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Sauce for the Gander: Aimster Uses DMCA to Its Advantage
jij writes "Have you seen this? File-trading network Aimster is using an unusual shield to protect its users from snooping: copyright law sponsored by the recording industry. Wired has the story." This is a cute hack, but I really wonder how well it will stand up in court. One of the basic concepts in law is the idea of "unclean hands", where a party may not get relief when they too are breaking the law. In theory, this should prevent the music industry from being able to successfully sue Aimster. But in practice, judges are going to want to rule for the noble music industry against the evil music pirates.
But then it occurred to me, if it was the RIAA itself that gathered the evidence (instead of the police) does the Fourth Amendment apply? Or, for that matter, does DMCA apply to Fourth Amendment?
Evidence obtained illegally is inadmissable in a court of law whether or not it was obtained by the police.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Check them out, they're hilarious. As an added bonus, the past two weeks' editions have been refering to Napster.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
DMCA forbids circumventing access control schemes, encryption schemes, copy protection, and the like. The trouble with the DMCA is that for the most part, it doesn't take into account whether or not one may have a legitimate reason for breaking the encryption or copy control scheme; you are even forbidden to break an encryption scheme that keeps you from viewing a copy of data that you bought, paid for, and otherwise have the legal rights to. It is as if a law was passed forbidding people to break locks--even the lock to one's own house!
"So you don't know if it is copyrighted until after you break in."
I think the idea is that to break in, you have to break the DMCA.
They really need to take this perversion of the DMCA to the next logical step: Instead of merely banning the offending party from the service, they should require (in the license) that any party who divulges either the usernames, IP addresses, or files held by any other party agrees to be completely liable for any damages, statutory penalties or other legal fees resulting from such action.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I don't think the RIAA will go after this with much vengence unless somebody posts passwords on a public bulletin board.
AOL, on the other hand is very likely to sue them for trademark infringement.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
So when the RIAA banned all those users last year from Napster, it was because they were able to see the actual file transfers in progress?
But three lefts do!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
IANAL, but it seems to me that Aimster is setting up a nice reducto-ad-absurdium demonstration that DMCA is incosistent with the US law.
In addition, they're using AIM and buddy lists from AOL.
There is more than cunning Boies legalese here. Any argument that is raised against Aimster will likely attack AOL as well. AOL has money. Whatever legal strategy they pursue can then be used by Aimster.
Some lawyer out there has a good understanding of Goedel's incompleteness theorem, and has chopped up DMCA into little coded pieces, put them through the legal mill, and got a nice little paradox from it. You can tweak the DMCA all you want, but the basic concept is logically and inherently flawed.
what? RIAA would sue users for infringing on Aimster's ToS?
That makes no sense, so that's probably not what you meant. What did you mean?
Obligatory disclaimer IANAL and this begins to go way past my knowledge.
The DMCA does not exist in a vacuum and has to co-exist with previous case law. This allows for interpretation. Just look at the briefs and rulings handed down in the DeCSS case. Each one has a section of previous rulings to support the authors' conclusions. The DMCA is unconstitutional and here is case X, Y, and Z to prove my point. Or here is my ruling against 2600 and here is case 1, 2, and 3 to clarify why X, Y, and Z are not pertinent to the discussion.Then it is up to a judge or judges to determine which arguement has more signal then noise so to speak.
IMHO, that means it is possible to get a ruling that, no, the DMCA does not allow someone to protect their lawbreaking by using encryption and such a paradox was never implicit in the wording.I agree that the DMCA's forulation has gone too far and I don't like how the court interprets it atm but I don't see Aimster's hack of the DMCA legal proof of a damning loophole in the act itself.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
You don't have to have a digital version of the entire song to decide if you want to buy it.
But where the damage really starts is that there are very few people in the world with your integrity - most people won't bother to buy something if they can have it for free. Honesty does not prevail - take a look at shareware.
Salocin.com
And anyway, vinyl sounds better.
Salocin.com
Indeed, what many other people have already said is true: this system cannot work the way it is set up for users must break the license agreement to actually use the system for what it is "intended" to be used for.
From the article:
Aimster encrypts everything that is moved around its network, including all files and directories. It is impossible for anyone outside the system to monitor the network without circumventing the security. Breaking the encryption is illegal under the DMCA because the network and its programming code are copyrighted.
This leaves copyright owners such as the music and movie industries unable to access the network to monitor the traffic without first breaking the very law they helped get pushed through Congress in 1998.
So basically they are saying that anyone "monitoring" the network from the "outside" is breaking the law. I assume by "outside the system" they mean searching the contents of someone's share without being invited by the person who owns the share. Big deal, all the RIAA has to do now is have law enforcement pose as a regular user and find people who invite them in and then search their share and *bam* they have the proof they need without breaking Aimster's encryption or the law.
Think about it, the police operate like this all the time when busting people for selling drugs and prostitution. It's called going undercover.
Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that Aimster was able to use the DMCA like this, I just don't see it holding up in court.
As much as I would like to stick it to the man (the RIAA in this case) I can't see it hold up. A search warrant will easily get around the DMCA provisions, and the RIAA easily has enough power to get one. Then they'll build their case and we're back to where we are with Napster. (Maybe not though, the facts that it's not explicitly for music sharing and the indices aren't stored locally may help.)
I think the U.S. Supreme Court is the only body in our justice system that I have even a modicum of trust in, so I'm hoping the whole thing will get resolved there with Napster, and the RIAA will die and we can all go back to being sane again. Then this and other similar services can begin to compete on merits and for once the consumer will actually be able to enjoy the fruits of a (more) free market. Of course that's probably unrealistic optimism.
Dave
This happens all the time; company backs up a server, and sends the tapes to an offsite storage firm. That tape is chock full of software which states you can't copy it in any way. But, you say, fair use covers a backup! But any company who wants to keep their data keeps many many historical and working backups. Good to see that most companies in North America are raging software pirates.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Whether or not AIMSTER's practices complies with copyright law in a manner that precludes liability for copyright infringement (contributory or otherwise) via a network infrastructure, the trading of information on the network that is copyrighted will continue to be infringement, particularly under the recent 9th Circuit ruling, which held that space-shifting and sampling were not fair uses. Thus, we are still back to defending on the Napster theories, one way or the other.
As to being able to mush investigations into infringement, this seems an awful lot like legal voodoo to me. To say that the "network and software" are copyrighted does not make the encryption of data an anti-circumvention measure, and hence DMCA doesn't blast the investigators.
In short, I don't know enough about AIMSTER to pass upon whether they are, in fact, copyright compliant -- I hope so. But even if they are: (1) this doesn't protect its users from being nabbed for infringement; and (2) the encryption of the data doesn't appear to preclude reasonable investigation. At least, not based upon the information in the article alone.
If that argument holds, then you would expect any corresponding drop in sales to be felt most in the sale of CD singles rather than in the sale of albums.
Salocin.com
Thats a pretty bold blanket statement, and its not true
That's a pretty blanket statement, and you don't offer evidence to support it....
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I believe that I saw it on CNN last night or the night before. Singles are still being sold (mostly rap, R&B and pop), and they have been going through a steady decline in the last 10 years or so. However, in the last year or so, they've taken a sharp nosedive. This dive in single sales is more than negated by the increase in LP and EP sales (20% more than last year, I think). I looked but couldn't find a link. I didn't really look that hard. I'm tired.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
A counterargument:
Lets say I have computer A and computer B, both of which I legally own, and a nice mp3 collection I have made as legal backups of my CDs. For the sake of argument, all my mp3s are on computer A, and I want to transfer them over to computer B. Since they are hooked up to the university's network, I just move them over to a folder on the network and then move them to computer B. Now for awhile, the University had a "copy" of my files floating around their network. If possession was illegal, then the university would be in trouble.
Now this may be a contrived example, but information passes through dozens of servers daily, and occasionally that information is copied (as in a cache or for another purpose). Thus I'm going to have to believe that there is a strong argument for being able to possess files that you have no rights too.
DMCA or no, I doubt that AOL/TW will permit its Instant Messaging network to piss off it's record division.
I'm not up on all of the technical details of Aimster. What's there to prevent AOL from just not permitting Aimster traffic to go through its network, a la the MS Messaging battle of a few months back?
In addition, the DeCSS case has taught us that judges dispense with reason and existing precedent when profits are at stake.
...
If that were true, then they'd even interfere with elections and install their own president.
Like that would ever happen
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Everthing on Freenet now is encrypted. I wonder if the Aimster actions hold up under scrutiny, whether Freenet may be able to make the same case. In its current incarnation Freenet seems to have a wide variety of material, so music if just one small portion. I regularly use Freenet to distribute source code of my own making and I use FreenetMail for personal communications. Since only I know the key I can privately distribute it to others. It certainly seems to me that unauthorized use and interception of such works would be in violation of the DMCA.
The Fourth Amendment applies only to the government. This is why you do not have the right of privacy from business, until it gets codified by (another) law. So, when your employer puts cameras in the restroom stalls, smile and spread 'em, 'cause you don't have the right to pee in private.
As for Aimster, the RIAA would have to find some way of getting evidence and convincing the government that FOUL DEEDS were occurring.
Here's a scary scenario: the Game Wardens do not need a search warrant to bust down your door and tear your place apart. Suppose RIAA tells their local GW that Joe Hacker has a cougar locked in his room. The GW busts down the door - oops, no cougar, so sorry. What's this? The GW sees Joe is running Aimster on his machine and swapping Metallica's latest? Hmm... All it takes is one phone call and John Law has probable cause.
This has happened before - not with software, but with illegal Drugs.
Yeah, right.
You misunderstood my point. I agree that P2P file sharing services should be as legal as any other search engine. However, if Napster's service is deemed illegal under the DMCA, then Aimster's half a**ed ToS change will not alter their legal status. This is just another case where what should be and what is are two different things.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
I would suggest that the main reason that Erin Brokovitch got made into a movie is that it's the only time that the legal system has worked for the poor against the rich.
Even then, Erin had to work the system and pull all kinds of stunts - social engineering included - to get the outcome she did. The succeess of the case was more about having the nouse to manipulate people to obtain information, rather than having money to pay lawyers to hide information.
Erin was actually quite rich in terms of motivation, energy, people skills and time.
There's always and argument that floats around. Is Symantic or Norton violating the DMCA when they reverse engineer viruses so they can prevent them?
--
Free Mac Mini
"As noble Slashdotters, we're supposed to hate AOL, and love Napster, so what are we supposed to do in this case?"
Sorry I just can't get myself to love any corporation. To me all corporations are the same.
War is necrophilia.
At least this site is honest and up-front about being biased.
LOL. Just like the supreme court did with the election. They said something to the effect..
"We are using the equal access clause to justify this decision but only in this case. If you come to us with another equal protection case we reserve the right to ignore it alltogether.
War is necrophilia.
Problem with your contrived example is that the files will not pass through any servers, they will pass along cable, via routers (which do not storre any info) possibly (although almost certainly not in your example) and back down some cable again.
No servers in sight.
No storage of files, however temporary.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
The DMCA has no effect on law enforcement, because they are specifically covered by an exemption.
So... let's see how they'll do it. RIAA get curious, for whatever reason. Then RIAA illegally circumvents, in order to see if it's something they're intererested in. If it is, then they tell law enforcement, "We think something fishy is going on here, please investigate it." Maybe they could even notify law enforcement with an "anonymous tip." Then law enforcement circumvents (legally) and obtains evidence.
Thus, the evidence legally exists, gathered legally, initiated by illegal "fishing." It's similar to how an illegal wiretap can be used to identify suspects, and then warrants gotten to legally gather evidence.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
That if it is possible to hold the Napster service accountable for the potential abuse of its users, which it can't control, the next logical step would be to sue the big backbone providers (MCI/Worldcom/UUNET, Sprint, etc) because their networks could potentially be used for piracy. Since it would be as impossible for the backbone to police its users as it would for Napster to do so, it is equally as logical and compelling to shut the backbone down for the same reasons.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
When you talk about CD singles your only talking about 1% of their sales. If there is a 10% decrease in 1% of your business, how much have you really been hurt? Also, when discussing such a relatively small segment of an enormous business process, is 10% really indicative of a downward trend caused by an external influence (Napster), or is it more likely that such a small dip is rounding error? Doesn't it make more sense to attribute the decrease to the more wide-scale economic slow-down or just a seasonal trend?
I'm going to post this here, not too off-topic I hope, since I see people speculating in this thread about the legality of a smaller "circle-of-friends" style sharing network. There's an aspect of Canadian law that might help Aimster survive in this (admittedly small) market up north here.
Here's the legal scoop in Canada.... On March 19, 1998, Part VIII of the Copyright Act came into force. Until then, copying any sound recording for almost any purpose infringed copyright. Part VIII legalizes one such activity: copying of sound recordings of musical works onto recording media for the private use of the person who makes the copy.
Specifically, the Copyright Board says their ruling "does not legalize (a) copies made for the use of someone other than the person making the copy; and (b) copies of anything else than sound recordings of musical works. It does legalize making a personal copy of a recording owned by someone else."
So call me naive, but with or without their "shield", does this ruling from three years ago not help Aimster (or even Napster-like entitites) a whole lot in Canada?
As I recall (with the standard IANAL caveat), when you sell a CD, you no longer have the right to those copies. The copies were made under the backup provision of copyright law. If you no longer 'own' the CD, then they cannot be backups.
Not anymore; the Napster case changed the law. If you think that he might make a copy of the CD, then your act of lending the CD to him, is contributory copyright infringement.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
As for the three idiots who modded it up... a pox on your firstborns!
It's only a matter of time before the RIAA finds the right sauce to cook their goose in.
As noble Slashdotters, we're supposed to hate AOL, and love Napster, so what are we supposed to do in this case?
:)
Tho, I do have to agree... Lovely hack...
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Bringing down the DMCA is a small price to pay for shutting down Aimster? I think it would be a very very large price. At that point:
1. DeCSS would then be legal to own and use.
2. SDMI Hack challenge results would be easily accessable, causing SDMI to die a nasty horrible death.
3. Probably many other situations that I can't remember.
Greg
This has got to be closer to the fair use than services like Napster are. You have to somehow be invited to join in a share group (that invitation could be quite vague I guess), but still, you actually have to be invited at some point, which makes it more like a person letting you borrow a part of some content that they have. Now this doesn't mean that it is legal to give away copywrited works, or even that they aquired the content legally. However, my understanding of fair use is that it is okay to make a copy, and to loan a copy, under the understanding that I am not using the copy and the original at the same time (that would be duplication). So, if there was a way to lock the files that are in use in a share, then you could say that I am only using one version of the copy at a time. This wouldn't prevent you from using both the copy and the original, but it would be a lot closer to how this works in the non-digital world.... Robert
did anyone else notice the main page?...
right next to the picture of the attractive jailbait, the blinking words...
"Can't Touch This!"
--nick
No they didn't have to reverse engineer their BIOS. IBM always had the source to their BIOS open for anyone to read, but it was still copyrighted. What Compaq had to do was get some engineers who had never seen the BIOS code to "clean room clone" it. This is not the same thing as reverse engineering.
This is no different than warez and rom sites that state "You may only download this file for backup purposes only", or "You must delete the file after 24 hours".
I can't believe anyone would actually think this would stand up in court. This is basically Napster with a meaningless EULA. Ooooo, the RIAA is shaking in their boots!
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
i highly doubt the lawmakers in this country will just get rid of the law completely. even if they wanted to, the industry would do everything in their power (and plenty outside of it) to stop it. i believe the dmca may be changed or have a few exceptions slapped on, but that's all.
I don't see why this has to be so. If you use encryption to hide a crime do you actually think that you will be protected by the DMCA. You will have a 1000 page brief by the government to the judge in less than a week. Just like the government did when Napster tried to use the Home Recording Act as a defense. "No your honor. The DMCA was not meant to be used this way."
Again, why must this be. The MPAA could not prove DeCSS was being used to pirate DVDs. The idea they had to sell is that it was likely DeCSS could be used to pirate DVDs. What would stop the RIAA saying "Well your honor this fellow had 1 gig worth of 4-5Meg files in his shared folder and that looked suspiciously like a MP3 warehouse. We downloaded and decrypted a few and sure enough we found Metallica songs." Being a civil case, the burden of proof would likely be on the defendant not on the RIAA.
Interesting, yes. Intellegent? I'm not sure. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Aimster, from a certain standpoint, is breaking the spirit of the law. I'm simply not convinced that this legal "hack" would stand up in court.
I don't know which country you live in but in the US we're having an economic slowdown which will likely require months to dig out of and has been going on since the fourth quarter of 2000. I suggest you look at the recent cover of Fortune magazine.
Again, I don't buy this. Simply having some lame TOS agreement with no teeth and then encrypting data so concerned parties can't "legally" inspect it comes off as a flim-flam job. I envision this getting to court and the judge pulling a stunt out of Miss Congeniality "You think I'm stuuupid. You don't like me. I should issue an injunction..."
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Here's what I was about to post: "It doesn't matter how judges want to rule, if the evidence was gathered in opposition to law (DMCA) than you can't even say that Aimster has unclean hands." But then it occurred to me, if it was the RIAA itself that gathered the evidence (instead of the police) does the Fourth Amendment apply? Or, for that matter, does DMCA apply to Fourth Amendment?
That is, does the fact that the DMCA makes "breaking protection schemes" illegal force the police into a position (via the Fourth Amendment) where they can't access, say, my hard drive? And if so, does it place the RIAA in the same position or are they exempt by not being a law enforcement agency?
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Hmm... manipulating existing law for your own purposes... it's funny how much this reminds me of the GPL.
GPL: using copyright law to create a "copyleft" license that guarantees your right to redistribute program code.
Aimster: using the DMCA to create a network that is at once peer-to-peer and NOT peer-to-peer and is protected from the prying eyes of copyright lawyers.
Now, here is my concern. This "unclean hands" concept kind of has me worried; the Aimster terms of use agreement and the GPL are NOT what I would call traditional interpretations of existing law. If, in the upcoming peer-to-peer witchhunt, someone manages to take Aimster down, could the GPL get caught in the area of effect?
-inq
Judging from the number of people searching through the logs of Napster to see if protected content has been traded, it is possible that a few RIAA people in the right circles could destroy it. All they need to do is have a few people with mp3s sit back and let themselves get invited in the trading circles/whatever, and then a few months later sue them claiming that they're violating the ToS by opening the files. Now, they probably wouldn't sue everyone, just a few high enough profile people in the aimster circles to shake everyone up. All without the unwashed hands defense
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the PC was cloned from IBM using reverse engineering. The entire American economy for the past 5 years has revolved around tech (little bit of hyperbole here), brought about mostly because of the proliferation of cheap PC's. Why does this point never seem to come up when people discuss the DMCA?
Was the DMCA brought in just to avoid another Nasdaq crash? :)
Please enlighten this ignorant Canuck :)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Are you still breaking copyright law? Yes.
If I copy Microsofts lastest software and give it to a friend, but he never actually installs it or uses it in any way, is the law broken? Yes!
This seems like a good idea designed to entice legally-worried users away from the Napster service, but in the end its no more legal than sharing music via Napster.
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Fight Spammers!
Although I immediately liked the idea of turning a bad law against itself, I think Aimster might have some problems. Under their privacy/security section, they say that all materials exchanged are copyrighted and then encrypted, so that breaking the encryption is a DMCA violation. My question is: does this only apply to material which you own the copyright to and then you encrypt?
That is, is there a difference between sharing a document for collaboration over Aimster which I and my friends are co-writing, and sharing mp3s over Aimster which are probably copyright Warner Bros. or something like that. So if the fine folks at copyright.net (how unlike copyleft.net!) crack the encryption to find that I'm swapping mp3s, I might not be able to use the DMCA as my defense since the encryption was not a protection service used by the copyright owners.
Of course, if the RIAA cracks the encryption to find a document that is copyrighted by me, then I really could go after them. It's kind of a gamble on their part as to whom they think certain material is copyrighted by. Unfortunately, they have enough money that they could probably just crack 'em all and suffer through a few DMCA lawsuits, since they probably have much better lawyers than Joe MP3-Ripper.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This would be absurd, and could be compared to several similar things, which I think we should all agree are just stupid to claim. First, it would be like saying it's the responsibility of an IRC network to curtail any channel and user that runs an fserve and to monitor it. While some smaller networks do this, it is extraordinarily stupid to expect a large network to monitor this sort of thing. Second, it would be like suing the authors of WS_FTP or Serv-U or any other ftp client or daemon because their software is used for distributing pirated music or videos. This should all seem absurd, because there are legitimate uses of these, and certainly the legitimate use far outweighs the possible abuses of it. I could come up with many more examples of this, but I think the point I'm trying to make is clear.
The worst thing for Aimster is that it specifically mentions in its help section about music and videos, which could be used against it in court. If I remember correctly, in one of the court rulings, they stated that Napster was fully aware that there was pirated music being distributed, and even though they said it wasn't allowed in their terms and conditions, they still were held responsible. Napster had the means to ban users for violating the rules, and did so when requested by Metallica, but that didn't influence the opinions of the courts either.
As for violating the DMCA to break the encryption, it seems unclear if a court would hear that argument, or know enough to understand the argument. Remember, Metallica broke Napster rules by using a bot to collect the lists of users distribuing their music, and that didn't seem to matter. Somehow, I doubt a court would hear that argument, but they would probably see it as a lot of petty theives stealing from an industry and a service that encourages theft, and on those grounds, they would shut it down. This has already been shown that judges without a good understanding of the technology have made rulings, and ones which are not necessarily right, just look at the Microsoft trial.
If they get a fair trial, they would have a decent chance of proving that their was a legitimate use of their service that outweighs the piracy that it would be used for. But it seems a bit unlikely that any service likes this will get a fair chance in the courts.
I demand a manual recount of my karma!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> Alot of people wont use scp.
Yeah, well, it takes all kinds to make the world spin. Send them an sfx containing a shortcut and PSCP.EXE; if they're too thick to type ``pscp file luser@server:'' then they can click on the shortcut to do the post - how hard is that?
PSCP, like the interactive version (PuTTY), runs on all known Windows (win32s and beyond) and doesn't have any DLLs (or indeed any install) to cause the traditional tragedy-of-errors that happens so often on WIndows at install time.
AFAIK, there is no Open-licence SSH server for Windows - if anyone knows better, please email me *now* and tell me!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The DMCA, along with the anti-circumvention clauses, also made it oficial that ISP are only courriers, and as thus they are not held responsible for the content they carry. (They do have the responsability to shutdown content once it pointed to them which is disagreable, but that's another debate).
-
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
----
"Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."
grep -ri 'should work'
"sales of singles are down something like 10% in a strengthening economy, which begs the question, "was it Napster?" (my personal opinion : Yes it was)."
Singles are either a loss leader, in which case, what's the problem, lower sales is more money for RIAA, or a rip-off and frankly I favour the latter, so some other distribution mechanism needs to be found. This may require a change in the law to make it legal, which is fair as the current law is being abused and use to support a business model and guaranteed returns, to the detriment of the consumer.
Because it's not encrypted and thus completely snoopable. Ease of use is other reason that springs to mind.
that,if you are using a dildo, you usually _want_ it to be your own. otherwise, there are some serious hygiene issues here.
Meanwhile, the world turns foolishly on and ants tickle his butt.
I dunno. The department secretary has some pretty obtuse writing.
"This either says, 'Meeting at noon' or 'Mining baffoon'..."
--
Napster locks up and crashes whenever I try to get on. There must be some kind limit or something.
Rader
Just to clarify the history, did IBM successfully block a functioning but non-clean-room BIOS from being used?
it's the Sony Betamax case!
Consider - the idea with Aimster is to share files *with people
you already know*. This is fundamentally different than
Napster. It is legal for me to lend a CD to a friend and let
him make a copy for his own use. However, it is not legal
for me to make a copy and give it to him - he has to actively
create the copy for himself. Given this, Aimster is perfectly
legal - it is allowing a friend of yours (since you are using
buddy lists) to make a copy of your music for his own use.
Since your friend is using Aimster, he is the active copier
and so can legally do so.
Am I wrong? Anyone (lawyers) out there confirm this?
The Fourth Amendment only applies to governmental action. Any law must give way to the 4th or any othe rpart of the constitution.
However, when a private party acts illegally, it is likely to be "estopped" from using evidence gathered in this matter. However, estoppel is a doctrine from equity, not law, and the party seeking to use an equitable doctrine must come forwared with "clean hands"
So why am I skeptical? Very simply, the purported license terms apear to be a sham from the beginning. There appears to be not only no legitimate use, but no use at all for the service under its license terms. You are allowed to download a file, but not open it afterwards. In other words, its useless.
If it's true that David Boies was involved, there may be something that wasn't reported that would make a difference: he's too smart and too good an attorney to have been involved with this the way it was reported (OK, some of his arguments on behalf of the Gore campaign were silly at best, but he's still very good. And when your case is a lost cause from the start, a good attorney grabs for every glimmer of hope).
From what has been reported, it would seem to me that there's a good chance that the license is modified by the clear intent of the authors (as is the case where projects are accused of violating their own GPL license) so that opening the files *is* allowed. At that point, I don't see where aimster has gotten anywhere.
hawk, esq.
What you mean is that it's dubious that their system will be used for legal purposes - what they're doing is no more illegal than enabling a corporate network unless their model is dependent upon pirating music in the same way as Napster does.
This is really smart for quite a few reasons, I can think of 2 that are so cool they give me goosebumps.
The first thing is that they're making the point, implicitly, but quite clearly, that the DMCA was a law passed to serve a certain group of people rather than the people as a whole - and now that they've used its provisions to protect themselves, the law has to either take the bullet, accept that it's there to serve the interests of the RIAA and cohorts, or feign ignorance and let this happen.
Secondly, for this to be illegal, it has to be proven that it is being used to copy music/films/copyrighted information. This cannot be done without someone finding out about the content being transferred - and this cannot be broken without invalidating the case against DeCSS.
It's an interesting cross-over of the DeCSS case with the Napster case, and it uses the law very intelligently to say that if these provisions can protect one party, they can protect all parties.
But let's not lose sight of the ball here - although the DMCA is bad and the case against DeCSS should rot and die, the case against Napster still provides a conundrum - sales of singles are down something like 10% in a strengthening economy, which begs the question, "was it Napster?" (my personal opinion : Yes it was). If there is a problem there, and sales are being reduced because people are pirating records - then there's still something illegal going on, and just because it's illegal to get around our obfuscation because we've been smart doesn't make us any better than the MPAA using the DMCA to crush DeCSS.
All we've really done is said: "Look, the DMCA allows us to prevent you from proving that people are breaking the law", and that's a really good point proving that the DMCA goes much too far. It doesn't make obtaining songs without paying for them any more legal than before, and that's got nothing to do with the DMCA.
Salocin.com
If it's wrong to open a file you downloaded would it be OK to invite a friend over to your house to open the files for you...?
--Later, friends--
--Later, friends--
Frogisis, Master of
I don't know as if that'll hold water. Presumably, the MPAA could license CSS decryption tools to the RIAA and then the RIAA would just sit there and decrypt traffic.
All you're doing is adding a step to the process of them hunting people down.
Opinion: Scientology is a cult you should avoid. Follow the
The DMCA forbids the distribution of devices that are designed to circumvent protections on copywrited materials. Some other clauses indicate directly circumventing protections on copyrighted materials.
Presumably this is means the owner of the copyright is the one who decided on the protection. If someone who does not own the copyright puts protection on something, does that qualify?
So you don't know if it is copyrighted until after you break in. Then, if it is copyrighted to someone other than the person serving the file, the DMCA doesn't cover it. You find the real copyright owner, (RIAA, MPAA) and ask them if they consider this to be their protection (which they don't) and the DMCA no longer matters.
too bad.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
The virus writer's copyright is effective without an EULA. However, reverse engineering a copyright is not infringement. If the virus were patented, then there would be infringement without an EULA. So, you are correct that a virus that is merely covered by a copyright would require an EULA that says that reverse engineering is not allowed.
Living in Oakland, and working for a company that would be affected by the Bernstein case I had the opportunity to see Judge Patel in action.
Based on her performance in court, and her decision in that case, I have to say I'm a fan. She's certainly not a friend of big business or the government, and trying to look for conspiracy theories there is a waste of time, IMHO.
Anyone with a legal background who has thought about how to provide a service like Napster in any depth realizes that, because of statements they have made (intent) and the architecture of the service, they are most likely in the wrong legally. Other services have put considerably more effort into thinking through the legal consequences of their services, and it will be interesting to see how things shake out for them.
It's quite impressive, I think, as it's the only mainstream media coverage of the DMCA/DeCSS deal that actually gets the details right, let alone comes across on the hackers' side.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
If I'm understanding correctly, this service allows you to tell your buddies on AIM that you have files to share on your drive. Instead of creating a brand new technology that only works on AIM, why not just hand out username:password@ftpsite to your buddies over any medium?
...
The supposed protection that encrypting the files in transit provides is miniscule. Nobody is packet sniffing for the leading bytes of copyright music.
Anyway, once you give permission to an RIAA rep to download your music you've nailed yourself to the wall. Don't think the DMCA can protect you if you use a legal service in an illegal way
Aimster is completely useless.
What ever happened to 2600.com? I hate to sound ignorant, I know it lost it's court battle, but was it shut down? I can't get to it's website from work or home.
What's to stop some bastard group of lawyers employing a consultant in another country to review what's being swapped on the network and reporting this back to previously mentioned bastard lawyers?
Surely this evidence could then be submitted in the US?
"Mary had a crypto key, she kept it in escrow, and everything that Mary said, the Feds were sure to know."
I don't know about IBM, but Apple successfully blocked Franklin (a non-clean-room Apple II clone).
Ingenious!
Well, we've been testing the same "access control mechanism" defense on www.datafetish.com, and no lawyers have huffed down my door yet. It's not a closed system, but it is a double-blind system (we don't reveal what pages have what content, and we don't reveal what pages use what encoding). Afterall, who are we to say what a particular series of 1's and 0's mean? :-)
Oh yeah? Show me ONE DMCA case where the court HASN'T sided with the monied companies and I'll agree that it's biased. Otherwise I just consider it to be accurate.
Especially considering Mark Rich. Anyone who thinks our government can't be bought after the Mark Rich case has shown us all that they can is a fool.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Someone had better explain that to Rod Canion, co-founder and former CEO of Compaq Computer Corp. who spent about $1M to do it (note this is a quote):
Now, one could argue that it's a matter of definitions. Since this involves the law, let's check a law-related web page like this one which says:
Seems to me that saying "Compaq reverse engineered the IBM BIOS" is quite accurate.
OpenSourcerers
Well, I can't look at the actual TOS from behind my company's filtering proxy server, but does it say that you agree not to open the file or does it say that you agree not to open the file unless you have legal right to do so?
If it's the latter, then technically they shouldn't be in any more danger than Microsoft is for having file sharing available in Windows.
-- fencepost
fencepost
just a little off
Ok, you're wrong.
IBM opened up their specs, allowing everybody to make PCs, and by doing so, they virtually wiped Apple off of the map. Have you ever wondered why there's a proliferation of PC clones, and no Mac clones currently being produced? It's not because the PC was such a great platform that everybody wanted to emulate.
A couple of years back, Apple licensed their boxes to serveral clone manufacturers, Motorola among them, to make 'clones'. When Jobs got back in power, one of his first moves was to get rid of the 3rd party manufacturers. He then went on to build bright blue one piece boxes, and star in several successful Broadway productions before being tragically burnt passing out in front of a bonfire.
Just checking to see if you're paying attention
After reading the Wired story, I still had some confusion, so I went to aimster's site and read the new TOS.
:). But I don't see how this is different than:
Basically, the new TOS has two big clauses:
1. The network is encrypted and private, and by the DCMA you can't break that encryption.
2. The whole goal of AIMSTER is to distribute to yourself files you already own, or to collaborate with a known group of individuals on files you own and can legally share with them (i.e. a text document you are editing together).
You also agree not to copy files out of your aimster folders into other folders, unless those folders are also shared on aimster. And (here's the key) you agree not to open a file in any aimster folder unless you know for sure it's legally yours to open.
I think what they've effectively done is say "Look, there's a legit market for distributed storage of files. We've done our best to make sure it's used legally. If you think someone is using this service illegally, pursue them, don't pursue us." They've also made it non-trivial to gather evidence to show the service is being used illegally.
I think it's fairly clever. I'm trying to find a way in which they're breaking a law, and I can't. Of, course, IANAL
- Using an encryption program to encrypt some files
- Placing those files on your machine in a shared folder, which is password protected
- Using a service like AIM/ICQ to tell your buddies about the password-protected share, including the password and directions on how to decrypt.
Who can you sue in the above scenario? Only the end user is breaking the law, if any law is being broken. I think aimster is just wrapping all 3 of those things into one convenient package.
Good job, guys.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Just because _Erin Brokovitch_ got made into a movie doesn't mean that the legal system works as well for the poor as it does for the rich.
Even without the the direct influence of money (e.g. not necessarily bribes, but better and more lawyers and far more "staying power") judges are human beings and are as subject to marketing as anyone else and if "evil music pirates" gets repeated often enough they are going to be influenced. The RIAA can afford to have a PR Bunny stationed 24/7 at every major TV network and newspaper. I think that was the original poster's point: "the RIAA (or any large corp) gets to choose the terms under which the battle is fought." If the terms are "noble muscician" versus "evil pirate", the battle is already lost: DCMA will never be overturned.
Of course there are many fair judges, but they get labled as "liberal activist" by the same corporate shills that are paying congress to write (and rewrite) legislation.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
IBM published the assembler source to the BIOS in its Hardware Technical Reference Manuals. (I am the proud owner of both a PC and an AT HTRM. I wonder how much they'd get on Ebay.) The BIOS cloners had to set up clean room environments that included programmers who could state under oath that they hadn't read the IBM source. One group would read the source, document the functions and their return values and a second group would reproduct the (uncopyrightable) functionality without copying the copyrighted source.
IBM actually made the job legally more difficult because they published the code.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
...or however the saying goes...it is little wonder this clever scheme has come into being with David Boies in the mix...He did his best to get Gore a win in Florida (I heard for $50 an hour), made Bill Gates look even more like an blubbering arrogant asshole than he usually does, is defending Napster, and now this...oh, yeah, and he was profiled on 60 Minutes last Sunday...cool dude, and very eccentric!
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Of course, who wants to type in a password every time you start a process?
Try this with Gnutella:
1) Take the Gnutella protocol and add some bitstring to the begining. Call it the New Gnutella protocol.
2) Write a New Gnutella client that only accepts data from New Gnutella clients.
3) Add to the New Gnutella license: "By using this system, you agree not to use this system to identify users. You agree not to pursue any legal action against users. You agree to pay a $5,000 penalty to any user privacy whose you violate."
Sure, it would be trivial to reverse-engineer the "security" bitstring, but wait a minute, that's a clear violation of the DMCA.
This was hinted at by others.
Why not create a p2p service that only serves up css encrypted files, using a key that isn't distributed.
To use the files you have to get the DeCSS utility from a "pirate" web site.
Now nobody can verify the contents of the files without violating the DMCA!
The SPA/MPAA/RIAA's propaganda has gotten the piracy term firmly entrenched in the public's mind now. Please try to remember that copyright violators are not scruffy villians who sail ships and rape and pillage.
FuzzyBad
Isn't that only the case in Canada? It seems far too rational a solution to have gotten through the U.S. Congress.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Just because there is no reason for you to do so, doesn't mean there is no reason for me to do it. I might just want to test the speed of my network connection.
Isn't the RIAA not really concerned with the DMCA concerning encryption? It's the MPAA that wouldn't want the DMCA to go away b/c of the whole DeCSS ordeal. It seems to me that the RIAA would fight the DMCA since they don't really have anything to lose if it's abolished.
Remember, RIAA != MPAA.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
I think I'm getting the idea of this, with the encryption and all, but one thing isn't quite clear to me. Is the reason the DMCA defense seems plausible is because each Aimster account is essentially a closed system?
The reason this works is because Aimster has legitimate, legal, fair uses as a service. And using the DMCA, it's illegal to intercept/decrypt/decipher what is in those transmissions. So somebody like the RIAA can't snoop the traffic to see if Aimster users are sending MP3s. They also can't get a court to bypass the DMCA because the RIAA does not ( and cannot without breaking the DMCA) know whether Aimster users are engaging in illegal activity or not, since Aimster does have legitimate uses.
I suppose it's somewhat equivalent to the police entering your home without probable cause, finding drugs/illegal material/criminal activity, and THEN arresting you. The police can't unlawfully search your home due to the 4th Amendment (DMCA) to find illegal material (MP3s) since your home does (hopefully) have legitimate fair, non-infringing uses.
The DMCA was not meant to be used to enforce customer segmentation either, but that's what the CSS does. The CSS does *not* copy-protect.
I don't disagree with you that this system can't stand up for long - my argument is that it makes an excellent point about the DMCA and the way in which it has been interpreted.
Interesting, yes. Intellegent? I'm not sure. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Aimster, from a certain standpoint, is breaking the spirit of the law. I'm simply not convinced that this legal "hack" would stand up in court.
Precisely - the spirit of the law was that the DMCA should protect certain types of intellectual property rights in the light of new technology, but by applying the letter of the law and a few obfuscation techniques, it has been used to enforce a system of market segmentation the sole purpose of which is to drive greater profits by staggering cinematic and home-view media releases across the globe, and to limit the group of companies that can manufacture DVDs to those that receive licenses to use the technology, therefore controlling not only the media but also the manufacture and distribution of the delivery device.
If the DMCA is used in a way that defeats it's spirit, you can't reinterpret it in a way that does not flow from the language of the act itself just because it's convenient - if it has been misformulated and can therefore be exploited in this way, it has to be reformulated or amended - not even the highest court in the land can choose to interpret it in a way that does not flow from it's language - it can only declare it unconstitutional. "It wasn't intended to be used in this way" is exactly the point I think needs to be made - it's formulation and it's interpretation have gone too far, and in my opinion have infringed on constitutional rights (although the courts disagree with me so far on that one).
Aimster have not only used the DMCA to protect themselves, but they've used the same interpretation of it that was used to protect CSS and to whack 2600. You seem to think I'm saying Aimster is wonderful and I hope it stays open forever - that's not my opinion (as should be clear from the end of my last post) - I think it makes a point - and a valid one. Don't you?
I suggest you look at the recent cover of Fortune magazine.
Just did - interesting, nice to see what happens on the other side of the pond, but as you correctly state, you don't know what country I'm in, and it's not the US.
I said : All we've really done is said: "Look, the DMCA allows us to prevent you from proving that people are breaking the law", and that's a really good point proving that the DMCA goes much too far.
To which you replied : Again, I don't buy this.
Don't buy what? That this is the statement being made? If what you're saying is that Aimster isn't and shouldn't be legal, then you're not disagreeing with me - what I said was that it was making a good point - of course it's a "flim flam job" it's a caricature of legality, but the nature of a caricature is to throw certain aspects of something into a more extreme contrast - in this case, certain aspects of the DMCA interpretation.
Salocin.com
I don't know, perhaps I am reitterating something that has already been said, but I haven't seen. Does it bother anyone else that AIMster is owned by AOL(as near as I can tell)... as in AOL/Time Warner which happens to be one of the large record labels that are behind the RIAA.
There needs to be a P2P app with strong filtering, ie block executables and scripts by default, and with options to show only files with certain extensions, etc. As long as it isnt targeted at music, how could anyone shut down such a service?
And Napster's attempt to be a "music community" is rather laughable. The chatrooms are typically empty, and I highly doubt many people read their content. I won't even go into the program's technical dismerit (just look at the protocol). A better application could easily be made.
Don't forget... it's still easy to find MP3 on http, ftp, nntp, irc, etc. Those services all use a centralized server, but can't be shut down (by and large) because they are so general.
I wonder, though... if there were a generic centralized file-sharing service, would the authorities search it for MP3 and prosecute individual users? Something seems horribly wrong about all of this...
judges rule one way or another, maybe they aren't all biased, but when the law backfires for a group like the riaa, the legislators modify the law. i think its safe to assum judges generally will side with big companies, because if they don't the law will just get changed anyway.
Why all the lawsuits in the 80's then?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
If RIAA cracked Aimster's encryption, Aimster would sue RIAA for violation of DMCA - that's the idea anyway. RIAA's only option would be to get DMCA changed. Either outcome is probably okie-dokie w/ Aimster. IANAL
In which case could the "unclean" hands rule not be turned around, and say that by breaking the encryption (contra DCMA) that the RIAA have made their hands unclean?
Interesting article in Salon (a couple years old) about how Federal Judges are cozied up to by foundations with business interests. This particular article is about antitrust legislation, but it does make you think that perhaps judges who accept $5000 vacations and attend "educational" seminars on law and economics... might not be completely impartial.
"I swear it's not encryption, officer! I just love sending massive amounts of gibberish across the network..."
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
Set it up right and you *can't* break the encryption, unless you are the user who uploaded it. Most places that offer encryption and aren't out to screw the end user do this -- they'll encrypt your password, but if you forget it, too bad! They can't decrypt it.
If you're super-paranoid... Mix multiple compression schemes with with multiple encryption schemes. ("To e-mail me: reverse address, ROT-13, gunzip, untar, delete every prime-numbered character, save the whole thing, stick it through tar again... Then run it through Blowfish.") You might need a script to do this, so you don't forget the procedure... :) But that would defeat the whole purpose of the encryption.) Why anyone would need this, I don't know... But it can't hurt if you're extremely paranoid.
Now... For my last idea. If you're paranoid about being subpoenaed (sp?) into opening your files in court for some bizarre reason... Share gibberish! You can decrypt it all you want, but it's never anything more than random characters. (Warning: Your random characters may be remarkably similar to the source code for Microsoft Windows. If you are worried about being accused of stealing Microsoft's source code, you may want to insert something such as the Linux source code, which will confuse their programmers for hours on end. ["Ooh! How did they get the source code this neat? It took us years of randomly banging on the keyboard to get Windows to work."]
________________________________________________
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suwain_2
But in practice, judges are going to want to rule for the noble music industry against the evil music pirates.
Oh come on, how biased of a statement can this be? If you agree with the Napster decision or not, all judges don't automatically side with big companies.
Slashdot needs to be more careful in its blanket statements and stay away from blatantly biased statements such as this one.
And they don't need to invest too much in order to perform a little covert action. All they need are a couple songs, not their entire label. If they are as chickenshit of everything internet as it seems, it would be a small price to pay.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
Ok, I'll give it a shot and subject myself to the fearsome wrath of the moderators.
Basically the DMCA says that reverse engineering is legal. I'm not going to go look up the section number right now, but I know for a fact that they made exceptions for reverse engineering, otherwise it might never have made it through Congress. Now, where they were clever and malicious is when they made it illegal to circumvent any technology that serves as a protection for the copyright on the media. So basically they are saying that reverse engineering is legal, as long as you can do it without cracking their encryption or any other method of protection they use, no matter how weak it is.
Yes, this is a poor explanation, but since nobody else posted an actual answer to his question, I figure this is better than nothing. And I didn't want to go hunting for quotes and section numbers. I might come back and post a link or 2 for more info later.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Cool!
"All we've really done is said: "Look, the DMCA allows us to prevent you from proving that people are
breaking the law", and that's a really good point proving that the DMCA goes much too far. It doesn't make
obtaining songs without paying for them any more legal than before, and that's got nothing to do with the DMCA."
True. What it _does_ do, however (and all to the good, IMNSHO) is put
the enforcement requirement back to where it ought to have been in the first place:
The RIAA/MPAA/etc. have to go back to prosecuting the _actual_infringer_,
not "taxing" my purchase of blank media because I _might_ use
it to infringe. This, granted, _is_ a Herculean task, but so
is any kind of thought policing. They'll get what they deserve. And we'll be
entertained watching....
Remember, "reasonable suspicion". The above is possible, but highly improbable.
And they are right - that has a good deal of non-infringing uses.
=Blue
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
You're missing one of the key points of social disobedience: willingness to be prosecuted and convicted (martyred?) under the apparent bad law to raise public awareness of its brokenness. You may have a "God given right" to do as you please, but you also have a paired responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Well, I'm impressed. This is really clever. I'm sure that the recording industry will find a way around it (they always seem to), but in the meantime, it certainly is fun to see someone using their own guidelines as a shield. Good luck, Aimster. I hope you can pull this thing off.
-Peter
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
Shooting somebody with a borrowed gun doesn't make it OK.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Of course it doesn't. But this makes it such that, in order to prove that a law has been broken you have to break the law. Now, with probably cause a law enforcement agency can get a warrant and (maybe) force the encryption key out of someone, IF they have probable cause. If being encrypted is probable cause, then why are DVD's allowed to be encrypted? Are motion picture companies the only ones that have intellectual property to protect?
Beyond that, a private organizations, such as RIAA employed law rats and investigators cannot monitor traffic for known strings or file signatures, since they would first have to bypass the encryption, violating the DCMA as ruled in the DeCSS case: They are not breaking it to make a competing product. They are breaking it to gain access to protected intellectual property.
What a stupid, pedantic nitpick! The activities performed by the engineers would be recognized by most non-anal-rententive people as "reverse engineering".
--Jim
I can't imagine (though like everyone else here IANAL) that this strategy is legitimate. I would think that if somebody does something illegal on my behalf in another country (where it is legal), yielding "evidence", that that "evidence" would be inadmissible in court. Allowing it would open the system up to all sorts of abuses, since it's clearly done in the spirit of violating the law. Numerous judges' decisions remind us that often, the intent of the law is as important as the exact wording (especially when deciding whether to allow the use of evidence). The police themselves are sometimes dinged by this when they have been a little too devious in a sting operation or whatever.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Sales of singles is down???? I haven't seen anyplace to buy singles since they stopped selling 45 RPM vinyl records. Once in a while you'll see a 'CD Single' which is actually three songs on a mini-CD.
If the only place they can show a decrease in sales is on singles, then it sounds like all other sales are UP.
I have never, nor has anyone I know, bought a 'single' in the last 15 years. Before or after Napster. I think I got one out of a cereal box once...
What kind of argument is this supposed to be... I suppose sales of electric orange housepaint is down too??! (aka Nobody buys that either)
If sales of singles were down that doesn't mean sales were down.
Otherwise, if you already know the ppl you are sharing with why would you not just use FTP?
This is a nice try, but I think they've messed up on several counts.
Aimster's TOS describe their service as one where you agree to wall off a portion of your hard drive, and put a few files in there. Then you and other Aimster users merrily move files from one place to another inspecting the files for spam and viruses, and then sending them on to yet more people.
Wonderful.
Very useful.
Highly suspicious.
If Microsoft tried this we'd be all over them like ugly on Larry Ellison^H^H^H^H^H^H^H an ape.
Then how could they do better? Simple!
But Aimster didn't do these things. Instead they set themselves up on a fence and started yelling "Yoohoo! RIAA! See if you can hit me with that shotgun from 10 feet!"
rant_done = 1;
return rant_done;
Eris
This is so easy to check, why not take 30 seconds to get it right.
IBM did NOT open up their specs. COMPAQ had to reverse engineer the BIOS.
See this article at Zilog for some documentation.
OpenSourcerers
just wondering...
(i'm in france, (and IANAL) so, not concerned by DMCA, but, let's pretend.)
if i copyright my mails, and encrypt with, say, something as trivial as ROT13.
Now, say FBI, pursue me for what's in the mail (DeCSS?). Didn't they circumvent my encryption, and don't they fall under DMCA, for doing this? (which would mean, i guess, their proofs couldn't be used in court, since they've been obtained by breaking the law...
i had a sig, once..
It'd be interesting to see how the encryption protections provided by copyright law (doesn't Europe have something equivalent to the DMCA?) stand up to anti-encryption laws like the ones they're passing in the UK. Apparently the government is allowed to monitor your encrypted communication, and if you fail to disclose encryption keys you get to spend time in jail.
This is definately good news, and that's what we need for once. It also demonstrates, quite well, how quickly a open development can evolve to sustain itself. Yes, I'm well aware neither of these are open-source, but I mean non-corporate development, in that sense. This is a major blow against the RIAA and it's cronies because they're using a law that they pushed against them. *sniff*, what is that? irony? justice? Yup, and hopefully this sort of thing will continue, even if a few are lost. Napster, I knew thee well, but a new generation is coming to usurp your place. Really, though, I think not many people are going to pay for the service, especially if they put alot of the "Copyright Protection" on it. I, for one, will not be using Nappy once they start charging, as it seems to be a money sink. This might get me modded down, but are there any swapping services that use peer-to-peer instead of central servers? I ask because a open-source, peer-to-peer service would be *VERY* hard to shut down.
--------------------------------
This space reserved for valid arguements, not pointless ramblings.
An interesting approach, however I am fairly certain that an artists copyright has been violated when his/her ( or prince's ) music has copied and redistributed .... wether or not it is listened to is irrelivant. I must however applaud the effort.
- and small change got rained on with his own 38
Apparently the government is allowed to monitor your encrypted communication, and if you fail to disclose encryption keys you get to spend time in jail.
One word: stenography.
"Encrypted traffic? No, sir! I was just sending my friend some pictures of the new iMacs..."
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I wonder why though? Wheres the progress in creating a system that does exactly the same as every other scripting-language with TK(linux) support(hybrid or intepreted).. I used to love what PHP dudes where doing, developing a language that where meant(designed) for programming internet servers. Mind you, most great programming languages of the past where designed for use in a specific programming "domain" (Fortran = mostly sience, COBOL = Business Apps, PL/I = ALLDOMAINS? RIGHT! , AND NO! JAVA WAS NOT designed for the internet, it was designed for small embedded apliances like Toasters, Ovens, Radios ETC) Why not keep focus on one field? There are ALOT of scripting languages which gives you the ability to script X. And if you really really want some windows handling, why not make a GUI package which support window creation on both X and windows.. now that would actually be a challenge .o)
I think I'm getting the idea of this, with the encryption and all, but one thing isn't quite clear to me. Is the reason the DMCA defense seems plausible is because each Aimster account is essentially a closed system? Would this work on a file system where you can see everybody's computers, like on napster? Or does it need to run on a closed system because then you can't just do a search and find someone's files, you'd have to actually target their transfers and try to break the encryption?
I often wonder about agreements like this. What if after I download it my roommate opens it over our LAN from HIS computer? HE never agreed to the contract, and I have no knowledge of his actions...
Aimster encrypts everything that is moved around its network, including all files and directories. It is impossible for anyone outside the system to monitor the network without circumventing the security. Breaking the encryption is illegal under the DMCA because the network and its programming code are copyrighted.
HAHA! A big middle finger to the RIAA etc. Maybe we can get the RIAA to fight the DMCA for us?
The real question would be how could Open Source software IMPLEMENTATIONS be configured to be protected by the same clauses of the DMCA.
Ok my karma is maxed out. When do I become Enlightened?
By the way, you can't use this dodge, either: "Sell" the CD to your friend for $1, let him copy it (as now it's "his"), then "buy" it back for $1. Once your friend sells it to you, he is legally obligated to destroy any copies he's made of it.
Copyright law, as we know, is goofy and inconsistent. But the BetaMax decision is (relatively) lucid.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
More specifically, the law is broken when both you and your friend each possess one or more copies of the CD. The act of copying the CD itself (no matter who does it) is not illegal (for now :).
In the first case, your friend can avoid breaking the law only if he returns both CDs to you after he makes the copy.
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Obviousness is always the enemy of correctness. -- Bertrand Russell
Use the DMCA to fight the DMCA. Find enough ways to circumvent the law that the people who pushed for the law will be forced to do a 180 and renounce the law. I like it!
RIAA is dumb.
-Iscon in Siiscon, 2001.
__________________ Hey Moderators!! Fuck Off! Thanks.
Bottom line, this chick's JAILBAIT. That's why it says "Can't Touch This" right next to her! Touch Aimster's security and you go to jail for violating the DCMA. Touch that chick and you go to jail for statutory rape.
Unless, like half the damn people on this site, you're under 15. In that case, go for it :)
ToiletDuk
Protector of the Wastes
True, there may be "unclean hands", but if the activity is hidden by encryption that can't be legally broken, then there is no way to determine if the activity is actually taking place. Certainly, if probable cause is available to justify a warrant to break the encryption, its possible, but as long as the service has some non infringing uses, there is no way that simply using the service can be considered probable cause.
What is needed is some type of alarm system. Somehow force anyone attempting to monitor the data to engage in some type of handshake which will be able to capture IP addresses. If any of these IP addresses come from an unauthorized source, the "attacker" can be traced and prosecuted.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
A strengthening economy?! Which economy are you talking about? The one I live in is experiencing a real slowdown. Sales in many industries are slipping, and a number of corporations are laying off employees.
"was it Napster?"
It may have had something to do with it, but I don't think it's the only possible explanation.
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Obviousness is always the enemy of correctness. -- Bertrand Russell
That's a fairly spiffy idea. I fear that expensive lawyers and other such evils may foil the plan, but it is clever.
If the RIAA or whatever goes after the service in court and looses, they look like a bunch of dildos and are SOL. If they win, they have just set a precedent against their own copy-protection laws, including the anti-circumvention clause.
That being sait, i'm no lawyer, and the details in the story are sparse, but i'm afraid that the big business players will find a way around doing a frontal assault on the DMCA to get rid of Aimster... I guess we'll see...
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Play Six Pack Man. I
I doubt that unclean hands per se will be of any relevence here. To be perfectly pedantic the 'unclean hands' doctrine is not a legal one, but an equitable one. It is usually expressed thus: He who comes into equity must come with clean hands. Aimster, however, does not seem to be seeking equitable relief, but rather relying on the statutory provisions of the DCMA
The point you raise about illegally gathered evidence is interesting and probably the crux of the whole scheme. It seems to me, however, that the protection the DMCA apparently affords here would not survive discovery.
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The most valuable commodity I know of is information. - Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
Aimster doesn't store anything. They are not like Napster, which stores a centralized list of mp3s that are available. They simply provide the program. You can no more sue it out of existence than you can gnutella.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
And anyway, vinyl sounds better.
No it doesn't. Click here then click Myths (can't link directly as it uses a JS redirect to the frames page).
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So sweet to hear!! I am so full of the sugar high from this I wont need candy for the rest of the year. It's good that some one figured out how to use the very tool of stupidity against the morons in the entertainment industry that only want all your money and everything else they can steal from the consumer. Their filthy lucor will be their undoing!!
Woooaaaaaa! I thought you said you were a female?!?!?! Sorry I ain't into that!!!!
Right, but make sure it's him - the fools went after every Tom Dick and Harry who had posted the DeCSS alg. on their sites - what's to stop them from trolling with "I've got 10,000 files on Aimster" with the followup "Did you listen to that mp3 I posted for you?" - admission of guilt...
You and I wouldn't be so stupid, but keep in mind that this is for AOL users...
-bs
That that is is not that that is not. That that is not is not that that is.
No, but hopefully, the'll cut it down to one wrong.
ok...Aimster taken to court by RIAA. Aimster wins under DMCA. RIAA has to pay $10. Aimster has to pay $10 billion to RIAA for copywrite piracy. Who won?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Two wrongs don't make it right
It is not nearly as public as napster is. Say you and your hundred closest friends on the Dave Matthews mailing list all put each other on your buddy lists - presto! you have access to just about every song Dave ever made, and probably quite a mass of songs by other people too. I mean, have you browsed some of these people's archives on Napster lately? I've seen people with over 10,000 songs available! Get that dude on your buddy list and it greatly expands your music selection.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Their claims of legality are dubious, at best. In addition, the DeCSS case has taught us that judges dispense with reason and existing precedent when profits are at stake. I think the entire P2P industry is running scared because even the possibility of a lawsuit could cripple many companies. By pulling this manuever (and appearing on /.), they have improved their visibility and drawn a target on their back.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
They agree not to open a file that doesn't belong to them. Copying is not opening, nor is transmitting the data contained in a file or recieving said data. And once a copy exists on your system you own that copy of the file since it resides on your filesystem and all data contained on your filesystem is yours. Even if you don't own what's encoded in the file itself the file belongs to you. At least this is just one interpretation of the wording. Actually the part that may stand up in court is the fact that data transmissions are encrypted and in order to see what's being sent the RIAA and associates would have to decrypt (violate a protection mechanism) the streams. I find this funny in an ironic sense.
"But in practice, judges are going to want to rule for the noble music industry against the evil music pirates."
Thats a pretty bold blanket statement, and it's not true.