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More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal
Meenik sent us a wired news article on Judge Kaplan's ruling that effectively makes linking things like DeCSS illegal. This is a little bit more extreme of a piece then our coverage
here a few days ago but its worth a read.
(paraphrased) "2600 is metaphorically driving people to houses so they can rob people"
Hm. My local metropolitan transporation authority (read: public bus) gave some crazy guy a ride to the bus stop in front of my apartment and he broke into my house, so I'm going to sue the transporation authority so they can't actually bring people anywhere, just tell them where to go.
Damn, sometimes I just think that America litigation is there just to provide laughs. Then I realize that it affects me and I wish that we could just some how abolish entities like the MPAA after providing such a stupid and flawed statement and enforcing it in court.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
OK, in the wake of this decision that everyone is obviously upset with, I figured I would throw something else into the fray here. With this recent ruling, we have found out that it is now illegal to even link to a site with illegal information (or at least information which is the property of big corporations who have alot of money and interests to protect). This is a very interesting ruling and sets quite the precedent, which could come into play very soon.
The questioning over links to illegal material is not a new one. The biggest example that I can think of here would be the Napster cases. They are effectively in trouble because they are providing links to illegally copied material. Not only has Napster gotten in trouble for this now, but 2600 has as well. I think we are starting to see a trend here.
Not only is it now illegal to carry the illegal information in the Unites States, but it is illegal to link to said illegal information. An interesting implication of this would be banner ads. What do you do when a child is using the computer and "subjected" to all the porn that they innevitably are (note the dripping of sarcasm). If this porn is provided through a banner add, that page has effectively become illegal. Who is to blame for this if the banner is supplied dynamically, the provider or the page owner?
Also, does anybody know how this works in physical print? What is the punishment for containing information on obtaining illegal information? Can you get in trouble if you write a letter to the editor which contains directions to a cache of kiddie porn? Where is this line drawn?
First of all, I'd like to just say I'm grinning wildly at 2600's response. "Oh, we can't have it hyperlinked? That's okay, we'll just make it inline text." Following the letter of the law, gotta love it.
It never ceases to amaze me how we, the 'net users, are constantly subject to laws created by people that rarely use the internet to do more than scan porn sites and read their email. (Yes, I am talking about the judges, politicians, etc.) Perhaps we are the ones who are causing them to fear what they do not know, however they will never understand their impact unless they bother to learn something.
The internet is possibly the truest form of anarchy (yes, you've heard this before, bear with me) and that terrifies the hell out of these old people in control. We have a system in place that there is no true way to regulate. If we don't like the rules for .uk or .au, we'll just take our domain to .it. There is no way for them to have a law that all countries will agree upon. IMO, the United States is becoming more of a dictatorship when it comes to the Internet than most of the other countries.
As long as these old men (and women) and companies/industries are in control, there will never be a law passed for the Internet that actually protects the individual users. The internet is a communication interface. I wish they would learn to treat it like one.
It has been said that there needs to be a revolution every ten years in order to keep the government honest. I think we're long overdue.
--Lise
Did he just make the whole point of hypertext illegal? Granted, he did just do this for DeCSS, but what about when there are other things on the internet that people don't want you to read... Wait until someone links a corporate helpfile to a specific products bug-traq which raises awareness of a flaw and causes closer scrutiny of the product... One could argue that this "bad publicity" negatively affects the manufacturer's sales... We don't want people to find out about the products they are buying... we just want them to buy them online.
I've got the sales website right now:
Here's a black box with somehting in it that costs $25.00. Here is another made by our competitor that costs $50.00. We'd tell you what it is that we're selling, but you might figure out what our competitor's product is, recognize that one of us is giving a better deal and that would hurt one of our's business... We would tell you what our company is, but then you might know who are competitors are, so we can't even tell you that, and then you might show a preference towards one of us. So all we'll tell you is that we've got a product, and it's for sale. Please send cash to:
P.O. Box XXXXX
Anytown, NJ
and we promise we'll send you whatever our product is.
I've got it... rather than use the internet to spread information, lets restrict it in such a way that no useful information can be obtained.
This vaguely reminds me of something I would see on a Monty Python skit.
You say you want a revolution?
> > DeCSS. But they left the non-HTML versions of the
> > addresses intact, so visitors can simply copy and paste
> > them into a browser window. >
> Now I'm two clicks away from DeCSS, damn!
Wait a minute.
Corley took down the links to DeCSS, but left the text versions intact. Fair enough.
But for Wired to tell someone how to cut-and-paste the text versions of the URLs into a browser window, why, that's like giving a map to the guy who's driving the burglar to your back door, and Wired should be sued into oblivion for it!
And you, you, you bastard, you had the gall not only to steal Wired's intellectual property (in the old days before DMCA, we called it "quoting from an article), why, that's like making a photocopy of a map that someone gives to the guy who's driving the burglar to your back door! And you even said that it was a matter of two mouse clicks (well, three if I had to read your post first!) to get to it! You thief! Murderer! Copyright Terrorist!
So now there's these guys in black suits telling me that for making my photocopy of your photocopy of the map that...
If/when the 2nd Circuit reviews Kaplan's denial of recusal, I suggest that we submit a brief/petition urging the Appeals court to find that recusal was warrented. If recusal was wrongly denied, all of Kaplan's opinions, decisions, and orders will be vacated. The standard for recusal under 28 USC 455 is:
Note that the standard requires only that "the trial judge's impartiality could reasonably be questioned", not that they must be proven. It is a "significan doubt" question.
As a matter of precedent, see the discussion of Republic of Panama v. American Tobacco Company, Inc. No. 99-30685 (5th Cir. 7/20/2000) in a post I made on openlaw. In that case a judge whose trial association submitted a brief on a "tobacco matter" in an unrelated case should have recused himself even though he did not take part in writing the brief.
Given these standards, do any of the reaonable people out there have "significant doubt" as to the judge's lack of impartiality?
I would say it's more like driving someone across the border into Mexico (or Canada, or wherever) so they can purchase tools with which to burglarize the home.
But what you left out is that the home that they want to pick the lock on ("burglarize") is their own. When Valenti accidently locks himself out of his house, he thinks he should have to get authorization from the lock manufacturer before he's allowed to pick his own lock.
It's worse then that. He thinks that he needs to get authorization from the architect who designed his house. In Valentiville, the architect is free to say, "No", in which case, Jack is forbidden by law from ever entering his house again.
I did a quick search on Google (only because it is my favourite search engine) and found links to webpages that (no surprise) contained links to the DeCSS code. I managed to download that code, then deleted it (because I have no particular use for it). I am sure that the same search on any of the other search engines on the web would produce similar results, so I am not singling Google out here.
Does this mean that Google now has to remove keywords or links selectively because the information they are focuses on might violate some ignorant US legal ruling?
If so then this ruling cannot stand or the entire web will come crashing down around Kaplan's ears.
Looks like Roy Rogers was right when he said "This country has the best politicians money can buy". It also ooks like the only reason that Justice is blind is because it has its head up its ass.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
This ruling is issued by a Federal District Court (Southern District of New York). It has very little value as legal precedent (many of these cases don't even get published anymore, although this one probably will, especially when it gets appealed). It really only applies as binding "law" to the litigants before the court (MPAA and 2600, plus other named defendants), and possibly by extension to anyone else subject to jurisdiction in the S.D.N.Y. doing the same things (assuming the Court pays attention to its own rulings later on down the line). If somebody else in another jurisdiction upsets the MPAA, they have to bring another lawsuit in that jurisdiction; they can point to this case as "res judicata" (things decided already) but the judge is pretty free to ignore it, especially if the facts differ. Stuff like this happens all the time; different state & federal courts disagree, leading to "splits" in authority between different Circuits (the next level up from District court); often, the Supreme Court decides to weigh in, to make things uniform nationwide again.
My 2 cents: if this upsets you, try "civil disobedience" - post your own links to DeCSS and other "banned" stuff everywhere you can (that is, your own websites - no advocacy for crackers/defacers intended). Keep the suits and lawyers so busy, they lose sight of the bottom line and start losing $$$. Use massive, peaceful protest to help change the current system. Examples: Ghandi, MLK, and now Emmanuel Goldstein?
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
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