyer for real legal advice. A US lawyer.

Because you just never know... you might even get Judge Kaplan.

From the judgement :

For example, Netscape's Navigator will not function without a prior clicking of a box constituting assent.Netscape's SmartDownload, in contrast, allows a user to download and use the software without taking any action that plainly manifests assent to the terms of the associated license or indicates an understanding that a contract is being formed.

While this is certainly an anti-"web wrap" decision, it's important to understand that the court gets there in part by suggesting that "clickwrap" is OK, then contrasting webwrap unfavorably with clickwrap.

A.Michael Froomkin
Professor, University of Miami School of Law
Coral Gables, FL, USA

Of course, the most heinous destructive power of the DMCA is allowing ridiculous (in my opinion, unAmerican) outfits like the Southern Building Code Congress International to write laws that are copyright-protected and thus cannot be republished by citizens freely on the web.

When I recently wrote the SBCCI one of my lovely nastygrams, I got back a reply that basically said "we are proud and the DMCA backs up our every shitty attack on the American way of life".

In the Veeck vs. SBCCI circuit court decision, District Judge Little provides a powerful dissent. Judge Little states: "The minute burden that might befall the standards-writing organizations because of the actions of Veeck and others like him is outweighed by the benefit of Veeck's act of enhancing unfettered access to the law."

It's *our* law. All law must be public domain. Period. If there's anything that steams me so much, it's private entities working to effectively hide the law from the citizenry.

Steve Magruder

The ruling when in part like this:

"Although Defendant did copy many isolated, factual elements from ADC atlases, factual appropriations per se do not constitute copyright infringement. "

Granted, the US Patent and Trademark office is presently quite searchable, and these searches are for free. But if they could not be available for no cost, the model they should follow is that of the United States' Federal Court's Public Access to Court Records (PACER) system. Note this is an explicit congestion notification impaired link, so shut TCP ECN off if you wish to go there.

The PACER system charges for searches and retreival of court documents. The rate is presently seven cents per "page" (about 50 lines of monospaced text, more or less), or sixty cents per minute if you dial an 800 number with a modem. Most Federal Courts are online and searchable.

Given the large amount of work that goes into putting huge amounts of data online like patents and court records, a minor fee likely is approriate for accessing these records. As long as it isn't prohibitive to the common person, paying on the order of micropayments for access to data is not such a bad idea.

This article discusses the February holding of the Fifth Circuit, and is just the latest incarnation of decades of case law addressing copyrightability of technical building codes. Similar cases dating back into the 80s have emerged from the Second, Eighth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits.

My point here is not to argue that the result is a good one (I dislike this on public policy grounds for reasons similar to those laid forth elsewhere in this thread), but to suggest that this is hardly "the beginning of the end," or some new malevolence from the recently copyright-hungry courts. Since the 80's, this is how the law has shaken out on building codes. Over more than twenty years from the earliest opinions in this thread of which I am aware, the sky has not yet fallen.

For a really interesting (and I think sound) discussion of why the case has merit and failings, I suggest reading the opinion and dissent itself, but particularly the dissent. They can be found here. I am most impressed with Judge Little's argument that, once enacted into law, the words of a statute no longer serve just their expressive purposes, but are transmogrified into a functional idea. Clearly a bit too metaphysical for the Courts, but I anticipate that someday this notion may hold sway.

In the meanwhile, building contractors have hardly had difficulty getting their hands on the building codes. They are readily available, both at the county clerk's office and from the original standards organizations.

If, in fact, the parade of horribles had happened -- that is to say that the codes were not available to those who required them, republication would clearly have been fair use.

The court of appeals for the FEDERAL CIRCUIT, has exclusive jurisdiction over appeal from patent infringement cases. I don't think the reporter got his court right in the story.

The Fourth Circuit does not show a disposition of a Rambus case. However, the Federal Circuit does show last weeks dispositions including a denial of mandamus "In Re Rambus Inc." (Sorry, no opinion on the site.)

As if anyone cares about the difference but me, but I needed to vent about the reporter apparently not even checking which court issued the ruling.

This sounds reminiscent of the pro-life zealots who posted the addresses of abortion doctors on the web and cheered when they were assassinated. I don't know how you can condone this just because it is speech.

TACOMA, Washington -- A federal judge has threatened media outlets with contempt charges if they quote from public documents on a court website, prompting outcries from journalist groups.

U.S. District Judge Jack Tanner warned Thursday that anyone who published the name of a juror in the criminal trial of U.S. v. James Dalton Bell would go to jail. The list of jurors is available on the Pacer website provided by the federal court system. (read on)