EFF Files First Anti-DMCA Lawsuit

The first direct legal challenge to the DMCA was filed at 9 a.m. EDT today by EFF-sponsored attorneys at the United States District Court in Trenton, New Jersey on behalf of Princeton Professor Edward W. Felten and others who helped crack a series of digital watermarking schemes as part of an SDMI Challenge sponsored by the RIAA. Named defendents include the RIAA, SDMI, Verance Corporation (producer of one of the cracked watermarked schemes) and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

If this were a movie, it might be called "Saving Professor Felten" and would open with thunder and bombast. In real life, filing a civil suit in a federal court is one of the most boring activities imaginable, even though it's a necessary first step in the process of overturning the DMCA.

Gino J. Scarselli, Outside Lead Counsel for EFF on the case, says, "We got to the courthouse at 8:30, filed around 9, and made motions to seal exhibits to the complaints." As explained in the Complaint itself, EFF filed several of their Exhibits with requests for them to be sealed, because they believe publication of them may invite a lawsuit. The Exhibits to be sealed are Professor Felten's completed paper for the upcoming USENIX conference, and two documents written by Princeton post-grad Min Wu about the investigation performed by Felten's team against the SDMI watermarks.

It was an overcast day in Trenton. Scarselli, along with local (New Jersey) attorneys Grayson Barber and Frank Corrado, and two of the plaintiffs, Princeton residents Bede Liu and Min Wu, went through a metal detector just like anyone else (aside from staff) who enters a courthouse these days.

Scarselli says, "the only person we talked to was a law clerk." Neither the defendants nor any lawyers representing them were present. There will be plenty of conflict later, but the opening round of this drama was so low-key that it was a total yawner for all involved parties. The whole thing was over by 9:45 a.m.

The Complaint Itself, Very Briefly

Prof. Felten and others, mostly professors and graduate students from Princeton and Rice Universities, accepted the SDMI challenge to crack a specific set of digital watermarks, but instead of turning their results over to SDMI in hopes of winning the $10,000 prize offered for a successful crack, they chose instead to publish their findings in the form of an academic paper, and to present that paper at the Fourth International Information Hiding Workshop [IHW], held in Pittsburgh on April 25-27, 2001. Felten and crew believed they had every right to present their research in this public, peer-reviewed scientific forum even though they had accepted a "click through" agreement before taking on the SDMI challenge, in large part because the license to which they agreed with their click contained these words:

"You may, of course, elect not to receive compensation, in which event you will not be required to sign a separate document or assign any of your intellectual property rights, although you are still encouraged to submit details of your attack."

Despite this, SDMI threatened Felten and the other involved parties, including IHW organizers, with legal action under the DMCA. After a long series of emails between Felten, his fellow researchers, IHW people, a representative of Verance Corp., and an attorney who works for both SDMI and RIAA, the original paper, "Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge," was first modified, then finally withdrawn.

Now Felten and friends plan to present the same paper at a USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C. on August 13-17, and are asking the court to tell the defendants not to sue or threaten legal action over this new publication or any other publication, and to tell the U.S. Department of Justice, run by Attorney General John Ashcroft, not to file criminal charges against USENIX or anyone else over this matter under the DMCA. As it says in the complaint:

68. In chilling publication, the DMCA wreaks havoc in the marketplace of ideas, not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information -- the right to learn. The main mission of USENIX is to organize forums where scientists and researchers learn from each other. By intimidating the individual plaintiffs into withdrawing their paper from the IHW, however, the private Defendants prevented people from learning. If the source of Defendants' power to threaten, the DMCA, is not dispelled, Plaintiffs will not be the only victims. Without full and open access to research in areas potentially covered by the DMCA, scientists and programmers working in those areas cannot exchange ideas and fully develop their own research. As a consequence, the DMCA will harm science.

69. By imposing civil and criminal liability for publishing speech (including computer code) about technologies of access and copy control measures and copyright management information systems, the challenged DMCA provisions impermissibly restrict freedom of speech and of the press, academic freedom and other rights secured by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

This is just a brief "taste" of what the complaint says. Full text is available here.

The Press Conference

It was held at noon Eastern time, in person simultaneously at EFF headquarters in San Francisco and at a room borrowed from Princeton University. A few reporters were at EFF headquarters in person, but most of us dialed in and participated by phone. The media turnout was impressive; reporters from the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, AP, NPR, Reuters, Wired, and other major news outlets showed up, which was nice to see; Slashdot has been rather lonely in covering many DMCA matters and complaints. It was nice to see so many "mainstream" pressies finally paying attention.

Felten was in San Francisco. So was most of the legal crowd. USENIX Board member Avi Rubin was on the conference call telephone. The Princeton contingent was tiny, composed only of the people who had been at the court house earlier. EFF legal director Cindy Cohn opened the show from San Francisco with a rehash of the events leading up to the suit, most of which I recapped above. (You can find more information here.)

Felten spoke briefly. The basic thrust of his prepared speech can be summed up thusly: "We are asking the government to let us do what scientists have always done -- share the results of our research."

The USENIX people noted that they hold many conferences and may be subject to both civil suits and criminal prosecution if they publish papers DMCA legal threateners (like SDMI and RIAA) don't like, and view this suit as an attempt to maintain their First Amendment rights to freely distribute technical and scientific information to USENIX members and other interested parties.

Then the press questions began. The first dozen covered ground that is familiar to most regular Slashdot readers. There is no point in rehashing these questions when a Slashdot search for "SDMI + DMCA" or just "DMCA" will give answers to every one of them.

Then Hiawatha Bray, a tech columnist for the Boston Globe, wanted to know if the case would be dropped if the SDMI and/or RIAA decide to stop hassling Felten and USENIX. The attorneys said "No." Their point here is to prevent both private companies and the DoJ from bringing DMCA threats not only against the SDMI crack researchers but against anyone who might go through the same sort of ordeal in the future, so a settlement that affected only this case would not cause the EFF to drop it. Other questions and answers followed, but again, long-time Slashdot readers already know most of them, so we won't repeat them here.

Follow the Money

Ms. Cohn says the cost of this suit, "if fully litigated," could easily reach $2 million. She estimates that the EFF-sponsored 2600 DeCSS defense has already cost nearly $1.5 million, and that suit is still cranking up the appeals chain. She also says -- yes, this is a plug -- that Slashdot readers who want to donate money to help fund all this expensive legal action can check out the EFF Web site.

(Here's the EFF membership/donation page if you'd like to whip out your credit card and pop a few bucks their way; they need all they can get!)

This is Just the Beginning

Now, basically, we sit and wait. The lawyers do lawyer-dances involving lots of paperwork. Discovery motions pass back and forth. Amicus briefs get filed. A hearing date gets set, then there's a hearing, and another hearing, and so on.

The 2600/DeCSS case has been going on for a year and a half and still isn't over. This one is likely to drag out even more. Even if Prof. Felten, his associates, and USENIX win all the relief they seek, chances are high that the RIAA, SDMI or at least one of the other defendants will appeal -- and keep appealing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

For more info, read the EFF Press Release

Comments

W00P

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the ultimate honey trap. We inviotue you to crack it and then we'll sue.

They must be stopped

[Anonymous Coward]

DMCA exists for one reason: to protect intellectual property.
Many people claim that intellectual property is a lie, or that it is open for all to share. While such idealsim may appeal to those who have no vested interest in preserving IP rights, we must offer a challenge: If IP is not deserving of property status, why do afford physical property the privilege of protection under law?

In Europe, IP (in the form of patents, a useful if temporary, reward for innovation) is under fire, yet at the same time laws concerning physical property (eg, burglary, arson) are being stepped up (a neccesary outcome of the EU's lack of protection rights a la the US's 2rd Ammendment, but I digress). If we regard IP as a legal fiction, why is physical property amything but? Advocates of "open" IP make the claim that IP is only considered property due to convention, but physical property is no different (the conventions, in the West at least, are simply older). Many so-called "primitive" people (certain indeginous nations in the Americas, for example) had no notion of physical property, yet were highly succesful for thousands of years. Is it true then, that "property is theft?"

To reject IP as a legal fiction only leads us back to a terrifying fact that all property is, in essence, a lie. But it is a useful lie, which is why we Civilized People argue for it so strongly. If Disney has no right to protect its DVDs, what right do you have to your house? I'm sure the world's millions of homeless would like an answer.

Re:They must be stopped

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is simple: I own a book. You cannot take this book away from me . It is in my house; to try to get it from me is against all sorts of other laws.

The only basis of the laws is custom. Not all cultures have the idea of provate property (as I already mentioned, I assume your read the whole post?)

I have a certain obligation, not to sit down and type it, word for word, into the computer. This is possible, but difficult.

So you support IP rights?

IP is an idea that floats around in your neurons. There's a concrete difference there.

Not really. A house has a function: to give you a place to live. An encryption algorithim also has a function: to protect IP. Just as it is wrong to destroy your home with a wrecking ball (defeating the function of the house), is it not wrong to defeat the purpose of the algorithim?

Re:They must be stopped

[DunbarTheInept]

The DMCA doesn't support IP rights at all. It supports monopolization by giving the content creator 100% total control over all the means of deployment of his works. This is not the way other types of property work. If I sell widgets to person X, he is free to resell them to person Y, and I have no say in it at all. The DMCA also makes it so that alleged violators are assumed guilty until proven innocent.

Re:They must be stopped

[jedidiah]

>The only basis of the laws is custom.

You can't have it both ways. Either the culture of a society supports the notion of "owning ideas" or it doesn't. Western European culture actually does not if you bother to examine the situation from a perspective other than that of a corporate boot licker.

"intellectual property" has never held the same status as any sort of corporeal property. It is subservient to other interests. That is why the notion of "fair use" came into being. Other considerations were simply more important.

One of these (academic freedom) is infact the subject of the article you are responding to.

The DMCA must justify it's existence, not the other way around. As it stands, it contradicts culture, custom, constitution, law and precedent.

Re:They must be stopped

[jedidiah]

You put work into something you don't own. You don't get to suddenly claim ownership of my property or public lands because you suddenly decide to make some improvement upon it. What you are trying to claim as your property is not infact entirely yours. It exists only because the work of others is available for you to exploit and learn from.

Re:They must be stopped

[jedidiah]

How is it "illegal" to use any facility to acquire something you already have the right to "own".

Besides which, no form of piracy becomes "illegal" until it reaches a certain dollar value threshhold. Even this is a relatively recent (~ 3 years) addition to copyright law. Before that, no amount of personal piracy would have been "illegal".

Re:They must be stopped

[jeffry_smith]

IP does not exist in the US constitution:

"Congress shall have the Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Note you don't see the word Property in there anywhere.

Therefore your entire treatise is based on a false premise

(and yes, I know, don't feed the trolls).

Re:They must be stopped

[Art Tatum]

This is a Marxist troll but I'll bite anyway.

There is a very simple logical reason why physical things can be owned but information can't: you can only own something that exists and information doesn't exist.

To be sure, a DVD exists and can be owned. But the information is only *represented* on that disc. It doesn't actually "exist".

Re:They must be stopped

[Harmast]

Take a look at "Second Treatise on Government" - Locke describes private property to be that which one has put work into.

That why doesn't IP be measured the same way?

If I write a computer program or a novel I have certainly put work into it. This certainly would still allow reverse engineering, because you can take a set of inputs and outputs and find a way to make the later from the former, but protects the original from direct copying.
Herb

Re:They must be stopped

[PD]

I've just had my computer make a billion copies of your article. Does this take the article away from you? No. Does this article prevent hundreds of thousands of /. readers from reading the article? No. Do my actions remove even a single cent from your pocket? No.

That is the essential difference between physical property and intellectual property.

Re:They must be stopped

[banky]

The difference is simple: I own a book. You cannot take this book away from me . It is in my house; to try to get it from me is against all sorts of other laws.

I have a certain obligation, not to sit down and type it, word for word, into the computer. This is possible, but difficult. In the same category are things like building your own car (from scratch, not a kit), and so forth.

IP is an idea that floats around in your neurons. There's a concrete difference there.

Re:They must be stopped

[mitheral]

That was kind of the point I think. In other words the hope diamond is limited and coal is unlimited (not really but there are orders of magnitude more coal around than diamonds.)

Re:They must be stopped

[mitheral]

Interesting thinking. I must admit that I was surprised at how cheap coal is. It is practically as cheap as dirt; which should be surprising I guess because that is all it really is, burnable dirt.

Re:They must be stopped

[TWR]

Just as it is wrong to destroy your home with a wrecking ball (defeating the function of the house), is it not wrong to defeat the purpose of the algorithim?

If there was a DMCA-style law against house-destroying, you would now be guilty. You just described how to destroy a house. You didn't actually destroy a house, approve of someone else doing so, but the act of description is itself a crime.

That's what Professor Felton did. He didn't hack anyone's data. He just said, "here's how to do it."

So, you going to turn yourself in now, thought criminal?

-jon

Re:They must be stopped

[Algan]

There's a difference and t was stated over and over again. If I take your physical property, you don't have it anymore. If I take your IP you still have it in it's entirety.

Re:They must be stopped

[LordJoe]

Anonymous Cowards suck. This is not just my opnion, it is my idea. Therefore, unless someone can show previous art, I declare it as my intellectual property.

No one shall be allowed to re-distribute or reveal my IP unless prior written consent is obtained from me because not to do so would be IP theft; and I only have so much "Anonymous Cowards suck" to go around..... Oh, wait, I'm just being silly now, aren't I?

To say that an idea, be it a process or a creative work or anything else, is in any way similar to physical property is just silly. You can't deplete an idea or prevent access to other people by using it.

We provide IP laws for one reason and one reason only, to encourage people to research new ideas and make them available to the public by providing a way to ensure that they are compensated for it.

How is describing how something works IP theft? How is describing how something doesn't work IP theft? The only legimitate claim for IP theft in my mind is if someone uses the idea in some product without licensing it.

Re:They must be stopped

[gmhowell]

You are absolutely correct. Sorry if it wasn't clear originally.

Re:They must be stopped

[gmhowell]

Physical property is a limited resource. There are only so many acres of land, so many barrels of oil, so many bushels of grain, and so many tons of steel.

Ideas are limitless in quantity.

Limited items require more protection than unlimited items. Which requires more protection: the Hope diamond or 1000 tons of coal?

I have not decided whether or not I agree that IP is a legal fiction. Regardless, your arguments are not convincing.

Re:They must be stopped

[halbritt]

I have a certain obligation, not to sit down and type it, word for word, into the computer. This is possible, but difficult. In the same category are things like building your own car (from scratch, not a kit), and so forth.

You have no obligation to abstain from typing your book word for word into your computer. As a matter of fact, you can copy your book all day long without violating any laws. It's when you go to redistribute those copies is when you have a problem.

Re:They must be stopped

[haizi_23]

Not really. A house has a function: to give you a place to live. An encryption algorithim also has a function: to protect IP. Just as it is wrong to destroy your home with a wrecking ball (defeating the function of the house), is it not wrong to defeat the purpose of the algorithim?

1) The difference he was point out is that physical property is just that: physical. It's usually difficult to reproduce/replace it. Ideas are wholly different -- they can be shared, copied w/ no loss of the original value.

2) Wrong to defeat the purpose of the algorithm? Uh, no, that's how the scientific process works -- you put your ideas up, and everyone takes a whack at them. The ideas that stand up to criticism are the ones that are worthy of use. Plus, you'll remember that they were invited to "defeat the purpose" of this algorithm.

Re:They must be stopped

[mcfiddish]

DMCA exists for one reason: to protect intellectual property.


No. Intellectual property was already protected; if Disney can show that you're infringing on its copyrighted material, they can take you to court. That has nothing to do with the DMCA.

Re:They must be stopped

[jazman_777]

To reject IP as a legal fiction only leads us back to a terrifying fact that all property is, in essence, a lie. But it is a useful lie, which is why we Civilized People argue for it so strongly. If Disney has no right to protect its DVDs, what right do you have to your house? I'm sure the world's millions of homeless would like an answer.

This is a clear but false idea. If all property is a lie, then we are all slaves of whoever can exercise force successfully against us--that is, if someone wants to take your computer, he can, if he has the wherewithal. The right the keep the fruits of your labor (property) is a fundamental aspect of liberty. If you cannot keep the fruit of your labor, you are working for someone else, you are a slave.
--

Re:They must be stopped

[divec]

To reject IP as a legal fiction only leads us back to a terrifying fact that all property is, in essence, a lie. But it is a useful lie, which is why we Civilized People argue for it so strongly.

Right; but the particulars of these two fictions (physical property and intellectual property) are quite different (difference in duplication costs and everything else that implies), and so a justification of one doesn't, per se, justify the other. I might say that a life-plus-70 copyright term for software strongly encourages monopolisation.

Besides, the point here is not that the DCMA protects intellectual property. The point is that it can be used to prevent people from doing things which they were allowed to do in the previously existing Intellectual Property framework. Like writing software to play DVDs, or fast-forwarding through the trailers, or watching a DVD bought in a different part of the world, that has a built-in artificial incompatibility with local players. Or writing a report about the lack of security in an encryption system.

Re:They must be stopped

[kwclark]

If I take your car, then only I have your car.

If I take your idea, then we both have your idea.

See the difference?

Ken

Re:They must be stopped

[RyanMuldoon]

The point that you seem to be missing is that this "custom" of property rights that you seem to refer to is the Western Liberal tradition, as Locke set it out. Take a look at "Second Treatise on Government" - Locke describes private property to be that which one has put work into. That use of labor makes it one's own. The difference with "Intellectual Property" is that there is no exclusiveness. If I have something, it doesn't mean that you can't too. So if we both have it, we can both put work into it, and make it our own. So since anyone can own intellectual property, by Locke's conventions, when why not make everyone own it? The arguments against things like the DMCA is not that it is magically wrong and physical property is right, but that it goes against the basic ideas that the country was founded on. Our economy would have been nothing without reverse-engineering the design of textile mills in England. The computer industry would be tiny had not Compaq and others reverse-engineered IBM's PC. Things like the DMCA are Fat-Catism at it's worst. Huge companies that benefitted from the country's open framework now want to make that framework more restrictive to protect what they built.

Re:They must be stopped

[jhoffoss]

The right to intellectual propery a agree with. If I pour my heart and soul into code for a program and need the profits from that program to live (i.e. not open-source) and someone steals that code or my algorithms or unique features of my program and just has a larger pocket-book for marketing, I'm screwed, and I don't get dinner. That's not right. The same goes for Napster's ease-of-theft of music. (I'm not anti-napster, I used it many times as it is "legally" intended; for "personal backup" of CDs I own as well as checking out new music before I spend $20 on a CD.)

Where I have a problem is when this is all closed and secured. The way the MPAA and RIAA are trying to protect their intellectual property (oh, lets ignore the fact that the MPAA/RIAA do not own a single piece of music/dvd) is ludicrous. The MPAA wants to keep DeCSS under wraps/illegal and wants software companies to pay licensing fees to use the (frighteningly simple) algorithm, which means I can't get a decent DVD player no matter what OS I use. The few that are available for Windows are $30-50 and don't run that well. The one for Linux I can't even buy yet. I paid for the DVD, I should be able to watch it now. bah. Maybe I'm JAACB (just another anti-corporate bastard).
---

Re:They must be stopped

[jhoffoss]

This all makes me want to curl into a ball, cry for a few days, then pack up and live in a shack in Montana. With a T1 to my typewriter.
---

Re:They must be stopped

[Borealis]

Some of your arguments are worthy of discussion, others are not. For one thing, intellectual property has traditionally included fair use of any product purchased by an end user. This fair use takes many forms: making copies, testing the security by trying to break it, reverse engineering it to understand how it works, quoting small sections (for written works), and posting reviews etc.

This is a point that you did not raise in your discussion of IP. The DMCA is loathsome not because (or at least, not just because) it is an IP law. More accurately it is not desirable because it completely removes the right to fair use.

While I am leery of an outright ban on intellectual property (as in, the removal of all it's protections), there are also some very problematic side issues to trying to do any kind of enforcement of it.

Essentially many forms of proposed IP protection significantly increase police powers of both interception and seizure in relation to IP. In fact, many forms if IP protection take the form of extreme censorship (just look at the Church of Scientology). Is IP protection worth living with censorship? I personally think not.

Re:They must be stopped

[mikej]

why do afford physical property the privilege of protection under law?

One primary reason: exclusivity. If I'm using a plot of land, or a hammer, or a hamburger, or any other valuable physical thing, then nobody else can use it until I'm done. If I have a digital copy of a novel, or a song, or a piece of software, or any other valuable informational thing, other people's use of it has no effect whatsoever on me.

Re:They must be stopped

[passion]

A house has a function: to give you a place to live. An encryption algorithim also has a function: to protect IP. Just as it is wrong to destroy your home with a wrecking ball (defeating the function of the house), is it not wrong to defeat the purpose of the algorithim?

That depends on how well thought-out your method of protection is. Imagine if someone were to put a screen door on a submarine, then submegered. Who is at fault here - the water for breaking through the door? or the dumbass who fullfilled the cliché?

Re:They must be stopped

[denial]

Wow, it bothers me that someone who reads slashdot could be so far off base on such a fundamental issue. IP and normal property are not the same, and here's why. Property use is generally exclusive, ie. when someone else takes something you have, they deprive you of its use. IP is altogether different. When someone copies your IP, they increase the net wealth of the community, and in no way deprive you of the right to enjoy it yourself. You only lose to the extent that an artificial "market" has been created by IP law to allow trade in something that can be shared at no cost to the creator.

So why do we have IP laws at all then? The answer is that while IP can be copied at no cost, the production of IP is still meritorious, as it adds to the wealth of the community. Therefore most reasonable people would agree that, although IP isn't property at all in the generally understood meaning of the term, it is still worthy, and deserves some recompense. Therefore we attribute to IP some of the rights normally asssociated with real property, to allow the creator to be compensated.

Then we are faced with a difficult question. If copying increases net wealth, but we also want compensation and incentive to creators, where should we stop, where is the right balance. The generally accepted test is that laws surrounding IP should be set in a way that maximises the net wealth of the community, ie, that causes the greatest amount of IP to be created and SHARED as widely as possible.

What we have now is a situation where commercial interests are predominant in our society, and that has lead to a steady skewing of these laws to the point where IP laws are aimed to maximise corporate revenue, not community benefit. A telling example is AIDS medication. We live in a world where IP laws have gone very wrong. The irony of this situation is that it's obvious to anyone that looks at it. We all constantly benefit from the public domain, for example in education, where most knowledge is public domain. Imagine if IP had the same rights as real property. You might still be paying the descendents of Newton for the right to learn basic physics. After all, real property can be passed to your descendents forever. This is the situation you should contemplate when you make the mistake of conflating IP with real property. Would you like now, to pay for every piece of knowledge you ever gained, but didn't arrive at yourself? I think not, the debt, and the harm to society, would be incalculable.

Any reasonable IP scheme would be happily observed by the majority of people. But when IP laws go as wrong as they currently have, you should expect people to rebel. I make my living creating IP, and yet I am so sickened by the skew of these laws that I regularly engage in acts I would consider abhorrent in a normal society, such as violating copyright. But I'm not the only one... read Slashdot for a while, and pay attention to the companies that violate IP, many of whom live by and profit from their own IP. IP laws are another step towards do what you will is the whole of the law, if you can afford a good team of lawyers, and your victim can't.

As for movements such as the Free Software Movement, they are only necessitated by the unbalance in our current laws. In a sensible scheme, all IP would flow fairly quickly into the public domain, as such release would be a neccesary obligation for receiving the protection of sensible IP laws.

Wow, this got a bit longer than I intended...

Re:They must be stopped

[acacia]

>So, you going to turn yourself in now, thought criminal?

"The mind is a terrible thing, and it must be stopped."

SNL Sketch spoofing Mike Tyson doing a United Way commercial

:)

Re:They must be stopped

[ignorant_newbie]

the difference is in the use. physical property is something i make or buy ( this can of mr pibb, for example ). i buy it, it's mine. you can't drink it without depriving me of the ability to drink it.

if i'm the factory, i make the pibb, can it, and sell it. each can costs me a certain amount, i sell it for enough to make a profit.

in this example, IP is the recipe for the drink. if you copy the recipe, i still have it, i can still make pibb, but so can you now. except that i've copyrited or patented the recipe/process, and if you steal the recipe and start making it yourself (perhaps selling it for less than i do) you are 1. violating my IP, and 2. depriving me of the profits i would have made by selling to the people you sell to.

this is fine in the old economy, where the ip was the process. but now, the ip is the _product_. there is virtually no cost associated with making multiple copies, so the sticker price is pure profit.

in addition, the people who are being punished are equivelant to someone making a batch of pibb in their kitchen for the kids. they're not seeking to profit from this, they're just making some for themselves.

Re:They must be stopped

[Catbeller]

If IP is not deserving of property status, why do afford physical property the privilege of protection under law?

Because physical property actually exists. You can point at it. It is finite. Theft of it deprives the owner of its use.

And also: copyright violation is not "theft". In no way. It is a not a crime, it is a civil offense called infringement. Copyright "violators" are never criminals, and they are not "stealing".

Many so-called "primitive" people (certain indeginous nations in the Americas, for example) had no notion of physical property, yet were highly succesful for thousands of years

They also didn't worry about theft, either, as a concept as it applied to land, etc. That was a European import.

Re:They must be stopped

[Grahf666]

Bah. If I'm holding a big stick, not only will I claim it's mine, but I will beat you on the head with it to PROVE it's mine.

The problem is that our technologically enriched society has moved away from such a primal way of defining property, but is that not still the definition? Consider John Locke's (and Rousseau's) argument for the reason and the need for organized society; that man voluntarily submitted himself into an organized society for the good of himself and others. Now, in the real world, we don't ask our kids if they want to join society when they turn 16, but Locke's concepts remain the basis of democracy.

Also, money and banks exist because theoretically, you can go to a bank and get cold, hard cash/gold for any ephemeral worthless paper money.

Re:They must be stopped

[GPierce]

To reject IP as a legal fiction only leads us back to a terrifying fact that all property is, in essence, a lie. But it is a useful lie, which is why we Civilized People argue for it so strongly. If Disney has no right to protect its DVDs, what right do you have to your house? I'm sure the world's millions of homeless would like an answer.

What do you do when it stops being a useful lie.

Samuel Clemens was one of the authors who strongly advocated copyright protection. Pirates were publishing his books in Europe before the press run was completed in the States. He was being robbed and he knew it. Copyright was not only useful but necessary.

We passed a useful lie to protect individual authors. How useful is it when the system is set up so that the authors and musicians are screwed out of their copyrights before they can be published.

How useful is it when a music corporation can bribe a congressional aide to modify a bill that has already been passed -- in order to "clarify" it in favor of the industry

Maybe we need a different lie. Maybe we need a lie that protects the creators against the pirates and the corporations.

Re:They must be stopped

[SnapShot]

Did you realize that coal can be bought for as little as $10 a short ton (in North Dakota in 1999)? Now I'm definitely going to steal the Hope diamond instead of 1000 tons of coal.

God I'm bored...

Re:They must be stopped

[SnapShot]

Thanks, I got the point. And then I thought it would be funny if it turned out that coal was actually fairly expensive per ton. If it's a $1000 bucks a ton then 1000 tons would actually be a pretty good theft (obvious logistical issues put aside for the moment) and its probably easier to sell coal in small batches (unlike the Hope Diamond).

So I did a search for "cost + coal" and got a link that indicated that coal can be found for as little as $10 a ton. So anyway, it wasn't as funny...

That was the (minimal) thought process behind the post.

Re:They must be stopped

[GemFire]

---The same goes for Napster's ease-of-theft of music. (I'm not anti-napster, I used it many times as it is "legally" intended; for "personal backup" of CDs I own as well as checking out new music before I spend $20 on a CD.)---

If you have used Napster for personal backup of CDs you own or sampling new music before buying the CD, you have not used it in a LEGAL manner. If this were a legal use they would have gotten Sony's 'substantial non-infringing uses' defense.

While sampling and personal backup could both be considered "Fair Use," the RIAA does not see it that way. If you've used Napster to download anything the owner of the material did not approve for download, you are infringing upon copyrights.

I totally agree with the idea of this thread and I think Yoda said it best - "Stopped they must be, on this, all depends."

Re:They must be stopped

[GemFire]

--- How is it "illegal" to use any facility to acquire something you already have the right to "own." ---

Very simply - you don't "own" that copy. You own the copy you bought.

The NET act (which has the $1000 worth in 180 days) is NOT the difference between actionable copyright infringement and no liability. The NET act allows CRIMINAL prosecution for anyone involved in copyright infringement - profit or no-profit.

Personal copying has always been illegal except where it is "Fair Use." Sony vs. Universal decided time-shifting of television programs was 'Fair Use.' The AHRA decided that archival copies and space-shifting copies was 'Fair Use.'

The judge in the Napster case decided that copying from Napster was NOT 'Fair Use.'

Re:They must be stopped

[justahack]

"If IP is not deserving of property status, why do afford physical property the privilege of protection under law?"

Simple question to answer. Because, put quite bluntly, if I take your IP, you still possess it. If I take your favorite pair of shoes, you no longer have that pair of shoes, wot?

IP laws in their current incarnation are absolutely silly.

Re:They must be stopped

[ageitgey]

If IP is not deserving of property status, why do afford physical property the privilege of protection under law?

Well you can't copy your house with a cd burner.

Re:They must be stopped

[Auckerman]

"Anyone can make a VCD or DVD"

VCD quality leaves much to be desired and you can make that DVD, but i can't have the level of interactivness of normal DVD's and you are limited to about 1 hour of video. Not exactly a level playing ground.

Re:They must be stopped

[Auckerman]

This is NOT about Intellectual property, it is about free speech. It is about the rights of artists (thats right, artist). Let ME tell YOU why copy control will ruin culture.

Picture it, all Media and Media creators have copy control built in. Not only that, but it uses a similiar strategy that DVD uses: Licensed keys. Now, what makes you think that some kid working on an album in his basement will be able to create that media so that it plays on standard players? If he could, then the very nature of the key system has been broken.

They don't want to make it illegial to copy media, it has already been illegal for a VERY LONG TIME to do that. They don't want to "protect intellectual property", its already legally protected. They want to control who can create the players and who can create the content. GIven them full control over what is publish and what is not published. A monolopy based of a mutual agreement not to compete based on price or artisitic contractual obligations (RIAA anyone?).

The government should have absolutly no vested interest limiting the free exchange of ideas. Any ideas. No matter how absurd they are, no matter what they can be used for. Without that guarantee, we all might as well be slaves.

If i can publish a book detailing how to make bombs, why can't Fenton publish a paper on how SDMI is full of crap? There is no difference.

Re:They must be stopped

[grammar fascist]

I have lots of money. It doesn't physically exist, but it's "in" all kinds of accounts. Really, they're just bits in some databases somewhere. Those bits aren't my money. There are hardcopies of the database information, but those hardcopies aren't my money either. The only thing that makes it my money is that everyone agrees that it's mine, whatever it is. It's an idea that floats around in people's neurons.

The notion of property has nothing to do with physical posession. The thing that defines property is the right to exclude. I own that money because I, by default, exclude other people from doing certain things with it. I decide what is lawful and what is not in regards to that money. When I deposit it in the bank, I license the bank to play stocks with it and invest it in other ways. In the same vein, the reason it is illegal to enter your house and take your book is that society has decided that you have exclusive rights over your house, and you can decide (though this is the default) that my entering your house without an invitation is against the law.

There really is no concrete difference, under the law. (Morally, you may have something different to say about it.) That society has decided to give exclusive rights over ideas to the originators of them is just an extension of the idea of property.

Re:They must be stopped

[mech9t8]

Picture it, all Media and Media creators have copy control built in. Not only that, but it uses a similiar strategy that DVD uses: Licensed keys. Now, what makes you think that some kid working on an album in his basement will be able to create that media so that it plays on standard players? If he could, then the very nature of the key system has been broken.

Anyone can make a VCD or DVD (assuming they can afford the latest PowerMac until the hardware comes down in price) and have it place on ordinary DVD players. Encrypting the content is optional. (As are, BTW, region codes and Macrovision.)

Its possible the next system won't be like that, but for DVDs, encrypted and non-encrypted media can be played on the same player.
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Re:They must be stopped

[mech9t8]

VCD quality leaves much to be desired and you can make that DVD, but i can't have the level of interactivness of normal DVD's and you are limited to about 1 hour of video. Not exactly a level playing ground.

You're only stuck making VCDs because because DVD writers are still way too expensive. As the price comes down, you'll be able to make full-fledged DVDs, assuming you have the software (and the talent).
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Re:They must be stopped

[fors]

Copyright law is supposed to protect the creator. It doesn't really work that way but it is supposed to. The idea is to compensate the creators in a way that encourages the best to produce more. That will increase the quantity of created works as well as quality. It was not intended to last forever. The work need to pass into the public domain within a reasonable amount of time. This allows even wider dissemination of the work and helps ensure that it will always be available. Many of the early tv shows and movies are gone forever as a result of the only copies being lost or damaged by time. Mickey Mouse is almost 80 and it is incomprehensible that such a popular icon has not been allowed to enter the public domain. That is a direct violation of the intentions of the framers of the constitution. Disney has built an empire out of that little bit of IP and cannot under any circumstances claim that losing him to the public domain will cripple their ability to produce more quality works. Instead of milking an 80 year old cow it would encourage them to produce more charactors that can withstand the test of time. I can argue that by being able to maintain their monopoly on their older charactors they have severely lacked in the creation of newer and equally appealling charactors. Does anybody really think Aladin will still be popular 80 years from now? Copyright terms need to be pulled back to the original shorter terms. Congress needs to understand that by protecting these companies they are hurting the original idea of rewarding the creators but eventually allowing the widespread dissemination and adoption of the ideas.

Re:They must be stopped

[kanayo]

No one was implying that Intellectual Property should not be protected, just that the rights of scientists to do their research must be protected, and so must their right to share their discoveries (freedom of speech).

This is a simple, basic and fundamental human right that, in my opinion, must be protected. Such rights must never be disposed of simply because doing so would be in the financial interest of a few companies, but at the greater harm to the society as a whole. The scientists should have the right to speak what they have found, and it is only in the best interest of society that they do. To curtail scientific inquiry, or censor publication of subsequent findings would only do great harm to the United States as a nation.

Do not be deceived. These corporations are fighting hard to rid us of our basic freedoms. It is to our benefit that we lend our support.

Re:They must be stopped

[Allegro]

You seem to feel as if intellectual property and physical property are the same thing. This cannot be further from the truth. The reason that stealing a physical piece of property is illegal is because of the fact that resources for making goods are scarce. The world has an economy based on scarcity of resources. That's the only reason that economies exist in the first place.

Also, in all honesty, I'd much rather live in a world without McDonald's, Sears, Sony Playstations, etc., than in a world in which companies, rather than individuals, control the distribution of information. And make no mistake: companies have monetary resources and power far beyond that of your typical individual. They _do_ have the ability to lock away all of the important human knowledge that exists in our society.

I think that we all need to think about the things that we hold dear. Do we want the freedom to learn and to understand, or do we all want shiny new SUVs?

Re:They must be stopped

[capt.Hij]

This post is coprighted by me, 6 June 2001.
It is prohibited to copy, display, or reproduce this post in any way without the explicit permission of the author.

possibly but

[Anonymous Coward]

since this story has been previously published on kuro5hin he probably participated in that discussion and already had an informed opinion when this one was posted.

Another gap between justice and law

[Anonymous Coward]

The first amendment exists not for the speaker, but rather for the listener - they are who gain the value, and suffer the cost of censorship. The speaker is only a proxy used to bridge the gap between justice and law. Listeners should file for damages when prevented from hearing. The costs are more easily quantified and they are typically a larger class of litigant.

Remember: when re-engineering, the stress on the value chain reverses.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've made the same mistake before.

A not-for-profit company and a nonprofit company are technically the same. The difference is that a company that refers to itself as "not-for-profit" is not forbidden to make a profit, but its goals must not be profit oriented. Basically, the stipulation is such that the profits must go back into the organization and are used to further its mission.

Though I happen to agree, it does look pretty sketchy at best. :(

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a damn good idea. EFF should advertise it on their site.

Re:Galstar is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

If Mike Lester is involved (along with his buddies...especially his buddies), then it's still a bad deal.

DMCA's objection surfaces again

[Anonymous Coward]

It is interesting to note that one of the original objections to DMCA, "It would be used to suppress academic research", which we were assured could never happen, is now the subject of a 1st amendment lawsuit. There are a number of us who are now saying, "I told you so".

You should note that the same method could be used to suppress Open Source work, if it happens to duplicate (or a Lawyer can convince a Judge) something produced by a (large) commercial company. Also, the Hague Convention is being used to extend the "benefits" of DMCA to the EU, and extend the "benefits" of RIP to the USA. Again, Open Source, and academic research is under fire.

Re:Cracks in the DCMA?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Attorney General of the United States is always sued when the plaintiff is trying to enjoin enforcement of a given law. Look up * v. Janet Reno and you'll see what I mean.

Re:AG Ashcroft?

[Roblimo]

Please follow the link I provided in the story to the full text of the complaint. That should answer your question.

- Robin

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[jandrese]

If RIAA isn't planning on suing anybody, then why did they insist on changing the paper back in April, and why is Usenix so terrified about litigaction? Is it just because that press release only applies to Dr. Felton, and RIAA may still sue anybody else who tries to read (or attend a workshop on) the document under the DMCA? After all, that paper and the ideas contained within it is a "circumvention device" and quite to own under the DMCA.

Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[six11]

hello, this is reality calling.

I like pink floyd. Who should I make the check out to? Roger? David? Or maybe I should send it to the funny farm, care of ol' pink. Then somebody will hop on their bike (because they don't like the oil companies and won't buy their product, so they don't have a car) and bring me a CD of their work.

This sort of idealism is bound to fail, because it describes a completely unsustainable economic model. A boycott is NOT the only way to defeat a company. It's foolish to think so. Of course, a well organized boycott can have an impact, but more in terms of public opinion and perceived long term financial loss than of actual financial pain.

Stephen King tried the route of having a direct financial connection with readers, and he got burned. Why would a record company or professional musician that wants to remain in business take the same risk that King did? They know full well that you won't send them a check, and if you did, someone at the funny farm would screw them over.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[phil reed]

How the hell can the RIAA call itself nonprofit?

Quite easily. RIAA is an industry representation organization. It charges membership dues sufficient to pay for its expenses: office space, staff, office equipment and supplies, operational expenses (lobbying, lawyers, power, etc). It does what it does on behalf of its membership, which DOES consist of profit-making organizations. The RIAA itself is not profit-oriented.

Most companies are members of at least one such organization, even if it's only the local Chamber of Commerce. Yes, the organizations exist to help their membership make money, but the organization doesn't make money itself.


...phil

Re:Not the first lawsuit, the ONLY lawsuit

[Riktov]

>>>
What do I think the chances are? I would say they are about the same as the chances of me dating Sarah Michele Gellar next week; realistically as close to zero as anything can be.
>>>>

This calls for nothing less than an all-out letter writing campaign: write to Sarah Michelle Gellar and beg her to please, please, please go out with Veteran this weekend! (And no, Sarah, you don't have to put out at all.)

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[Tim Doran]

...and how did that pre-written statement get modded up through the ceiling? Moderators: Think before you click!

omg

[Danse]

That is fscked up. I can't believe they printed that. For a supposedly objective source, they sure lay the loaded words on thick.

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[jedidiah]

"imprisoning them for awhile"

Just who are you trying to kid? Just because someone hasn't died, it doesn't mean that lives have not been destroyed. Just what kind of sheltered life have you lead to think that imprisonment (even today) would have little impact on a man.

You make it sound like prison is no big deal. It's not like that now, nevermind 200 or 500 years ago. Also when potential targets are few and far between, it becomes less compelling to point out that there have been few actual victims.

The far better question would be "who DIDN'T get arrested, ruined or killed". Surely there are plenty of examples to counter the likes of John Huss and Galileo. Who WASN'T suppressed trying to push the state of the art in science and philosophy forward.

One also does well to remember just why there are two Catholic chuches today (Catholic & Orthodox).

A transparent attempt at a strawman argument

[Sanity]

The opinion that all property is a lie is not a logical consequence of the view that information cannot be treated as property, and the claim to the contrary is little more than a transparent attempt to set up a strawman*.

What is property, and why is it important? Property is important because if you have some property, and someone else takes it from you, then you can no-longer benefit from it. Yet information doesn't work like that. I can give a piece of information to someone else without taking that information away from anyone. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it better:

"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement, or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813.

* A "strawman argument" is advancing your opinion by arguing against a false definition of your opponent's view in the hope that nobody will recognise the difference.

--

Riiight...

[Svartalf]

DMCA exists for one and only ONE reason- to CONTROL "intellectual" property.

Current patent and copyright law protects that already.

DMCA makes it illegal to own, make, or teach someone else how to make tools to exercise your fair usage rights. You're entitled to make copies of the content you've purchased for your own personal use (meaning for you and you alone). Doesn't matter what form the media is or the content- you're allowed that. DVDs don't let you play disks that are from different regions and if you've got a player that the DVD cartel didn't sanction (i.e. got a license from the DVD CCA to use CSS descrambling) then you don't get to play anything. The disk itself is not locked out (i.e. I can make an exact image copy with a DVD press and expect it to work, implicitly- if it were "protection" as you claim, it wouldn't work out that way).) and CSS is only there to prevent re-encoding to a new format or to play disks not in your region- it doesn't really protect anything

That, sir or madam, is content control not protection. It is there to keep people from making portion copies (fair use right) for personal projects, re-encoding to a lower bandwidth format (space/time shifting- another fair use right), and to keep them purchasing a disk in some other part of the world (Say, I buy in Singapore to watch on a DVD player there, but I live in the US- unless it's a region 1 disk, it's not going to be playable in a region 1 player...).

Re:Charitable Donations and Corporate Matching

[bill_mcgonigle]

They have a list. In good service to irony, there are plenty of RIAA members on the list. And you can specify that your donation goes to Ed's case.

If you donate over $100 you get an EFF raid cap. I eagerly await mine.

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[Odinson]

Good Heavens! That's over the course of what span of time???

About a half a year before I pay up. It's cds and movie rentals, and rock concerts, but mostly movies in the theatre. US$8.50 a pop for me and my girlfriend up fast. :)

I suppose those boycotting will have already done their part under your system....

I thought about boycotting, but our culture in the USA and in NY where I live is ripe with movie refrances and song quotes. I'm afraid I would fall out of touch and become even more stange to the unaware.

I want to watch DVD's on a Linux laptop with GPLed programs, that is what I am after. Why this should be illegal boggles my mind. (2600 and Judge Kaplan are here too.)

Clearly stated threat.

[Odinson]

The MPAA and the RIAA are now offically the enemy of the constitution (copywrite not impeading progress/science clause)

I have donating dollar for dollar to the EFF for every product I buy from the RIAA or MPAA member companies. My last donation was about US$130 and I excpect my next to top US$150.

It feels great, I suggest tring it. I watched some good movies too.

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[Nater]

That is a damn good idea. EFF should advertise it on their site.

Yes, even if for no other reason than to show people how much they really spend on "entertainment". Personally, I find bike riding, network building, and Perl coding more gratifying that most movies, tv, radio, and "popular" music, so I'll have to find some other way to calculate how much to donate (hardware cost matching? It would certainly generate some big revenue for EFF).

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[Hard_Code]

"I have donating dollar for dollar to the EFF for every product I buy from the RIAA or MPAA member companies."

Me too. $0. Oh wait, I didn't give EFF $60. So I guess that's -$60. Woah, am I sticking it to "da man"!

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[jafuser]

I have donating dollar for dollar to the EFF for every product I buy from the RIAA or MPAA member companies. My last donation was about US$130 and I excpect my next to top US$150.

Excellent idea! These people are modern patriots and they deserve all of the support they can get. I wish people would turn off the TV, get off their sofas and donate at least $20 (the cost of one DVD or a little more than one CD) to the EFF. I don't know why so many of us have fairly decent (high tech) jobs, but few of us take the time just to send a few dollars to support some of our strongest beliefs. I hope people don't get there and see all of the suggested amounts and decide against donating just because it's more than they can afford (or are willing to spend). Send whatever you can, but at least send something!

The way our government has become, the only way you can get any action is to form a large group and speak with one loud voice. These guys are on our side. I've heard complaints that an individual person is too small to affect change in the government, but you can do so indirectly by supporting an organization that will be heard.

I joined the EFF about a year ago. I guess I'm due for another donation. I really like Odinson's idea; I'm going to start doing the same thing. It certainly will help me to feel better about the few purchases that I do make that wind up inadvertently supporting the [MP|RI]AA.

--

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[jafuser]

... I haven't missed out much on not listening to popular music. And I haven't watched anything other than some sports on TV in the last year, and I haven't missed out at ALL in that area.

Disclaimer: I'm going to spend a few karma points here to get a strong point across, though it might be just a little bit off-topic. Hopefully our kind moderators will be a little leniant here.

I've been doing the same thing (no popular music, no television). The only thing that seems to regularly put me outside the norm is when someone walks up to me and asks "Hey did you see that funny new TV commercial?". However, I can proudly say, "No". As a matter of fact, I despise television even more now that I've been away from the stench for a while. If I even try to watch a short 30-minute show, I'm immediately reminded of how inane and insulting most of television is to the public (Take a laugh track for example: we need to be told when to laugh?).

Besides that, it's my personal theory that television is the reason why so many people in our country are apathetic. It's great for me, because it empowers me with so much more freedom to do so many productive things. I feel like I've found a way out to a much greener pasture, while the rest of the herd are kept "safe" inside the fence, appeased with tasty but poor-quality fodder, and happy in their ignorance but unaware of the upcoming slaughter.

I know it's nearly impossible to drop out of television in our modern culture, but if you really care a lot for your sanity and independence, just try to give TV a break for a week. I guarantee you might feel a bit withdrawn, but when you get back to it, you'll probably find it's much worse than you previously thought; meanwhile you'll find you suddenly had a lot of free time to catch up on things which are more important. Just remember when you're life is nearly over, do you want to say you spent 20% of it wasting your time and your mind on spoon-fed crap fed to you by large corporations to sell you to the highest bidder, or do you want to have spent that 20% exploring new and different things and advancing relationships with great people.

Remember: with television, you are the product, not the consumer.

--

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[Rakarra]

I thought about boycotting, but our culture in the USA and in NY where I live is ripe with movie refrances and song quotes. I'm afraid I would fall out of touch and become even more stange to the unaware.

I used to think the same. You may have a point with movies, but I haven't missed out much on not listening to popular music. And I haven't watched anything other than some sports on TV in the last year, and I haven't missed out at ALL in that area.

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[The Cookie Monster]

Yes, I found that living without TV is remarkably easy, however that's because the internet is my TV now - instead of blobing infront of the TV I blob on the internet, I've replaced my cigarettes with food :).

My only complaint is that I'm no longer force-fed current affairs - something that does appear to be of social significance.

The only thing that seems to regularly put me outside the norm is when someone walks up to me and asks "Hey did you see that funny new TV commercial?"

We had a TV commerical here that everyone was talking about, we had the moral minority full-tilt writing letters to editors about it, everyone else saying how great it was, references to it poping up in the local culture etc. Took me about 3 months to finally see it.

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[carlos_benj]

I have donating dollar for dollar to the EFF for every product I buy from the RIAA or MPAA member companies. My last donation was about US$130 and I excpect my next to top US$150.

Good Heavens! That's over the course of what span of time???

I suppose those boycotting will have already done their part under your system....

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[imipak]

I don't know that patriotism has anything to do with it. I'm English, and frankly I rather loathe many manifestations of the USA statem, government, and (I guess) nation as a whole. (NB, I'm not talking about individuals. Some of my best friends are merkins ;) But I've donated GBP30 to the EFF.

>EFF Member #11254 - What's your number?

I don't know, they never got back to me after I attempted to join... took the money from the credit card though... Hmmm, perhaps I'll drop them a line & see what's up. I could use another random serial number in my user_id :-)
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"

Re:Clearly stated threat.

[imipak]

http://www.figure4.co.uk/scritti/songs/lyrics.htm# song2 : lyrics for 'Tinseltown to the Boogiedown' by the godlike genius of Green, aka Scritti Politti...

which IS in fact about how TV sucks your life out of you thanks to capitalism. Doesn't come across so well written down, though :(
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[armb]

> Cannons fire spherical shot, not bullets, and have straight smooth barrels (not rifled), so they are classified as shotguns

I've been told (urban legend alert) that you can own a working tank with only a shotgun licence (so long as it has a smoothbore gun), but the only place you can legally fire it is on an Army firing range with the Army's permission - which the Army don't grant.

--

Corporate Matching of Charitable Donations

[TBone]

I posted this below on it's own thread, but it's important, so I wanted it to get some instant visibility

before you donate, check your HR benefits if you work at a decent company. Many companies have policies of matching employee donations to charitable organizations up to a certain dollar amount. My last company would match up to, IIRC, $500, and my (hopefully) next will match $150.

It doesn't cost you anything more, and hey, it gives them another write-off. Make sure you get the forms you need and check to see how you have to make the donation to get the extra money to your causes.

This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U

Charitable Donations and Corporate Matching

[TBone]

For those of you who work for big companies, look into your benefits you may find that your company will, up to a certain dollar amount, match any donations you yourself make to qualifying charitable organizations. I would suspect that the EFF would qualify.

If you want to donate, make sure you get the paperwork or forms you need to get your company to match your donation. My last company would match, IIRC, $500 of my donation. That's $1K to EFF for the $500 you might have given them anyway.

This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U

Re:Charitable Donations and Corporate Matching

[rthille]

I wonder if the RIAA or the MPAA or Time/Warner do matching gift donations? :-)

And the great thing is...

[Art Tatum]

That we *can* donate money to uphold the Constitution.

Re:Not the first lawsuit, the ONLY lawsuit

[Art Tatum]

Said scientists are "scruffy malcontents"?

I thought so too at first. But in a post somewhere up above, someone posted the following Reuters headline:

Scientists Sue to Publish Piracy Paper
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A team of academics asked a federal court on Wednesday for permission to publicly reveal how they cracked an anti-piracy technology backed by the music industry.

Scary.

Re:It's about fscking time!

[sacherjj]

I don't believe that there would be any grounds to include the MPAA in this suit, unless that had any inclusion in the audio encription technologies.

Re:Join Now

[sacherjj]

Thanks for the link, I just joined.

Re:Not the first lawsuit, the ONLY lawsuit

[Gromer]

Are you sure you posted this to the right article? I don't buy any of these arguments, and some of them just don't make sense.

• Are you saying that in a battle between a collection of large, faceless corporations and a small group of scientists at top-flight research institutions, the corporations have the respectability edge? Said scientists are "scruffy malcontents"? Come on. Academic speech is one of the most clear-cut instances of first-amendment-protected speech there is. The SDMI et. al. have a huge task ahead of them just avoiding looking like the goon squad- interfering with academic publication isn't a very pretty picture. Besides, who's this "we" you're talking about? The plaintiffs aren't hackers- they're academics. In the eyes of most judges, there's a world of difference.
• The fight isn't really over technical issues at all- it's over whether or not some scientists can publish a paper. The technical details of the paper are pretty much irrelevant. Besides, cases of this nature are seldom handled by a jury, and judges tend to make a good-faith effort to understand the technical issues they are confronted with.
• This argument is too ridiculous to be rebutted. Felten et. al. will loose the case because it would be a horrible miscarriage of justice? You make it sound like Hon. Justice Snidely Whiplash has been appointed to the case. A few ugly cases do not make a legal system which thrives on miscarriage.
• Erm, the government (U.S., state, or local) is a party in every criminal case in the country, yet somehow accused crmiminals are occasionally found innocent. The U.S. Government has been on the losing end of any number of major court cases, including many more important than this one (yes, there is such a thing). Besides, the U.S. government is not a defendant- the attorney general is, and he is a defendant only in a rather formal sense- nobody's accusing him of a crime. They need to include Ashcroft as a defendant in order for the case to have the scope necessary to get an order preventing possible future prosecutions of USENIX and others. In short, they need to get the government involved, even though the case is not a DMCA prosecution, in order for the case to have the necessary scope.

Re:Join Now

[sinan]

Thanks for the link. I just joined also($100). Also found out that my company matches. So will send them the forms(for another $100). Check the matching company list when you are there, you may be pleasantly surprised.

BTW, I just wanted to say that I have over 900 CDs that I have bought in last 10 years or so. Which makes about 80 CDs per year. With Napster guidance ,last year I bought over 100 CDs. Since RIAA/MPAA started suing Napster? I have bought 0 CDs . And will not buy another one until Napster is restored back to it's previous glory or RIAA backers go bankrupt.

Interesting thing about this that my personal boycott actually saves me money and hurts the record companies. It is a win-win for me. Kinda like Linux vs. Microsoft. Everytime Microsoft spends money agains Linux , Microsoft loses , but Linux (not being a financial entity) does not and wins publicity.

So attrition is our best friend.

Sinan

Inflamatory spreading

[Outland Traveller]

This case is not about black and white stances such as "All intellectual property is wrong" and "All intellectual property is good" as your post implicitly suggests.

This case is about grey areas, and deals with questions such as: Does the DCMA go too far? Are copyright / trademark / existing IP laws adequate? The question is not, as much as you would like it to be, whether all IP is evil and wrong. It's whether the broad new IP powers granted by the DCMA are unconstitutional.

I think you might have an interesting topic for some other debate, but in the context of this story it's BARELY even on topic.

Re:Have I missed something?

[ethereal]

It sounds to me like Felten et al. are trying to get a judgment up front that they won't be violating the law, so that they can go ahead with the presentation without fear of legal action. I'm not sure what the legal standing of this sort of action is, though.

Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!

Re:an odd thought

[jelle]

"Does that mean that digital weapons (including virii and DoS attacks) are legal? Legal to have, but not to use... "

Just like a gun, only legal if you shoot it in the protected environment of a sandbox.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[sethg]

How the hell can the RIAA call itself nonprofit?

The RIAA itself is non-profit. The members of the RIAA are for-profit corporations.
--

Re:AG Ashcroft?

[sethg]

The DMCA includes both civil and criminal penalties. If anyone were charged with violating the criminal parts, the US Attorney General would be responsible for prosecuting the case. Since the plaintiffs want to prevent that from happening, Ashcroft, the current US Attorney General, is named in the suit. It's nothing personal.
--

Re:Have I missed something?

[sethg]

You've missed paragraph 3 of the plaintiffs' complaint, where they quote Japan Gas Lighter Ass'n v. Ronson Corp., 257 F.Supp. 219, 237 (D.N.J. 1966):

The Declaratory Judgment Act was designed to relieve potential defendants from the Damoclean threat of impending litigation which a harassing adversary might brandish, while initiating suit at his leisure -- or never. The Act permits parties so situated to forestall the accrual of potential damages by suing for a declaratory judgment, once the adverse positions have crystallized and the conflict of interests is real and immediate.

--

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[IanCarlson]

Cohn's statement may have some merit to it, but that's really not the point. The point is that the EFF and 2600 are supposed to be allies, and in a world with so many negative forces, it's never good to see people forget who their friends are.

Besides, hackers and subversives shouldn't be discounted for what they are. If their legal arguments hold water, they should win. Legal arguments should never be won or lost based on one party being seen as "evil".

I like to think that law has not yet de-evolved into a popularity contest. Sometimes I fear I may be wrong.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[IanCarlson]

Sure, the chances of the university winning its case is greater than 2600's chances of winning their cases.

What I'm sad to see is the acceptance of this fact. If a case isn't likely to be won, it should just make groups like EFF work harder to insure that it all works out.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[IanCarlson]

Absolutely. While everyone may not agree with everything the EFF says and does, they are the single biggest force for the protection of liberties on-line.

Support the EFF. They're still doing their job.

Driving Force of the Case

[IanCarlson]

What's interesting about the document written by Felten and his associates is the fact that it goes into no details on how to actually circumvent SDMI, but just details the inherent weaknesses in the system.

This will be a very important verdict for free speech as a whole, and the case is being fast-tracked because the USENIX conference is quickly approaching (and because matters of this nature are usually treated in this fashion).

I found out about the teleconference through the 2600 web site, but I was shocked to hear some of the things that the EFF's Cindy Cohn said about 2600's lawsuits. According to her, the EFF has a better chance of winning this case because colleges are who the laws are "meant to protect", insinuating (at least to me) that 2600 has lost its cases because they're seen as hackers and subversives. That didn't leave a very pleasant taste in my mouth.

Cohn does make a very good argument for the case against the DMCA, saying that the RIAA needs to "stop interfering with the scientific process."

The conference was quite interesting, however. I really regret not recording it. There was definitely a good news media turnout. Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe, NewsBytes, NPR, AP, and a whole slew of independent radio and newspaper reporters that Roblimo completely has failed to mention.

Very informative. You all should have called in.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[IanCarlson]

It is absolutely worth listening to. To hear about the case in the EFF's own words was quite enlightening.

I suppose part of me is unhappy to find out about the recording, though...

At about 12:10PM EST, I called in and got an operator who asked me for a whole slew of information, which I gave. Before she tossed me into the mix, I asked her if callers were muted by default and she told me that they were. So, I put the conference on my work speakerphone and a few people begin gathering around, listening and talking about the case while Felten is going into details about the report that started all of this.

All of a sudden, the whole conference erupted into a chorus of people telling us to shut up. It was around this time we realized that the call was not muted at that everyone on the conference could hear us.

You would think the friggin' EFF would moderate their conferences a little better, but obviously not.

Embarrassed, I cover the mouthpiece and start to kick myself for making an ass of myself in front of reporters from about twenty major news organizations.

But then I realized, there are people who go through life without ever even having the chance to make an ass of themselves on such a grand scale, and I quickly began feeling an awful lot better about myself.

I never really liked the Associated Press or NPR much anyway.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[Rakarra]

Cohn's statement may have some merit to it, but that's really not the point. The point is that the EFF and 2600 are supposed to be allies, and in a world with so many negative forces, it's never good to see people forget who their friends are.

I don't see how the comments Cohn make were unfreiendly towards 2600. She could have lied and said "2600 and us have the same chance of winning because we're both in the right," but that's not reality, and I don't think it would have been fair to 2600 to say such things.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[Rakarra]

What I'm sad to see is the acceptance of this fact. If a case isn't likely to be won, it should just make groups like EFF work harder to insure that it all works out.

Yes, but the reality is that EFF has very limited funds, so they need to pick and choose their battles. The bottom line is: support EFF.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[BlueboyX]

'I found out about the teleconference through the 2600 web site, but I was shocked to hear some of the things that the EFF's Cindy Cohn said about 2600's lawsuits. According to her, the EFF has a better chance of winning this case because colleges are who the laws are "meant to protect", insinuating (at least to me) that 2600 has lost its cases because they're seen as hackers and subversives. That didn't leave a very pleasant taste in my mouth. '

I think that her statement is true. Basically the judge said that he didnt care what anyone said; hackers were using this for evil purposes so it is not allowed. Logical? No. But I think that is what happened.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

[Aarrrggghh]

FYI - The EFF will make a recording of the press conference available on RadioEFF (assuming no major technical disasters) http://eff.org/radioeff/

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[TWR]

Yeah, it's a setup. Just like those uppity Negroes who sat down at lunch counters CLEARLY marked "Whites Only".

Sometimes you gotta set up The Man...and then beat him with his own laws.

-jon

be realistic here.

[RJ11]

The Justice League, God, Jesus, and Satan himself will also be siding with the EFF in this case to halt the DMCA's reign of terror.

Yeah, right. I highly doubt anything will ever come with this. Call me a cynic, but ever since the DeCSS case, I've lost all faith in the government using common sense when working on technology oriented legislation.

Re:be realistic here.

[chinakow]

why is it that a Bribe can be perfectly acceptable if you call it "lobbying"?


Jon

Re:be realistic here.

[mutzinator]

To accuse "the government" of not using common sense is ridiculous. The actions of the government are the actions of thousands of individuals making decisions (informed or not).

The decisions made by bureaucrats are a influenced heavily by lobbying. The concentrated interests of the RIAA, MPAA... are a significant lobbying force in washington.

We absolutely need actions like those of the EFF. We need to defend our distributed interest by supporting them.

I just donated $100 through the link in the story description. If any of you want to make a difference, and really care about this issue, stop yacking about it and give them some cash. Their opponents have deep pockets and the EFF needs *financial* support!

Re:be realistic here.

[AndyChrist]

The RIAA and MPAA can't take over anyone's lives, unless they're a fucking moron. They can just make it difficult for you to find any decent entertainment without having to either spend way too much time searching, or sell your soul.

Re:be realistic here.

[IronChef]

The problem with campaign finance reform, at least what's proposed by McCain and the others, is that it stifles political speech from non-profit groups, as well as building a big new bureacracy.

Take the NRA for example: if McCain gets his way, the postcards that the NRA sends out that says "we urge you to vote for so-and-so in your local election" will count as a *campaign contribution* and they'll be tightly regulated. That goes for Sierra Club postcards too, and Greenpeace, and the EFF... Break these laws and it's fines and jail time.

Fines or jail time... for a group of people sending out postcards saying "vote for _________." How is that an improvement?

I was in favor of campaign finance reform until I read more about it, and I realized that in the end it would prevent my point of view from being "taken to the Hill" through the non-profit groups I am affiliated with. That's no good.

The best article I have on the matter right now is in a gun magazine, but it should be easy to find more info online... I bet most large political groups (NRA, Sierra Club, etc.) are down on this idea, and rightly so.

Of course, if you don't feel strongly about any political issues you may not care about it anyway.

Re:be realistic here.

[GemFire]

Congress only consists of hundreds of people, not thousands - but that is really immaterial. The major problem with our election process is campaign finance. If all moneys offered by corporation had to be 'under the table' and the penalties for accepting these 'bribes' were severe enough (i.e. the end of the politician's career and maybe even jail time) then we might see a change in how our Congress works.

A candidate may accept up to $1000 from individuals, but PACs (special accounts set up by corporations) can donate $5000 each. A company like AOL/Time Warner probably has half a dozen different PACs (more than $30,000 potential to a candidate.) And that doesn't count the party contributions! This buys laws that favor corporations.

Candidates should have an even playing field - equal opportunity to present their qualifications - perhaps debates could be aired as news (costing the candidates nothing but time) - regional and including both Senate and House candidates, major parties, minor parties, and independents. Money should have nothing whatsoever to do with the choice of one candidate over another.

A position in Congress, or the White House, should be considered, not an opportunity, but a responsibility - a heavy one. The reaction of a candidate, upon hearing that they have been elected should not be "I won! I won!" but something more like "Oh, God, what have I gotten myself into?" Anybody who actually WANTS the job, shouldn't have it. We should be finding and electing people who have a natural sense of what is right and what is wrong, not just the slickest, silver-tongued former lawyer who has more bad things to say about his opponent than good things to say about himself.

If money were not an issue, maybe we could get more of those kind of people in office and maybe that would bring a bit more sanity to our Government.

Take a look at CIPA - the court declared it unconstitutional and it's back. Strike down the DMCA and the same thing could happen, Congress coming back with something that has been changed enough to allow Professors to publish papers, but still limiting everything else. We need to change Congress and Campaign Finance is a good place to start.

Re:be realistic here.

[GemFire]

With a proper voters digest - like they used to have in Washington State - your non-profit organizations wouldn't need to send out postcards saying 'vote for ----.' These pamphlets, received well ahead of election day, contained the candidates stand on major issues (all the candidates!) and any bills that were coming up for popular vote. Pros and cons were attached (mostly to the bills.) This allowed a registered voter to make an educated decision as to which candidate most closely fit their own beliefs and how the different bills might affect their lives.

And I really doubt McCain's idea of campaign finance reform is anything close to mine. For one thing, he probably isn't dead set against corporate donations - ever. Corporations aren't people, they don't have a vote and I don't want them voting with their money either!

The internet could be the way to change how people get to know their candidates. Web space is cheap - you don't need a lot of campaign funds to run a site. Place the voter's pamphlet there, too, with printed copies available for the asking at libraries. Your non-profit organizations could put their opinion in the pamphlet - I'd even allow corporations to do the same (vote for this republican - he wants to help build a pay-per-view world.)

And when Election day came, there's a copy there, too, to peruse while you're waiting in line!

Re:be realistic here.

[drift factor]

The Justice League, God, Jesus, and Satan himself will also be siding with the EFF in this case to halt the DMCA's reign of terror. Yeah, right. I highly doubt anything will ever come with this. Call me a cynic, but ever since the DeCSS case, I've lost all faith in the government using common sense when working on technology oriented legislation.

So you've lost faith, does that mean you give up? It's attitudes like this that will help the RIAA and MPAA take over our lives. If your favorite sports team is losing badly do you stop cheering them on?

I won't call you a cynic, I'll call you a quitter.

Re:be realistic here.

[Andux]

Ah, an armed protest against the DMCA. Cunning plan. We can simultaneously increase the country's fear of "geeks with guns," and give the corporate media ammunition for a pro-DMCA propaganda campaign denouncing anyone who opposes them as an anarchist gun-nut plotting to destroy the government. Brilliant!

Re:be realistic here.

[Freija Crescent]

The Justice League, God, Jesus, and Satan himself will also be siding with the EFF in this case to halt the DMCA's reign of terror. Yeah, right. I highly doubt anything will ever come with this. Call me a cynic, but ever since the DeCSS case, I've lost all faith in the government using common sense when working on technology oriented legislation.

Hey, don't lose faith in the US government. They don't always do things with the citizens' best interests at heart, but it is the best system we have. They might pass bills behind your back that slowly erode at your first amendment rights, such as the DCMA. Just have patience.

Point is, as an American, you have your second ammendment rights to help you protect the rights granted to you by the first ammendment. No need to fear such a government.

-freija

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Codeine]

The right to bear arms was to limit State power, where and when power came out of the barrel of a gun. It was to ensure balance in the force, <grin>.

Today coercive power more frequently resides in technology (which can also set us free). Such power should available to all, however the State is denying the people the right to knowlege through the bans on reverse engineering and prohibiting the defeat of non-legitimate powers assumed by technology companies, ie, the DMCA.

The consent of the governed is guaranteed in an armed society, it is being stolen from those ruled by technology and a technology "right to rebel effectively" is required.

IE, the coercive power is not with guns for the majority of us, as much as technology, it seems to me the right to "bear arms" is now the right to technology to defeat the technology fascists who would enslave via their baseless Region encodings and cryptography which *never* came out of copy right.

I don't think the idea funny, indeed I offered it as an Ask Slashdot, but...

• 2000-04-27 04:20:24 More Yopy, the Linux PDA (articles,news) (accepted)
  
  
• 2000-08-14 21:05:02 Why faster CPUs? Why not more of them? (askslashdot,hardware) (accepted)
  
  
• 2001-02-12 23:49:40 LEGO Mindstorms developer talks about "Lifelong Ki (articles,toys) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-02-16 05:29:25 What's Wrong With Copy Protection!? (yro,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-02-21 20:45:23 How Much Does IP Enforcement Cost? (askslashdot,money) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-03-13 23:09:59 e-Holster (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-03-22 04:21:29 Anyone heard of IndraNet Technologies Limited? (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-03-24 11:01:34 DVD zoning 'anti-competitive?' (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-04 07:52:59 Valenti's First Amendment Hypocrisy (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-05 02:00:53 Argentinian Government Debates Open Source Requirement. (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-07 18:54:53 Newsisfree.com - Personalised RSS Aggregation (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-08 17:16:20 Digital Rights Management Patent Lawsuit Against Microsoft (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-21 11:24:08 SDMI Delayed by Internal Dissent (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-23 05:43:36 Middle School Physical Science Texts "have a very large number of errors" (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-23 05:48:46 Digital Insertion To Be Tested On Re-Runs? (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-05-25 00:49:55 Car Computers To Save Lives (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-06-06 18:57:43 Watermarking Researchers Take Fight to Federal Court (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  
• 2001-06-07 03:08:41 BMW unveils world's first Hydrogen car (articles,news) (rejected)
  
  

And I can't recall which of those headlines relates to the idea... sorry.

EFF Press Conference mp3 now available

[wbraunoh]

This morning's press conference is now available on EFF's web site.

mp3 format, open audio licensed.

Re:EFF Press Conference mp3 now available

[Artemis3]

Ok; who would encode a press conference in 128kbps stereo!?!? This thing is 35,950,052 long! Insane...

C'mon ppl, can anyone with the whole thing reencode it to a smaller size? Maybe something like "lame --mp3input --preset phone -v -q 0 feltenpr.mp3" could do...

Geez, next time they will use .ogg or something... :)

--

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[tcoady]

This quote came from a slashdot discussion about SDMI/RIAA/DCMA. It reminds me of a theory of my own that the "Church" was the worlds first multi-national, with brilliant marketing techniques and corporate branding, theme music and a unitary language that spanned the globe until Vatican II banned latin. Like McDonalds, you would recognise a church wherever you go, because it carried the same corporate identity everywhere. Today we worship the fruits of multi-nationals, and award them our loyalty.

Re:Cracks in the DCMA?

[gmhowell]

I haven't read the filing, but I believe that including Ashcroft is a formality to include the DOJ.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[gmhowell]

I've been in the mood to feed the trolls today:

Felten is doing what is right and proper in the United States to change things: he is using the courts.

At least there is *something* here. Frequently, these type of suits are brought before there is ANY issue.

I don't give two shits whether this case is about money. If it means the DMCA is dumped like it should be, so be it.

This suit has a better chance of success than Corley's.

First, Corley is a bit of a wanker. Sure, Felton may look smug, but Corley IS smug.

Second, Felton and the gang are researchers, trying to publish their original work. There must be some legal terminology, but I have no doubt that the originator has greater rights than a reporter.

Third, Corley ignored (or intelligently skirted) an injunction.

Fourth, Corley's case had some weirdness involving to what extent code is speech. This case is much clearer.

Finally, Corley was/is a defendant, using the problems of the DMCA as a defense. Felten being a plaintiff changes the way the game is played. Much like the MPAA set the rules in the decss case, Felten et al. get to set the groundwork in this case.

It's clear that Corley's case is going poorly, and so now it is time to open up the second front. In addition to the reasons mentioned above, the EFF has learned from that experience, and will apply those lessons to this case.

So, of course this lawsuit is a setup. That's the way the US legal system can work.

"Intellectual Property" is an oxymoron

[Dr. Manhattan]

If we regard IP as a legal fiction, why is physical property amything[sic] but?

One of Thomas Jefferson's letters addresses this. "It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions... If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea... He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

To reject IP as a legal fiction only leads us back to a terrifying fact that all property is, in essence, a lie. But it is a useful lie...

The U.S. Constitution does not grant patents and copyrights on the grounds of property rights. It grants them "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts...". The phrase "intellectual property" is an oxymoron.

I agree that patents and copyrights, properly applied, have great social utility. But I would also argue that the DMCA and other current laws do not. Quite the opposite.

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[mav[LAG]]

I should also point out that one of the biggest achievements in the fight against Church power was the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther gave the people an alternative to the Church, and that opened the floodgates of pent-up frustration and dissatisfaction. Suddenly, there were choices that had never existed before.

Absolutely correct. The Reformation followed two huge changes in society:

• literacy - people could read the Bible and other works in their own language for the first time without having it dispensed to them from the (often corrupt) pulpit; and
• trade. The vast quantities of money extracted by Rome could be better used for economic gain once people could make up their own minds whether compulsory church taxes were a noble cause or not.

But I would say that the enabler for the Reformation was technological. It was the printing press that allowed people to read the Bible and commentaries on it in their own language and decide for themselves instead of letting Rome decide for them. I read somewhere that Martin Luther himself was responsible for nearly half of all sales of published works in Germany during his lifetime.

The modern parallel to the printing press is of course the Internet. To follow your example, it's easy to see what the most popular activity is on the Net: communicating with other people directly. Whether it's IRC or e-mail or chat forums or Slashdot, people prefer to use the Net to interact with other people more than they do to buy stuff or interact with corporations. But that's another topic altogether...

Your message is a plant. Shill?

[AtariDatacenter]

There is absolutely no way you could have typed all of that within a minute or two of the story going online. It is obvious that you've pasted a prepared script onto Slashdot, with the hope of getting your counter-view seen quickly and widely.

I don't think I'm stretching too far when I call you a shill for another organization.

Re:"Chilling Effect"

[timster]

Sounds like you've never read _The Prince_. Machiavelli did not write about some "fictional prince"; his book was openly a discussion of the maintenance of political power. There were no characters and there was no fiction.
Further, the concept of Machiavelli's ideas being "evil" was one developed intentionally by the Catholic Church because they did not feel that his writing was religious enough (despite Machiavelli writing that a proper relationship with God and the church was important) and wished to supress his ideas. The other poster quoted _The Prince_ as saying "it is more important to be feared than loved" but obviously didn't read the rest of the paragraph that he is quoting from. Machiavelli was very careful in making that statement, noting that it was his opinion and clarifying that he believed that for a ruler to be loved is also very important.
Please do not make false statements about important literary works that you have not read.

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[jmauro]

Except that encryption offers no threat to anyone else. I cannot kill my neighbors accidently with a bit of code. You could kill them accidently with a howitizer. Since code offers no threat to anyone and it is a weapon, banning it for the public good won't fly. It is only a threat to the government in that case, and the courts have traditionally sided for the citizen in those cases. Besides, encryption software has been classified as a weapon for almost 30-40 years. Not once in that time has the US government prevented a citizen from using and creating cryptography for internal use (Any reason why? Could it be the 2nd). It is only cared about export, which isn't covered by the 2nd Amendment. Since export is so easy over the internet, they seem more heavy handed then they actually are.

Re:The sad thing is

[StenD]

The 1st Amendment, among other things, gives you the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Of course, with the number of petitions I've signed, it is painfully clear they aren't paying any attention to that one either.

Is someone from the government preventing you from petitioning it? You have the right to petition, not the right to have your petitions acted upon.

Re:Miranda

[StenD]

If memory serves me correctly,

It doesn't.

the Miranda ruling that resulted in the now famous "You have the right to remain silent" Miranda rights, was initiated by a convicted inmate (Mr. Miranda) hand writing an appeal to the Supreme Court from his jail cell. He had been convicted, never having had a defense lawyer, or knowing that he didn't have to answer any questions in court.

He had lawyers. They were unable to have his confession excluded at trial, appealed it through to the Supreme Court, who ordered a new trial with the confession thrown out. Miranda was again convicted. He died in 1976 after being stabbed during an argument in a bar. The police arrested a suspect, but were forced to release him when he chose to remain silent after being advised of his rights, and noone was ever charged.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[mcfiddish]

The RIAA has been very clear in communicating to everyone that they have no intention to sue Professor Felten.

The Secure Digital Music Initiative Foundation (SDMI) does not - nor did it ever - intend to bring any legal action against Professor Felten or his co-authors.


Right. They waved a big baseball bat in his face and then said "Oh this? We weren't going to hit you with it. Honest."

The RIAA realized in hindsight that the threat made them look bad and backpedaled. I'm with the smartass on this one.

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[Malcontent]

It does not matter who they blame it on as long as they are broke they can't bribe the congress critters.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[Steve B]

the RIAA has already stated in public that they have no intention of suing Felten

Bill Clinton has already stated in public that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky.
/.

Wow

[wiredog]

Someone sure is humor impaired around here.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[mfarver]

I don't think its that bad. After all, the EFF thinks it has enough merit to support it. The problem here is that the RIAA threatened.. but after the threats had their desired effect (and the paper was pulled) RIAA backpedaled in the face of public opinion and stated they had no intention of suing Felton. Why? because Felton's case is even stronger than 2600's and could set a bad (for the RIAA) precendent.

Here the DMCA is clearly limiting a form of speech (scholarly study) that is generally regarded as protected. In the 2600 case they are having a tough time claiming that DeCCS, since it wasn't originally intended as a tool of study. Instead its computer code designed for the express purpose of bypassing an "content protection system" and is in clear violation of the DMCA while being questionable protected speech

This is also a nice chance to spotlight corporate "bullying" where the threat of a lawsuit can be used to silence critics, regardless of whether the threat has any merits.

Re:"Chilling Effect"

[Hard_Code]

Also remember that Machiavelli was more or less a toady to the very prince he was instructing in methods of attaining and keeping power. What would you do? Proclaim the benefits of democracy, free love, and tai chi? The Prince is at least a look at the ugly underbelly of politics for which we should design systems to keep in check.

TYPO!

[Hard_Code]

AGH! s/didn't/did !

I DID give EFF $60. I'm a good boy. Ok.

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Rhonwyn]

Encryption and encryption algorithms have long been legally considered "munitions". By this same logic, it is our second amendment right to have encryption software and to encrypt anything we wish. We also have the opposing decryption algorithm. So having DeCSS would be no different than owning a 9mm pistol. The same could be applied to the cracking of the watermarks.

Re:Have I missed something?

[grmoc]

And we should believe that threatening a lawsuit costs nothing to either party? Or how about applying your theory along a different tangent- If the threat of something is meaningless and non-chilling, then why does the DCMA exist? Doesn't it exist solely to counter the _threat_ of copying? (In reality no, it also exists to counter the threat of competition from independant artists, but that is beside the issue for this post, right?)

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[MobiusKlein]

The second amendment never allowed citizens to own whatever weapon they wanted, with no restrictions whatsoever. Most felons are not allowed to own guns. Violation of the 2nd, or keeping people safe?

Nukes, howitizers, and land mines, all outlawed for the common man!!!!! My rights are being trampled on. When I play my stereo at full volume at 2 am, my neighbors call the cops, who make me turn it down! Abuse!

Sarcasm aside, DMCA is a bad law, but the 2nd amendment won't help you one bit.

rbb

Re:"Chilling Effect"

[GavK]

Machiavelli wrote about a fictional Prince who kept going on about "the ends justify the means" except he was referring to his brutal and ruthless methods of controlling a fictional populace.

May I suggest you actually read "The Prince" ?

It is in fact a treatise on achieving and keeping power. It details methods for dealing with many situations, and promotes the use of stealth when trying to overcome a more powerful foe.

It's very Machiavellian, I love it...

EFF is poor!

[Gorimek]

According to the EFF web site, their yearly budget is only $2M, which is less than nothing compared to the giant bullies they're fighting. So if you have any money to donate, they do count!

Why they might be in fear of being sued.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Why should the professors be in fear of being sued now (since they are doing this pre-emptive "I'm going to sue to make sure you can't" thing). It is already known that they have cracked or found a way to circumvent the watermark, so the damage has been done. The watermark is useless.

Because the company in question has already threatened to sue them if they publish HOW the watermark is defective and how to circumvent it - and the potential penalties are draconian.

The company probably threatened suit because it would like to do a somewhat tightened-up version of the watermarking scheme and sell THAT. Publication of the research would give the readers (researchers in the field):

a detailed list of what the researchers found

powerful tools to investigate related schemes

a strong insight into the ways the company's designers were hiding the watermark information

This would compromise all related schemes, effectively destroying not just the original set of schemes, but everything the company might develop in the future.

If the company can sue and win, it means major financial damage for the researchers, their college, their peer-reviewed journal, and the specialty's academic organization. This amounts to the bulk of the academics and professionals that are currently working in the field. Such a result would have the proverbial "chilling effect" on further research into weaknesses of copy-protection and watermarking systems. (Chilling as in liquid nitrogen.)

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[dfinster]

Re: By this same logic, it is our second amendment right to have encryption software and to encrypt anything we wish.

Although I may personally find it distasteful, the Congress and the Courts have been able to successfully regulate and restrict ownership of arms. I am no longer allowed to own "Destructive Devices" such as military grenade launchers or full-auto firearms without a submitting to a two-year background investigation by the FBI and a special tax per weapon. Zip guns, drop-in auto sears, pipe-bombs, etc. are outlawed completely.

The right to bear arms no longer means the right to bear any sort of arms I wish. For more in-depth information, check with the NRA.

So, by this logic, the Clipper chip was perfectly fine. If you tie this argument to the 2nd Amendment, you'll end up with government-regulated encryption.

Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketbook

[Louis Savain]

The RIAA's power comes from the money they amass from the music-buying public. Without money, they are dead in the water. There is only one way to defeat them, don't buy their products. If you like an artist's work, send him/her a personal check instead.

Don't let them take away our remaining liberties a little bit at a time until there is none left. The internet is our weapon of self-defence. We must use it to fight all would-be enslavers. We must do everything we can to keep it free. Send them a message they will not soon forget. Show them who is really in charge.

Download it all and copy it all!

Demand liberty! Nothing less!

Re:donations

[MikeBabcock]

Any time I think of buying a CD or DVD while this case is on, I'll donate at least the same amount to the EFF for this case. I'd hate to be funding the defense ...

Re:AG Ashcroft?

[bugg]

Because the department of justice has "soverign immunity" (in short: those who govern do not have to comply to all of the rules they govern with) but John Ashcroft in his official capacity does not have such immunity.

In short, you can't sue the DoJ to not press charges against USENIX, but you can force Ashcroft to make the DoJ not press charges.

IP Wasn't Stolen Here

[blazerw11]

They didn't steal Intellectual Property here, they proved that these pieces of "property" were not very good. They then wanted to show how they proved the poor quality of this IP. In no way do they reveal the IP itself, just how they cracked what the IP was protecting.

If I put my Olivia Newton John vinyl LP out on the lawn with a sign on it that says, "Break Me", and somebody does. I don't get to sue them for writing a story about how they beat the crap out of it with a baseball bat!

Re:IP Wasn't Stolen Here

[ageitgey]

No, in fact they would probably get a medal for breaking such an awful record.

Re:Have I missed something?

[blazerw11]

I'll simplify for ya: 1. Felten and All were threatened.
2. Threat of legal action possible because DMCA allows it.
3. Paper not shown because of legal threat.

Thus, DMCA prevents scientific discussion of ideas in areas covered by DMCA. This violates basic Constitutional rights and makes the DMCA illegal.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[lizrd]

The RIAA is a non-profit organization. It happens that it is an organization of for profit recording companies all of which are quite profitable. It also happens that the major purpose of the RIAA is to protect the profits of the member organizations. Despite all of this, the RIAA itself doesn't actually produce any products besides industry propaganda. Non-profit really doesn't say all that much about an organization either, it's just some accounting practices and more favorable tax regulations that go along with them.

________________________

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Zak3056]

Encryption and encryption algorithms have long been legally considered "munitions". By this same logic, it is our second amendment right to have encryption software and to encrypt anything we wish. We also have the opposing decryption algorithm. So having DeCSS would be no different than owning a 9mm pistol. The same could be applied to the cracking of the watermarks.

In US v. Miller in 1934, the Supreme Court rather clearly stated that the 2nd ammendment applies only to arms that are suitable for militia use (which is why the weapon in question, a sawed-off shotgun, was deemed unprotected).

One could, however, make the point that secure communications are invaluable to the militia and thus encryption algorythms would be a protected "arm"--this would certainly not include DeCSS however, as it serves no military purpose.

"The Emperor has no clothes"

[taniwha]

is basicly what Felton is trying to say (or "SDMI isn't") - but when he tried to say that he was threatened with law suits by the emperor's flunkies - of course no one in a position of power wants to hear this sort of stuff - denial can be very easy.

However reality is different - we now have a reliable, cheap, decentralized mechanism for moving information around - the RIAA is redundant - the asteroid has landed and we mammals just need to run around and make sure we don't get crushed by falling dinosaurs

donations

[Ender Ryan]

I just made a donation in the amount of $75.00. I would have donated a whole lot more for this cause, but I've been spending WAY too much lately and money is tight now.

Somehow this makes me feel like my existence is validated when I donate cash that I earned to such a good cause. This isn't like most charity donations where you don't have any clue what is done with your money, such as donating to your local police. Don't we already pay taxes for that? Somehow I feel that they squander all that money.

Please, everyone, if you can afford it(or not), please donate something to the EFF. Remember, they do not run on a high budget, so every bit you donate is a big help, for real. This is a REAL cause and it is worth it.

Let's do what we can to take this country back.

the difference

[Ender Ryan]

Actually, there is a HUGE difference in the two examples you gave.

While bombs can literally kill thousands of people and are a direct threat to the citizens of this country, copyright control circumvention is only an extremely minor threat to a monstrous international corporation, which in the end will probably not even affect it's bottom line in a visible way.

Therefore, the real intent of the DMCA is to allow certain corporations to gain ever increasing control of IP and create a permanent government granted monopoly on all sorts things, from music, movies, to software and anything else that isn't a physical object.

Obviously, the DMCA is a direct result of corporate corruption in our government, to say otherwise is ridiculous.

Re:Rock on!

[puppet10]

It's nice to finally see a corporation get burned for firing off hastilly prepared "cease and desist" type letters without pausing to think if it might affect them adversely.

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[kimihia]

Did you know that Fat Wreck Chords is a member of the RIAA? Shocking eh?

Fat Wreck are the label for a whole pile of anti-establishment bands, including IIRC Less Than Jake. One of Fat Wreck's artists did that track "Sell Out".

-1, garbled

A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Gerad]

I just had a random thought. The 2nd Amendment says that people have the right to bear "Arms". Dictionary.com, other than the normal definition as a part of one's body, has one definition of "arms" as weapons. Given the MPAA's recent comparisons of DeCSS to a crowbar, which is a weapon, I wonder if DeCSS could be argued under right to bear arms? While the 2nd Amendment does say that the purpose of the Amendment is to allow militias, which are "necessary to the security of a free state", hasn't it also been interperted to allow firearms to prevent against tyrany if necessary. Of course, this opens up the whole can of worms of gun control laws and regulation, but it's something I'd love to hear some feedback on.

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Peter Harris]

No it is "bear" arms.

Fortunately someone stopped them before they added the right to duck legs, turkey brains and a hippopotamus arse.

Or did they?

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Fesh]

Actually, from what I understand, the term "munitions" is a step above "arms". When the government classifies encryption algorithms as munitions, they're saying it's the equivalent of owning a cruise missle, a functional artillery piece with ammo, or a fighter-bomber fully loaded with Mk. 84s. I don't recall a situation where anyone ever successfully claimed that they had a second amendment right to own and operate a fully equipped and loaded M1A2.

Not to give the impression that I agree with the classification of encryption as "munitions"... I think it's ridiculous. But trying to argue that you have a second amendment right to things classified as munitions would have as much effect as banging your head against Cheyenne Mountain's front door. Repeatedly. (It'd hurt you and not the door, then the MPs would shoot you.)

--Fesh

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Quila]

I cannot kill my neighbors accidently with a bit of code. You could kill them accidently with a howitizer

Not easy, those things have a minimum range. However, some idiot in the next town who needed killin'...

Let's see, a 155 should be able to reach from my house to the girl who backed over my Lotus and tried to weasel out of responsibility for it.

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Cytotoxic]

This is actually quite interesting... The US Federal government has repeatedly officially designated encryption algorithms as munitions. Since the US court would be required to either accept this as a stipulation and hear the first amendment argument or reject the notion of encryption as munitions, either way we would have a major victory against overzealous regulation. Nicely done!
for more privacy paranoia, check out Project ELF and My Private Planet.

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Pogue Mahone]

And all this is because some clerk way back then couldn't spell. What they actually said, as they took off their heavy jackets and rolled up their sleeves on that hot July day, was:

"Everyone has the right to bare arms."

;-)

--

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Pogue Mahone]

[...] you could own your own cannon until 1932....(In the States.)

I believe in the UK you can own your own (working) cannon to this day. Cannons fire spherical shot, not bullets, and have straight smooth barrels (not rifled), so they are classified as shotguns, along with muskets, arquebusses, etc.

They're still strictly licensed and controlled, as is the gunpowder that's necessary to make them work. I'm not sure if you're allowed to actually fire the shot from the cannon, though. Most of the historical societies that fire them at battle reenactments use straw, horse manure, etc.

--

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[Freija Crescent]

Not completely true. If the government does something COMPLETELY irrational and blasphemous, it is a right.. scratch that.. the DUTY of the american people to get rid of such a 'government'.. so as long as the 2nd amendment is still intact, the american citizens will have the tools needed to perform this duty. Now, is such a revolution warranted over the DeCSS / DCMA / MPAA and RIAA issues we face today?
No.

It might not be feasible in THIS case, one day it will be though if the government doesn't cure it's cronic case of Rectal-Cranial Inversion.

-freija

Re:A thought: Right to bear arms.

[tius]

8) Wow, that's shrewd! I'd have to say that you've been smoking too much 'law' and 'rational' thought! 8)

I would highly recommend John Ralston Saul's book, Voltaire's Bastards. It highlights the limited use of rational thought/arguments to meet any end. It also shows how this has been used historically.

Cheers

Re:Yea faulty products.

[nublord]

Why sue them?

So the next time they make a faulty product and try to pass it on to the industry and consumers as the holy grail to save all those starving artists, we can call them on it and publish.

Re:Yea faulty products.

[nublord]

Yes, it seems I was confused. Which isn't to hard to do since layoff round two was last Friday.

Thanks for clearing it up though. I do agree, it seems pointly to sue when we all know that SDMI can be circumvented. Probably has something to do with sending a message to use pirates. Or with the fact that even though the damage has already been done, they still did something illegal according to the DCMA.

Physical vs. Intellectual property

[El]

Big difference. Physical property is zero sum -- if I take your physical property, you no longer have the use of it, so you are harmed. Intellectual property is infinite sum -- if I take a copy of your intellectual property, you still have it, and can still do anything you want with it. Where is the harm? Most IP proponents claim that their right to future earnings from their idea is diminished. There are several problems with this. First, all abstract ideas are built on previous ideas. Should all the originators of those other ideas also be compensated? Second, isn't _all_ competition essentially infringing on the IP of the first entrant into a market? Should all other companies be barred from making operating systems for PCs because M$ entered the arena first? Third, people have shared ideas freely for thousands of years; the concept of IP is an abberation that has only been around for about 150 years, arguably just since the robber barons of the industrial revolution have had the political clout to have laws passed in their favor. The DMCA, then, exists for one reason: the expand the rights of a select few with money and influence, with the inevitable side effect of diminishing the rights of everyone else. Most appalling of all is that those that profit the most from the DMCA have never created any intellectual property themselves. Their only skill lies in their ability to gain control over the ideas of others.

Results

[Kreeblah]

Please tell me they won't try to encrypt the ruling . . .

Re:Results

[Craftse]

Excuse me, but how is this flamebait? "It's funny. Laugh."

Re:circumvent this

[Ziviyr]

I'd make a decoder in two lines of ARexx (line one being a comment) if this wern't so lame. :-)

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[TheCarp]

Oh really?

A sI remember the original issue is that they DID threaten to sue him. It was only AFTER he came out, withdrew the paper, and made statments hinting at this lawsuit comming that they "changed their tune" and said they "never intended to sue him"

If they never intended to sue him, then why did they threaten him with legal action? Is harrassment a standard policy of the SDMI lawyers? An accepted legal practice?

The fact is, they expected him to back down and shut up - just like everyone else that they are used to comming up against. They had no intention to sue him, because they never expected him to publish the paper after the first letter.

I applaud Felton. He got them to make the mistake he needed them to make. So what if he is risking less? Its fighting smart.

The RIAA is like all the other scaremongers. They go after the weak with threats of lawsuits and stop the opposition by scaring them into backing down. They would never let an issue get to court unless they knew they could win.

Felton is fighting back, forcing the issue into court. I think thats great.

-Steve

Framing the context is everything

[Huusker]

Generally whoever frames the argument wins. The MPAA framed the DeCSS case as "evil hackers stealing movies". Felder frames his case as "scientists being censored in the pursuit of knowledge". Basically there is no way he can lose.

The DMCA hinges on the concept of a circumvention device. If the DeCSS case was framed similarly, with heavy emphasis on scientific analysis the weakness of CSS, with emphasis on abstract mathematical algorithms, it would have won. Unfortunately DeCSS was just a hack tool. Without the larger context there was no way it could possibly win.

Re:Framing the context is everything

[Galvatron]

Right! Just like how Larry Flynn got stomped because it was framed as "dirty pornographer destroying our children." Judges generally aren't that stupid.

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

A Personal "Matching Grant"

[Broadcatch]

This is a GREAT IDEA!

donating dollar for dollar to the EFF for every product I buy from the RIAA or MPAA member companies

While I agree with another poster that it's sad that justice costs so much, it's sadder still that many reading this will support the bad guys - by buying their products - and forget to help those trying to make a better world.

Thanks for this idea - I'm committing to this also!

--

So, who is working on the DeCSS paper???

[Reik]

Seems to me, granting of course that this case succeeds, that all someone needs to do is write a good academic paper exploring, comparing, and critiquing the various methods of encryption and copy control for "protecting" intellectual property, with a reasonable portion about DeCSS and of course discussion of the algorithm.
Sure the above topic needs work, but if you try to get that published, then maybe some "important " people (Supreme Court maybe..?) will completely understand how locking up DeCSS could really be quite the slippery slope...

Eric

Give your tax rebate check to the EFF

[scheming daemons]

It is money that you never expected to have in the first place.

Give the $300-$600 Bush is trying to bribe you with to the EFF.

He wants to buy your votes in '02 and '04. Use it to buy freedom instead.

"I have as much authority as the pope.
I just don't have as many people who believe it."

Re:"Chilling Effect"

[sudog]

That's not Machiavellian. Machiavelli wrote about a fictional Prince who kept going on about "the ends justify the means" except he was referring to his brutal and ruthless methods of controlling a fictional populace.

I see no way to link that sort of Philosophy with the trap that these Professors set for the DMCA proponents. In fact, if you recall, the SDMI initiaitve specifically stated it was "never their intention" to sue the professors over the paper. They smelled it coming. Eat it RIAA! Reap the rewards of your cowardice. *snicker*

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[sudog]

What the heck are you talking about?! Did you even study how many times the Church actually put someone to death rather than burning them in effigy and imprisoning them for a while?

Most of the recordsw were destroyed and of those that did survive, only a very, very rare number of people were actually put to death for crimes of witchcraft or as a result of the much-maligned inquisitions.

Get your facts straight and stop believing the rhetoric you're spoon-fed in highschool.

We all knew this was coming

[cecil36]

It's about time the DMCA got it's day in court. It will be interesting to see how the judge rules on this case. IMHO, I could see the DMCA being struck down, and a group of lawyers with a technical background (probably the lawyers handling the cases against 2600 and Napster) will draft a new copyright act that will protect copyright, but allow for fair use online, and propose that before Congress. I'm sure with such copyright law as the one suggested, corporations would not be able to control the flow of information via licensing or other insane methods.

Re:Rock on!

[jafuser]

He is smart, but I hope that people realize that the MPAA/RIAA are not going to be happy with this. With the kind of money they have, you'll be sure they're looking for every little loophole or strategy they can use to put a halt to this. These corporations think that there's a lot of money at stake (at least that's what they tell their shareholders as an excuse for any slowed profit increase), so I'm sure there's a bounty on an effective solution which will help them maintain as much control as possible to regain their record profits and bonuses.

I hope the EFF team hasn't become complacent in that they have won a very strong position. Like a game of chess, they have made a great move to trap the opponent, but they still have to stay entirely aware of the whole game to make sure that the opponent's sacrifice wasn't just part of a larger trap.

--

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[jafuser]

While I agree that boycotting may help the cause in a very very minor way. I think a little more active response would be in order. Giving a few dollars to the EFF will be *FAR* more effecitve than NOT giving a few dollars to the RIAA.

--

NPR Marketplace just picked up the story

[brassman]

National Public Radio carried this story on the Thursday morning edition of "Marketplace."* Geez, this and a Linus Torvalds interview in one week!

*"Produced by Minnesota Public Radio and distributed by PRI, Public Radio International."
--

Miranda

[Temkin]

If memory serves me correctly, the Miranda ruling that resulted in the now famous "You have the right to remain silent" Miranda rights, was initiated by a convicted inmate (Mr. Miranda) hand writing an appeal to the Supreme Court from his jail cell. He had been convicted, never having had a defense lawyer, or knowing that he didn't have to answer any questions in court.

Having money for lawyers just makes it easier, and a day in court more likely.

Temkin

Re:Miranda

[Quila]

I think he should have used Clarence Earl Gideon as a better example (he's the reason you always get to have a lawyer no matter what).

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[Fesh]

Actually, that'd be Roman and Orthodox... And then you've got to separate Orthodox into Greek and Russian (although those two are closer to each other than either is to the Roman side of the schizm).

Totally offtopic, I realize... But history is important, neh?

--Fesh

Exactly

[Galvatron]

Machiavellian was the RIAA & MPAA getting DMCA passed in the first place.

"It is more important to be feared than to be loved" -Machiavelli, The Prince

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

Re:Rock on!

[MrResistor]

Felten is a very smart man. Basically he knew that in order to pursue this and actually win he had to be able to prove damages resulting directly from the intimidation that the DMCA promotes. It had nothing to do with waiting to get the legal team together. It was all about legal strategy; picking the battlefield, and defining the terms of engagement.

Sweet Irony

[dtr21]

The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution guarantees four freedoms: freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791. Since that time, those freedoms have been discussed, debated, fought and died for. Since that time, millions of immigrants have come to America to secure those freedoms. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. They believed in the power of ideas and debate, not censorship.

The above was taken from the RIAA website, under the "Freedom of Speach" section.

Kind of ironic...... :)

It's like Eldred v. Reno

[yerricde]

How exactly is this suit "against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft"?

Read the filing. Rights advocates often sue the the Attorney General in order to overturn a bad law; see also the case formerly known as Eldred v. Reno , which seeks to overturn the Sonny Bono Effectively Perpetual Copyright Act.

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[The Cookie Monster]

hello, this is reality calling. I like pink floyd. Who should I make the check out to? Roger? David? Or maybe I should send it to the funny farm, care of ol' pink.

Here is your direct payment form for Pink Floyd

Boycotts will fail for the following reasons

• The company does not know you are boycotting their product.
• The company does not why you are boycotting their product.
• The public is not aware that you are boycotting a product and so cannot decide to boycott for the same reason. Likewise, you are only aware of a fraction of the products you might want to boycott if you knew the gory details.
• You (and the public) are often not aware of an good alternative product (good means a product that satisfies your requirements and hopefully competes directly in the market with the boycotted product)

All of these can be addressed by a website, you type in a product name, company name or barcode etc and are presented with a list of people boycotting the product, why, and an alternate product.

Mainstream appeal can be gained because the boycotts don't have to be ethically or politically motivated - "Don't buy blarg model TV because their power switches break", "blarg potatoe chips are fried in animal fat not vegitable oil" etc.

I would make the site, but don't want to be dragged through courts by some company who doesn't want the world knowing their product sucks. The owner of www.boycott.org may have something similar in mind, but he has not gotten around to anything for a while.

As for cars, in some cities you do need them, luckily not this one. I do not have a car, though I could buy one tommorrow if I needed one (On the odd ocassion I do need one, I taxi). However I often feel like I want a car... why? Because your fucked up culture is continually bombarding me with the idea that a car is a status symbol and only losers don't have one.

Donate to EFF and get stuff

[thridur]

While doing some research for a potential client, I came across igive.com. The base concept is that you can buy stuff from regular Internet retailers (probably through affiliate programs of some type) and part of the money will go to your favorite organization. I have the EFF as mine.

Re:Cracks in the DCMA?

[displacer]

Now why would the Supremes listen to the defendants? Diana Ross probably supports the DMCA!

:P

GO SMARTASS!

[lowe0]

Nothing wrong with a smartass. Takes one to know one. Personally, I don't even know the guy and I kind of like him for this.

The end most certainly justifies the means. Besides, there's nothing wrong with dragging the DMCA through the mud in two courts.

Re:To really do the Job

[SamThePondScum]

We also need a new admendment to the Constitution that reads, "No, really, Goddammit, Congress shall make no law that abridges the freedom of speech. Do you get it this time? Just in case you don't, all members of Congress shall repeat the following phrase at the beginning of every session, 'We shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, and we have to say this every session because we're blind, deaf, and stupid, and we kept fucking it up.'"

OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[PhrackCreak]

The RIAA and SDMI are acting like the church in the dark ages. In the old days, attempting to perform research or disseminate scientific ideas led to excommunication or death. Today, the corporations sue you out of existence.

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

FYI, the information I was "spoon fed" was from church-history classes at a Catholic high school, so I doubt they'd have any reason to make things sound any worse than they were. And nowhere did I say that most people were put to death, but getting convicted of heresy by an ecclesiastical court was for all intents and purposes the end of your life, even if they didn't kill you. There was no separation of church and state. In the Papal States in central Italy, the Church was the state, period.

But to return to my point, you had an organization that, although it was not technically a government, had enough influence that it had many of the powers of governments. It was multinational, it was rich, it could make or break politicians almost at will, and it was accountable to no one. In short, it could make the rules, either directly or indirectly. And it controlled information. If you weanted a book copied, you didn't take it to the local Kinko's, you had to use monks, and they were pretty picky about what they copied. But I'm not writing this to beat up on the Church; I'm writing it to illustrate the parallels we face today. Look at the power that the multinational corps have. Did the DMCA or the Telecom Act of 1996 become law because of a groundswell of public support for them? Of course not! They were bought and paid for by the companies who stand to gain from them. Money talks, and these companies have so much of it that it's almost impossible for the average person to have an impact. If you don't believe me, call the White House and ask to have lunch with President Bush next week. Tell whoever you speak to that you'd like to discuss the DMCA with the president. Do you think you'll get that lunch date? Now suppose that Rupert Murdoch, Steve Case, Jack Valenti, or Hillary Rosen made that call. Need I say more? The same goes for having a meeting with your Congressman or Senator. You won't even get in the door, but these folks can practically hand over a draft of a bill and get it introduced in Congress, and if they have enough meetings with enough politicians, they might even get it passed.

And to touch on control of the mass media, consider spectrum auctions. Want to get a chunk of frequencies? Unless you can outbid the big telecom companies for it, forget it. The whole thing is justified by saying that it avoids companies freeloading off of the public airwaves, since they have to pay for their frequencies, but what it does in reality is ensure that only the richest companies get to use them. Once again, money talks. Even the regulations that we used to have restricting how much one broadcaster can own have been almost completely thrown out. The big fish eat the little fish, people are exposed to fewer and fewer voices, and we're told it's a good thing. Except in the mass media, where most people still turn for information. The mass media says nothing, nothing about the dangers of the DMCA, nothing about fair use, nothing about concentrated media ownership; in short, nothing that will make people question the status quo. The public gets its daily dose of sex scandals, Hollywood gossip, and puff pieces promoting the latest movie of CD, a product that may even be produced by the same company that produced and aired the "informative news story". And everyone is happy, the money keeps rolling in, and anyone who makes trouble is quietly crushed.

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

Somebody mod this guy up. This is an excellent point. In the Middle Ages, the Church had reached a status that essentially put it above the law. In fact, it had its own laws and "justice system". Get out of line, and you were dead...literally. It was an international entity that was beyond the regulatory reach of any nation-state. In fact, any political figure who dared to oppose it did so at grave peril. We can see the same lines developing with the multinational corporations.

It's also worth noting that this dark time lasted for centuries, and there were many setbacks to breaking the Church's grip on power. Let us not forget that Gallileo was forced to recant his theories. We can look back now and say that his ideas prevailed in the end, but I bet he didn't see it that way at the time. We're in this for the long haul, and we will face setbacks along the way, but the important thing is to never give up. I should also point out that one of the biggest achievements in the fight against Church power was the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther gave the people an alternative to the Church, and that opened the floodgates of pent-up frustration and dissatisfaction. Suddenly, there were choices that had never existed before. In the same way, we can't forget that the big entertainment companies don't own our lives. There is alternative content, and we need to expose as many people as possible to it. And there's even an alternative to that: Go outside, play ball, have a conversation with someone. IOW, take control of your leisure time and take it out of the hands of the corps. The less money we give them, the less money they'll have to buy the tools to control our lives. And no, this isn't an easy chore. For the past 50 years at least, our entire culture has been built around mass-produced entertainment, and to turn away from that is to remake ourselves. Couch potatoes all over the land will howl in protest, but we have to try to break this addiction and bring the corporate dealers to heel.

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

[zoombah]

Actually, in the dark ages, the Church did NOT take an active role against scientific inquiry; rather, it was the stagnancy of general curiosity and the poor flow of ideas throughout Western Europe that kept the Church unchallenged. It was only later into the Scientific Revolution and Reformation that the Church would get touchy (see: Papal Inquisition).

Join Now

[StevenYelton]

Whenever I read anything the EFF is doing, I head directly to: https://www.eff.org/support/joineff-visamc.html

Rock on!

[blackdefiance]

It's great to see my EFF membership dues at work here. I had wondered why Felten backed off so quickly the first time around -- looks like they may have been waiting to get their ducks in line, legally speaking.

I hope this is successful.

Re:Rock on!

[Wavicle]

An interesting addendum to all this is this RIAA response to the legal filing. RIAA basically says that they do not plan to sue Professor Felten, so the reasoning behind the lawsuit is "inexplicable".

IIRC, the timing of the "clarification" of the original "threat" was such that once the time slot was gone and the talk would no longer fit into the Information Hiding Workshop conference schedule, then RIAA decided to mention that they aren't really going to sue the Prof and they aren't really the enemy of scientific research.

Have you seen the Reuters headline?

[homer_ca]

Not as slanted as it could be, but still not the friendliest wording they could have used.

Scientists Sue to Publish Piracy Paper
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A team of academics asked a federal court on Wednesday for permission to publicly reveal how they cracked an anti-piracy technology backed by the music industry.

Story on NPR

[fooyen]

This evening's All Things Considered features a long (4:30) story on the lawsuit.

Audio will be posted online at 10pm ET tonight, or you might be able to catch it on the radio-- it's the next to last piece in the program.

(oh yeah-- right now, it's titled "Napster." ignore that; someone was smoking crack.)

Re:-1, dump it

[Fat Lenny]

Some of us don't read the other site. K5 is boring as hell. It moves slowly, thanks to its ridiculously bureaucratic moderation and submission system, and I still don't understand why the typical proto-slashdotter gives a fuck about half the topics they cover, much less have any kind of valuable opinion on them. As a comparo with another related "web community", K5 is slightly less annoying, but not nearly as useful as E2.

Of course, this is just my two bits -- I clearly don't speak for everyone, and I don't claim that /. is by any means perfect, but it's rather obvious that I read it =)

--

Re:circumvent this

[slashdoter]

I just wrote a Perl script in 7 lines to decode the message, It was hard to get it that small but worth it. I just had to read this on my windows box, no one ever releases players for Microsoft's OSs. I'll open source this "free speech" if any one wants is under the shared source plan. I hear it works really good, and it's not communist

READING
THIS
PROTECTED
MESSAGE
WITHOUT
AN
OFFICIAL
PLAYER
IS
A
CRIME

Now, time to gave some more money to the EFF so they will defend me.

________

Re:Cracks in the DCMA?

[PingXao]

Not really. The DMCA has civil and criminal aspects. Theoretically, the gubmint could bring criminal action against someone if they had reason to believe a law has been violated, even in the absence of a civil suit involving the same set of circumstances. They included the US AG in order to get the Justice Department under the same umbrella. They want declaratory relief for BOTH civi and criminal action.

It's about fscking time!

[AntiNorm]

Also, is the MPAA named in this suit? Like the RIAA, they too have been heavily abusing the DMCA. Or, would it not matter in this case anyway, just as long as the DMCA is struck down. Just think of the effects a win here would have on DeCSS, etc.

It had to be said, but we need a victory in this case.

---
I am getting damn sick of constantly losing karma for no reason.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[AntiNorm]

13. Upon information and belief, Defendant Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) is a New York not-for-profit corporation with a place of business in Washington D.C. 20036. It represents entities which manufacture and distribute sound recordings, including the five major labels and many of their subsidiary labels.

(Taken from the complaint)

How the hell can the RIAA call itself nonprofit? It's padding its own damn profit margins with all this secure music BS, not paying the artists, etc.

The RIAA may be nonprofit in name, but to say that they are actually a nonprofit organization is plain BS.

---
I am getting damn sick of constantly losing karma for no reason.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[Misch]

How the hell can the RIAA call itself nonprofit? RIAA itself is jsut a consortium of companies. The comapnies who are members of RIAA are the ones who are making the profits.

Re:AG Ashcroft?

[M$ Mole]

True, the article doesn't mention that the suit is against Ashcroft, but the filing does.

From the filing, under the plantiff section (bolding added for emphasis):

Plaintiffs,

vs.

RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC.; SECURE DIGITAL MUSIC INITIATIVE FOUNDATION; VERANCE CORPORATION; JOHN ASHCROFT, in his official capacity as ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES; DOES 1 through 4, inclusive,

Not surprised, but I'd still call a lawyer.

[Moosifer]

Having lived in Utah for the past ten years, I've seen too many episodes of this sort for this story to surprise me. It is all too common for the various institutions of the state to conduct witch-hunts designed, ostensibly, to do little more than utterly ruin people in the name of morality.

My solution has been to never align myself with these sorts of institutions; somewhat difficult to do - but becoming increasingly less so. Remaining distanced from and independent of them saves you having to live in constant fear of ever becoming one of the bad-guys, and being ostracized. Sure, I'm not one of the boys, and I'm denied certain privileges, but it's still worthwhile for me - I recognize it as one of the prices I have to pay for choosing to live in Utah.

Is this normal? Should it apply to a University? A University in Utah other than BYU? No - it isn't and it shouldn't. But that doesn't change the fact that it still does - even at the UofU. Again, things are getting progressively better here, but we'll still have to wait about another generation before reason reigns over perceived moral superiority, and the ensuing compelling need to make the world a better place by crushing your fellow Utahn gone astray.

Re:Not surprised, but I'd still call a lawyer.

[Jaysyn]

That's pretty damn funny though.....

Jaysyn

Re:Not surprised, but I'd still call a lawyer.

[CKW]

Ummmm, you posted to the wrong story dude. (Good comment BTW)

Re:"Chilling Effect"

[PatJensen]

I agree with you. Prof. Felten's planning was cool and calculated the whole way through. This will be a groundbreaking fight which will show us precisely the worth of the DMCA.

I will be very interested in this case and follow it closely, but I encourage all the Slashdot readers to take the time to donate to the EFF.

-Pat

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[ahem]

Notice that the complaint says "not-for-profit" as opposed to "non-profit". The distinction has been pointed out in other posts that not-for-profit doesn't mean "charitable."

As a matter of fact, Visa International is a not-for-profit corporation. Doesn't mean that the president isn't making seven figures.

Re:Yea faulty products.

[Prior Restraint]

Think of it in terms of setting precedent. If some other professor wants to turn DeCSS into a research paper, the MPAA will be unable to prevent its publication (in theory).

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[OpenSourceRulez]

I agree that this is a total set up, but I think you have who was set up wrong. I believe that Felten is doing this to try and get the DMCA declared unconstitutional. Seriously, why would you name Ashcroft as a defendant if you didn't have plans to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. However, this is going to take too long to save the whole /. communtity from reading about DMCA lawsuits from now until the cows come home. I believe that the DMCA is unconstitutional, but going through with all of these lawsuits is going to take years and if it eventually reaches the Supreme Court who is to say that the court will rule unconstitutional. From my limited knowledge of the court(IANAL) once you get sworn in you are there for life, so the court is full of old guys/ladies that have no clue about today's technology. Seriously if the DMCA has an chance of being repealed a lower court has to do it, because I highly doubt a technologically challenged court would declare it such.

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[haplo21112]

I agree, wasn't that really the original intention of the recording industry anyway...we used to call them Music Distributors! Artists do work(recording)and get paid for t from the royalties that are paid for that work(or better yet by touring), someone pays for that work to get done, ie studio time, and engineers getting paid(usually producers), those people get paid out the royalties that are earner by selling the recording, the recodring is distibuted to stores(the aformentioned distributors(RAII)), the stores collect the money, which then works its way back up the chain. RAII does not play this way anymore(I seem to rememebr they once did), so maybe, now artists should be paid directly, and distribute directly.

Re:To really do the Job

[haplo21112]

I like it!

To really do the Job

[haplo21112]

If we really want to solve this problem, we need to get a politician in Washington in our Corner. Someone sympathatic to our cause, that can work within the system to fix these issues. The DMCA should never have been passed it got passed because of lobby groups I am sure, that talked our local reps into thinking this was a good idea. We need to lobby back.
Prohibition was bad idea, and it was reversed. This is a bad idea and if we play within the system we could get this reversed. This is the unfortunate loop hole in the US govenment by representation.
(Disclaimer I proud to be an American please do not take this as any kind of disention on my part, just an analysis of what i think is wrong some times. Its a double edged sword, in many ways.)
The bulk of the work that gets done in Congress is a good thing, and has good results, but unfortunately the otherside of the sword, is that it also makes it just as easy for the true reprehensible stuff to get done too, and for the most part with out the public really being aware that its happening, or getting much say in it. The Passage of the DMCA was bought by the powers that be, the publishers of the word have infinately more money to pay lobbists to talk congress, et al into voting the way they want things. If this had been voted on by the poblic at large, and worded in such a way that the common man could understand it it would have never become law.
ie "Please vote YES or NO, the govenment would like to take away your right to freely distribute infomation as you see fit so that the publishing and recording industry can make sure they maintain thier insane profit margins. A vote of yes would make this Law, and restrict your ability to freely share your ideas, and expose you to law suit for doing anything that big business considers a violation of thier profit margins. A vote of NO would continue under the freedom of information, and free speesh as you have always enjoyed in America."
I propose the (DFCA)Digital Freedom Continuence Act. "1. Congress Shall Pass no law restricting your ability to do anything digitally that you can do through handwritten, and or Analog means. 2. Congress shall not allow the granting of a patent for any device that would knowingly impinge upon your ability to do anything digitally that you could do via handwritten or Analog means. 3. It shall be unlawful to distribute technology which would knowingly violate the Free Speech and Fair use intentions of the Consitution of the United states of America. 4. It shall hence forth be understood that once "content" is purchased, it is the purchaser's right to do what ever they choose with that content, and shall have the right to do as they have always been able to do via handwritten, or analog means." I could probably expand on this but I figure thats a start to restoring my freedom as I understood it before the DMCA got into the wild.

Re:The sad thing is

[GemFire]

The problem is that Congress is no longer doing more than offering lip service to the Constitution. At least 4 amendments in the Bill of Rights are seriously challenged and Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 (the copyright clause) has resulted in a law unrecognizable from what is written there.

The 1st Amendment, among other things, gives you the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Of course, with the number of petitions I've signed, it is painfully clear they aren't paying any attention to that one either.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[ichimunki]

Not to mention that if Felton's case helps weaken the DMCA, this does Corley an immense world of good!

AG Ashcroft?

[mi]

Roblimo:

Named defendents include the RIAA, SDMI, Verance Corporation (producer of one of the cracked watermarked schemes) and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The actual article:

... are asking the court to tell the defendants not to sue or threaten legal action over this new publication or any other publication, and to tell the U.S. Department of Justice, run by Attorney General John Ashcroft, not to file criminal charges against USENIX or anyone else over this matter under the DMCA.

How exactly is this suit "against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft"?

Re:AG Ashcroft?

[Snootch]

How exactly is this suit "against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft"?

In much the same way as someone being tried by a public prosecutor is "xxx vs. the United States of America" - it's just legalese.

43rd Law of Computing:

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[jchristopher]

I think you're dead wrong. Even if this guy is a smart ass, a declaratory judgement is EXACTLY what is needed.

It is no so important which case continues, what is important is that one of them goes all the way to the supreme court to challenge to legality of the DMCA.

Unlike 2600, Felten represents, to the public, academia. Upstanding, a researcher, etc. He's an ideal person to challenge DMCA.

And I agree with the previous poster, that your post sounds like a press release from the RIAA, seems like a prepared statement from someones marketing dept. Mod parent down.

unfortunate but necessary

[rhadamanthus]

It think that it is probably long past due for the scientists and engineers that have been continually bullied around by corporate power-whores to start using the same tactics against them. It is unfortunate also. It is too bad that the methodology of "sue first, ask questions later" is so close to enveloping the last holdouts for common sense:

the researchers and designers themselves.

just my opinion,

rhad

Don't Fret....

[Jaysyn]

It's just the original troll posting AC to back himself up....

Jaysyn

Not the first lawsuit, the ONLY lawsuit

[Veteran]

This lawsuit is much more important than most people on Slashdot realize. Because of the way legal precedents are established this is effectively the ONLY shot that the good guys are going to get to fire. If this doesn't result in a win we are dead.

What do I think the chances are? I would say they are about the same as the chances of me dating Sarah Michele Gellar next week; realistically as close to zero as anything can be.

Why do I say that?

• The opposition has the 'image of respectability' on their side, and they are able to paint us as a group of scruffy malcontents.
• The fight is over technical issues. The average juror can barely stay away when technical issues are being discussed.
• A horrible miscarriage of justice will occur if the other side wins. The legal system thrives on horrible miscarriages of justice in cases like this: look up Armstrong vs. RCA - the case in which RCA stole FM - for an example of what I mean by that statement.
• One of the defendants is the US Government. The case will be tried in a U.S. Government court room. Doubtless some attorney is leaping to his keyboard to post a learned explanation of how that is fair because - blah blah blah . Please don't bother - I am not interested in listening to your self deluded bilge. The village idiot can see the conflict of interest involved - do you really want to expose yourself as less insightful than the village idiot?

So, am I in favor of just giving up because it is hopeless? No, this is one of those hopeless fights that anyone who cherishes their freedom has to fight - not because it can be won - but because it can't be won; at a minimum the opposition needs to walk away holding a bloody nose. By the way, I am a paying member of the EFF, and I intend to contribute more for this case.

Besides, every once in a while - against all odds - the good guys do win one. It could happen - the race is not always to the swift - nor the fight always to the strong - but odds are that's how it is going to turn out.

Cracks in the DCMA?

[Hacker Cracker]

Hmm... Will this finally be the end of the DMCA as we know it? My bet is no, but if the defendents appeal to the Supremes, it might be declared unconstitutional.

The slap against Ashcroft was really surprising, BTW... Good on them!

-- Shamus

...but when our fans think that they can listen to our music for free? They've just crossed the line. -- Lars Ulrich

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[AlphaOne]

Don't let Felten distract you from the real DMCA issue. Newspaper headlines translate directly into departmental funding at major universities. This isn't about freedom of speech, it's about grant money.

You're right... newspaper headlines are certainly free publicity to the university. The road runs both ways, however... a university bringing a frivilous lawsuit forward would just result in an academic backlash, to say the least.

This suit has merit... it directly challenges the DMCA's ability to surpress the free release of information regarding how to defeat a copyright protection scheme. This directly relates to 2600's lawsuit, which is for, fundamentally, the same thing.

Can we speak freely about how to defeat a copyright protection scheme? The first amendment says yes, the DMCA says no.

So what if the university gets some free press... this could be the weapon against the DMCA we've been waiting for.
--

circumvent this

[ageitgey]

-R-E-A-D-I-N-G-
-T-H-I-S-
-P-R-O-T-E-C-T-E-D-
-M-E-S-S-A-G-E-
-W-I-T-H-O-U-T-
-A-N-
-O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L-
-P-L-A-Y-E-R-
-I-S-
-A-
-C-R-I-M-E-

You can order region-encoded DCS (dash control system) players from me for $200. No, this isn't a joke. I'll really sue you. Because I can. Players currently available only for TRS-80 and HP calculators.

Re:circumvent this

[ageitgey]

I've contacted the Harry Fox Agency. Your papers are in the mail. I hope you have a good lawyer.

You've lost your excuse not to support the EFF

[n8ur]

If you didn't have a reason to support the EFF before, you do now. They're going to need the community's support -- big time -- for this fight.

Have I missed something?

[Fatal0E]

Despite this, SDMI threatened Felten and all the rest, including IHW organizers, with legal action under the DMCA

This seems a little weird to me and I said this last time but how the hell can they challenge the DMCA over a threat? They only threatened a lawsuit. They didn't initiate one. Last I checked I can threaten to sue each and everyone of you for whatever I want.

Watch this:
Me: Mod me down and I'll sue Slashdot for slander.
Slashdot: Please don't let him sue us!

What does that exchange mean to the law? My guess is about as much as my opinion matters to most of you. Seriously though, the RIAA's use of the DMCA as a sword instead of sheild in this case is moot. All they did was invoke a name, not a lawsuit.

Get rid of the whole DMCA?

[Water Paradox]

Am I to understand that Felten is asking to get rid of the entire DMCA? More likely, a clause or two would be changed. Can someone who knows what he's talking about explain this?

Re:Get rid of the whole DMCA?

[mamba-mamba]

Check out the full complaint. And don't be so lazy. It is linked by the full article above, too. The DMCA will not be stricken, just clarified. The plaintiffs are asking for a variety of things, but the most relevant to your question is contained below in an excerpt from the EFF's complaint as posted (see link above):

Declaratory Relief (Second Cause of Action)
[...]
E. A declaration that the application of the DMCA to the publication of scientific, academic or technical speech, including the publication of computer programs, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

I hope that clears it up for you.
MM

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[Dr. Donuts]

I think your quite smug in your own assessment of the Professor. Your words paint him as a smartass, but what by your words have you painted yourself as? Something about a teapot and kettle come to mind. So I'll be straightforward, call myself a smartass, acknowledge that I'm possibly being somewhat hypocritical since I'll attack your opinions as you have attacked him, and address your opinions with my own.

In respect to smartass, go to that very page on RIAA's site you refer to and check out their words on their efforts to protect free speech. RIAA's behavior comes across as "We're all for free speech, as long as it's good for us. If it's bad, we'll sue." Hiding behind a law you helped draft, lobby, and get passed does not veil them from their true intentions. It makes them hypocrites.

As far as doing this for his own good as you assert, hmm, I guess the RIAA/SMDI lawsuit threat had no benefit for them, either? Trying to attack one person for the behavior exhibited in kind by the other seems to me, and I apologize for the insult even though it's intentional, hypocritical itself. And pointing out such things will have little if any legal impact anyways. I doubt that the defendants in this case will use "He's just doing this for his own good" as a defense. That he or RIAA/SMDI get publicity (good or bad) is ancillary, a byproduct which has very little legal worth.

The RIAA has been very clear in communicating to everyone that they have no intention to sue Professor Felten.
Well we all know what path good intentions leads to. Guess the Professor is too smartass to take it. Also, when you threaten to sue over an issue and then say "Umm, not him, specifically" even though he is a part of the work at contention, your message gets watered down. I don't think that's "very clear" at all. In fact, that just clouds the issues and makes it even less clear what their real intent is(was). I think it would be extremely naive for the Professor to take RIAA/SMDI on their word and supposed intentions.

So why is this case happening?
Hmm, maybe it's because RIAA/SMDI already threatened (if indirectly) before? And since they want to publish their works in the future, the only alternative left is to seek protection from future threats again? Your right, his behaviour is obviously illogical and self-promoting, so let's just call him names.

Don't let Felten distract you from the real DMCA issue
I won't, and I won't let personal attacks against him sway me the other way either. It is a "real" issue, the fact that you don't like the manner in which it is being addressed or by who doesn't make it any less so.

Re:And why is this case reciving more attention?

[mikethegeek]

"Could it be that a university professor presents a more sypathetic character than the publisher of a hacker magizine? Unfortunately though it shouldn't matter it does. The first amendment was written for both. Hopefully this will all lead th the DCMA getting struck down and large corporations not getting to tell us what we can or can't publish or say"

You are right, of course. While legally everyone is guaranteed equality before the law, clearly, some are more "equal" than others.

Though Corley and 2600 had the Constitution on their side in their case, the fact that they were "hackers" led to the invlaidation of their cause in the public eye. It didn't help that the case was heard in front of a judge who had clearly made up his minde long before any evidence was presented.

Professor Felten stands a much better chance of prevailing, simply because he is a professor at one of America's most highly respected universities. No other reason. I don't feel that his case has any more or any less merit than DeCSS, except in that Felten's case is clearly speech of the kind expressed in the Constitution (because print and academic speech existed in the 1780's).

So yes, I think WHO Felten is in many ways matters more than his case. Which will be extremely difficult for the RIAA to defend against.

At best though, I don't see the DMCA being ruled Unconstitutional, but the more onerous provisions most likely will be.

"Chilling Effect"

[Kinchie]

Amen.

And now we know the rest of the story.

All of you that were railing about academic freedom being impinged upon as well as Prof. Felten's lack of courage (yes, that was commonly stated here) should apologize, sit down, and practice stfu for awhile.

The reason they pulled the paper was simple: they created a clear instance of the DMCA enabling a "chilling effect" on free speech.

Which leads to the conclusion that, since there has been precedence for "chilling effect" making laws unconstitutional for 1st amendment thingies, that this case is intended to go to the Supremes, BEFORE the composition of the court is changed any further towards corporatism.

Elegant, sneaky, and truly Machiavellian.

We owe all parties concerned a profound debt of thanks...

This is good news...

[jordandeamattson]

As many I am sure know, I am a strong advocate of intellectual property rights. I am also an equally strong advocate for balanced intellectual property rights and freedom of expression.

The application of the DCMA against 2600 Magazine and Felten et al, is chilling. Left unchecked, the DCMA will cause a level of self-censorship that will cut off entire avenues of investigation and research.

Given that Felten et al where engaged in research and wanted to publish their findings for the common "advancement of the arts and sciences", it looks like the EFF has a very strong case in this situation.

More of us need to care about intellectual property and copyright law and its development into a framework that will allow us to balance the "advancement of the arts and sciences" with incentives to the creators to create.

So, if you really care about this subject, you need to run, not walk, via the web to the Electronic Freedom Foundation web site and either join or make a significant donation. Why? Because the EFF is going to need a fortune to litigate this case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[anon757]

Some fights are worth picking. This is one of them.

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[bay43270]

Go ahead... don't buy cds. They're just going to blame it on napster!

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[Sarcasmooo!]

The original threat sure looked like a legal-threat to me:

"In addition, any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public Challenge would be outside the scope of activities permitted by the Agreement and could subject you and your research team to actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DCMA")."

And what exactly is your stake in this, Mr. 'I have only one post, and it's a pre-written statement'?

The List...

[dachshund]

Isn't particularly accurate or up-to-date. I spent twenty minutes wrangling with payroll in order to find out that my company doesn't match contributions to 'political' groups like the EFF. I'm not sure who put the list together, but I think they made a lot of assumptions.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[ryants]

Since the RIAA has already stated in public that they have no intention of suing Felten, it's pretty obvious to everyone that he is just picking a fight.

And of course, the RIAA can be completely trusted to follow through on non-legally binding public declarations.

This is much more important than "picking a fight" or "getting attention"... this is about defeating a very bad piece of legislation that should never have been passed in the first place.

Ryan T. Sammartino

Re:The sad thing is

[glyph42]

If the only mechanism is appeal, and filing an appeal requires big money, how can there ever be justice?

Well, the obvious answer is that there can't. That's why there isn't. For me to use the courts effectively would cost me my entire livelihood and all my time. For someone at a large corporation it only costs a phone call.

Re:-1, dump it

[Jin Wicked]

Come on now, just because this story was on the other site doesn't mean it should be voted down. After all, some of us here don't read that other site.

Think of what we are talking about...

[ChuyMatt]

Hi. I am Chuy. Please don't take my computer away from me!
hi, I'm the RIAA. Please don't take my possible profit!
the difference here is what is, and what is imagined. I understand that my idea is important, and unique. Yet, if someone takes this idea, incorporates it into their work, or is the basis for their work i have no reasonable control over this. MAYBE I might want some recondition, but that is all i am entitled to. Welcome to science. Tech is science and guess what the patenting office is made to do? To protect profits of people from others who would claim it as their own. People are supposed to build off others' ideas (via the patent office) to make this a more successful country.

1. Just think... what if America had this type of corporate dynamic with the industrial revolution. We would have no progress. This is not just stifling free speech, it is killing some incredible possibilities. --Me

already knew that

[BlueboyX]

I think that most middle school computer nerds could tell you that, reguardless of the details, any watermarking scheme would fail. There is no possable way to make a watermarking scheme that is effective AND mass-market friendly. You could do one or the other, but not both.

as you said

[BlueboyX]

As you said, you can threaten to sue for whatever you want, even for being threatened about being sued :P Moveover, you can actually sue for anything (over a $21 dollar value) in the US, even though the chances of winning anything may be almost non-existant for really stupid stuff. Then again, stupid stuff (like suing McDonalds for burning yourself by their hot chocolate that was too hot) can be very profitable.

Frankly, I think that we need to tear down major portions of our government to fix alot of these goofy problems. Unfortunately it is more likely that the aliens will land than that happening in the near future.

an odd thought

[BlueboyX]

Does that mean that digital weapons (including virii and DoS attacks) are legal? Legal to have, but not to use...

Under that logic, having phone hacking equipment would also be legal to have as it could be used as a weapon as well, but they made laws that make it illegal to even have them. Are these laws unconstitutional? They were made back when the phone company was a government sponsored monopoly, but that isnt exactly the case anymore(not to the extent it used to be anway).

Maybe we should all demand the right to bear nukes! :P

This lawsuit is a total setup.

[sllort]

If you don't think that Felten set up the RIAA, go to his web page, check out his smirking picture, and follow the link that says "Freedom of Speech". He links to the page at RIAA.com that talks about music and freedom of expression. He's a total smartass.

And this lawsuit is pretty much the kind of thing a smartass would dream up. He reminds me of the kid who grew up sitting in the front of class with his hand in the air all the time, trying to outsmart the teacher. It's not about who's right, it's all about attention.

The RIAA has been very clear in communicating to everyone that they have no intention to sue Professor Felten.

The Secure Digital Music Initiative Foundation (SDMI) does not - nor did it ever - intend to bring any legal action against Professor Felten or his co-authors.

So why is this case happening? Because Felten is suing the Attorney General of the United States! He is suing the plaintiffs using a legal construct known as a "Declaratory Judgment suit", which basically allows you to sue someone first so they can't sue you. Since the RIAA has already stated in public that they have no intention of suing Felten, it's pretty obvious to everyone that he is just picking a fight. Which, considering the people who are risking their entire professional careers to decide a real DMCA issue, paints a very accurate picture of Felten: still the annoying kid trying to get attention. If he ever got in a real fight, with real risks, like Eric Corley has - he'd run.

Don't let Felten distract you from the real DMCA issue. Newspaper headlines translate directly into departmental funding at major universities. This isn't about freedom of speech, it's about grant money.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

[Snootch]

he Secure Digital Music Initiative Foundation (SDMI) does not - nor did it ever - intend to bring any legal action against Professor Felten or his co-authors.

This text was actually from a letter published after the withdrawl of the paper - ie when the RIAA realised that this guy wasn't going to go quietly. It's a butt-covering move, and if you look at their original email, the U-turn is blindingly obvious.

43rd Law of Computing:

Apples and Oranges

[Sylver Dragon]

While I will agree that intellectual property(IP) rights need to be protected, I tend to belive that comparing IP to physical property rights is a bit of a falicy. Assigning ownership of an object is a rather easy task, since the object exists as a single discrete unit, i.e. if I am holding my pen, you cannot be holding it as well. IP is different, in that I can have my idea, and you can have my idea as well, it is not limited to one person, phyisically speaking. So to compare the two is really not a vaild argument, and must be placed in the realm of falacious scare tactics. (See A. Hitler's "Mien Kampf" for more good examples of this sort of falicy.)
As for the DMCA itself, IMHO, it is a flawed attempt to do something that is nessecarry. IP must be protected, it helps to promote innovation, in that, it gives motivation, and funding, to innovators. For example, Bell Labs, if it wasn't for the profit from sales, why would they support the scientists who came up with transistors? Yes, IP is about money, and God forbid that any of us should want that! But the DCMA seems to be a bit over-bearing when it comes to protecting IP.
So what is the solution? I don't know, but if I were to put forth my opinion, a new law needs to be crafted that will fix some of the leaks in the DMCA, and in the same law, scrap the DMCA. To throw out the DMCA at the moment would create chaos. There needs to be some sort of framework to support IP, otherwise it will drain money out of innovation.
As for this new case, I don't expect much to come out of it. Certainly nothing far reaching. Felton will likely get his protection, but the DMCA will not be declared unconstitutional. Corley will still be just as dicked as he was before this case. Afterall, Corley basically thumbed his nose as the courts, not a good way to get them on your side. And because of the special nature of this case, it involves scientific research, its not going to affect DeCSS or any other source code, source code is not scientific research.
Just a few disclaimers to close this out: I am not a lawyer, I am not a rep of any mega-coglomeration(think RIAA, who I still question on whether or not they might just be a trust), and I'm not a crook. Though I am long winded.

2nd ammendment is dead

[mamba-mamba]

The second ammendment has basically been interpreted out of existence by the courts. Numerous states have effectively banned a wide variety of arms for one reason or another (All automatics, semi-auto rifles with military styling. There is a .50 cal (BMG) bolt-action rifle that is up for banning in California, I believe, because, uh, it's too big? I don't know the rationale.)

In fact, there is a massive revisionist movement underway to suggest that the second ammendment was never intended and never did guarantee individual people the right to keep and bear arms.

If you are interested, check out www.jpfo.org (Jews for the preservation of firearms ownership) or various other pro-gun websites. If you think the second ammendment is important, you may want to do something to save it. And the rest of the bill of rights, come to think of it.

MM

Smart move

[Ripped_edge]

Back when they first decided not to present, I remember they caught some flak from folks who thought they should have stood up to the RIAA. I think caving to the RIAA was a brilliant masterstroke on the part of Felton. He could have stood up and said, 'Go to hell, I'm gonna present.' Then they would have gone to court and it would have been like DeCSS where you have, 'a virtual certainty' that the paper would have been supressed. Now, the paper has been suppressed. There is no if's and's or butt's. This puts Felton in a much better position, he has been victimized and research has been suppressed. There is no 'well, this might have happen but we went to court first.'

Felton did what the MPAA should have done in cases like this. Wait for the action to be committed before you go to court over the ability of one side to do that action. Brilliant, level headed thinking. I just may fill out that application to Princeton this fall.


Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

And why is this case reciving more attention?

[H1r0Pr0tag0n1st]

"Slashdot has been rather lonely in covering many DMCA matters and complaints; it was nice to see so many "mainstream" pressies finally paying attention. "

Could it be that a university professor presents a more sypathetic character than the publisher of a hacker magizine? Unfortunately though it shouldn't matter it does. The first amendment was written for both. Hopefully this will all lead th the DCMA getting struck down and large corporations not getting to tell us what we can or can't publish or say.

The sad thing is

[blang]

That we, the people, have to donate money in order to uphold the constitution. It should not be possible for an organisation to bulldoze the constitution by spending enough money. Does the legal system have no mechanisms to protect itself from miscarriage of justice? If the only mechanism is appeal, and filing an appeal requires big money, how can there ever be justice? If the founding fathers knew that justice was so easily thwarted by big money, would they have added some extra safeguards to the constitution?

The other side.

[keflex]

Hrm, it seems to me that as intelligent as some of the posters on this board are, they all seem to fall into the mindset that a) big business is bad (which it is in many cases) and b) free is good.
No matter what the case, they tend to hold tightly to these truths and refuse to look at things from a different point of view. Since I am still new here and haven't been converted to the flock (zombie masses?) I'll go ahead and try to present the other point of view (the unpopular one).

IP protection is necessary!
The protection of IP is important because it ensures the continued livelihood of whoever came up with the idea. If the cook of a local burger stand developed a wonderful new ingredient to add to his hamburgers, would it be right for a large corporation to take the recipe and disseminate it without his consent? Thus, the cook would no longer have this edge in the market, and would potentially lose much of his business to the competitor(s). You may say, 'Well, of course it's wrong for the Big Bad Corp to do that to the little guy!' but what if the situations were reversed? Is it right for the little guy to do that to the Big Bad Corp?

Just because you steal from a faceless company doesn't make it right. It has been a disturbing trend that people feel that they can lie on their income taxes because they *think* they aren't stealing from a person, when in actuality they are stealing from all of us.

Ok, enough of my rant. Honestly, though, I have alot of *ahem* evaluation softwarez on my computer that I have little to no remorse of, uh, evaluating. I also applaud Dr. Felton's effort in trying to fight a company that would put a stranglehold on information (whatever it's forms may be). I just wanted to write this because rather than making valid arguments, it seems as though many slashdotters tend to disguise the same old prejudices (big company bad, free thing good) in different words every time this sort of topic comes up.

Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

[EngineOfCuriosity]

Besides not buying RIAA products,there is even a more devious way to "defund" them. Over promote in the worse possible way the products they spend the most money on promoting, and burn that product (ie Backdoor Boys) out(through hype) before they can get a return on their money.Over hype, look what it did to Hootie and the Blowfish...Eventually they'll run out of money, and the lawyers will move on.

Re:So when does the other shoe drop?

[Blue Aardvark House]

It will be most difficult to file suit on this point, because even with DMCA, Sonny Bono, et al., copyright terms are still "limited", in this case to 70 years after a copyright holder's death. What it doesn't do is fit most definitions of "reasonable". But reasonableness does not show up in the Constitution.

As for delegating authority, congress does not enforce laws, they just write 'em.

I'd love to see DMCA shot down in flames (thanks AC/DC), but it's not likely that it will happen. Stay tuned.

Will you go away yet?

[Snootch]

Does it give you some kind of perverse pleasure, this daily troll? Why do you do it? Why?
You're not l33t, cool, or big just 'cause you're annoying /. rather than people around you. It doesn't make you more than a pain in the neck, just a pain in the neck to more people.

43rd Law of Computing:

Yea faulty products.

[bsavage]

They were (the first time around) just pissed they spent a lot of money to develop a faulty authentication product, and now can't make money off of it.

The secret's out now though, so I'm not sure it really matters that these professor show how they cracked it. The point was that it can be cracked. So why should anyone care enough to sue them. They might not have anything to worry about, but I guess it's good to cover you back.

Re:Yea faulty products.

[bsavage]

Sorry if that confused you. I mean: Why should the professors be in fear of being sued now (since they are doing this pre-emptive "I'm going to sue to make sure you can't" thing). It is already known that they have cracked or found a way to circumvent the watermark, so the damage has been done. The watermark is useless.