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US Won't Drop Charges Against Sklyarov - More Protests Planned
Oolon was the first to write in with news that the EFF has concluded their meeting with the US Attorney's Office, to no good result. Recent DMCA/Sklyarov news: Rep. Rick Boucher is supportive of reforming the DMCA but not very optimistic about getting it done soon. egerlach sent links for protests planned this Monday: Boston, Minnesota, San Francisco. Phil Zimmerman will be speaking about Sklyarov and other subjects this Tuesday. There's more information at the Free Sklyarov site as well.
All of the conferences on software, security, Linux, etc., should be rebooked OUTSIDE the United States. Then someone should tally up the lost economic benefit and send it to every Senator and Congressman. I'd like to see their opinion of arresting people with the DMCA versus the almighty dollar in that case...
Good luck Dmitry!
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Edst/Adobe/Gallery/
If you're going to misspell things then you will get many more people at the demonstrations if the signs all read Free Smirnof
No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
-- American Jurisprudence, Second Edition, Volume 16, Section 177
Although I'm sure explaining this to the people trying to arrest you might be difficult.
"You see, the law you're trying to arrest me for breaking in not constitutional, therefore I am not bound to obey it. So you see... oww! Hey! that hurts! OWW!"
-- Zack
What public outcry? The only thing I said was "fucking retard".
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As for Dmitry, his case may not be the best to get the law declared unconstitutional. The Felton case is stronger and doesn't involve imprisonment. The DOJ/FBI can always drop the charges. There is no law specifying that prosecutors must go after every infraction of the law. In fact, there are rules against this, giving all of us rights to sue for malicious prosecution.
So yes, this can "properly end" without a trial and with Dmitry being immediately freed. This is how it should end!
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Of course this is irrelevant until the law is actually declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which hasn't happened yet.
It's the "have not previously been readily available" bit that's the clincher; this stipulates that reverse-engineering is only allowed as a last resort for interoperability. If there was any authorized program that could read encrypted PDFs on the platform on which Sklyarov's software runs (regardless of how much you had to pay to use it, I assume), and it was "readily available", then he is in violation of this section.
IALOALTY
(I Am Less Of A Lawyer than You)
He hasn't even gotten a bail hearing. Nobody should have to wait this long for a bail hearing.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
No promise to drop charges sounds very much like "no decision" to me.
As long as not reaching a decision can keep the pressure off, they will just keep on not making a decision. The pressure must not let up one moment before Sklyarov is safely at home.
Have you ever been in jail? I have. It's not fun.
There is nothing even remotely "good" about this. Sklyarov has a wife and kids. He's in jail for no good reason. It's easy to sit out here in our comfy offices in front of our comfy workstations where we read Slashdot all day and say "It's not all that bad that guy is stuck in jail."
You want the law overturned? Vote. Contact your representatives. Tell your friends.
I can't see any particular reason why the russian program is any more in violation of the DMCA than either Adobe's eBook reader or Acrobat.
Acrobat (or another implementation) enables people to pirate eBooks (given some additional tools), even if you don't have a valid right to look at them. In fact, if the three things you need in order to read an eBook are: something that XORs with 102, something that unzips archives, and something that reads PDF, the PDF reader is the only really complicated part. If anything is "breaking encryption", it's the PDF reader.
Neither do the FBI and DoJ have to play Step'n Fetchit for Adobe, who have already gone home with their tail between their legs. Nothing wrong with busting the prosecutor's chops till he figures it is a bad career move.
I wrote parts of this stuff
The New York Times had a brief article this morning saying Russia may reduce John Tobin's term. This may be a bargining chip for the Russians.
Then what will 'we' do?
Go bust him out and get him on a flight home.
Anyone feel like helping?
--J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.
There is, however, another issue at stake. Its not just his being arrested for a crime whose constitutionality is questionable. Its the fact that his civil rights are SERIOUSLY being violated, and probably because he is a foreign national. He has not been granted bail or even a bail hearing (they keep saying they'll do that when they move him to San Jose, but that hasn't happened either) and he's been in jail for over 11 days. He's probably not been granted full counsel yet, and certainly has likely not been given the chance to talk to Russian diplomats (or else the diplomats would already be going public about protesting the unjustness of this). In other words, we're doing to him EVERYTHING we protest other countries (like China, or the Soviet Union (before the Fall)) have been doing to our citizens over the years.
Our constitution (the 5th ammendment) says that constitutional protection for due process applies to ALL PERSONS, not just to u.s. citizens (the 14th makes exceptions to states prosecuting cases, but does not make an exception for a federal prosecution).
--
You know, you gotta get up real early if you want to get outta bed... (Groucho Marx)
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
in other words you can't be bothered leave me alone..I hope you are thinking that when they come to get you. We of course will al be busy :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
but maybe you should post in your language then WE could translate, because what you wrote makes no sense
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
btw the banner only page is a sign that /. is being /.'d :) Their sql server running near max. The image is served from a different server, usually images.slashdot, but sometimes a doubleclick banner is used :(
at least that's my flawed understanding of it
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Adobe can't have it's cake and eat it too. Everyone should try to pressure Adobe into paying for his defense. This way they can't just start 'dumping' on the DoJ.
You got it exactly right, Adobe can gain some PR now by backing off and making the US Attorney look oppressive.
I think the US Attorney's office isn't willing to play this game---they're basically saying, "Too bad, if you didn't want this, you shouldn't have started. We're going to push forward now and not let you off. We're not going to lose face and look like we made a mistake too."
I assume you aware that China has a totalitarian government that arrests, prosecutes and condemn its citizen at will. I also assume you have not forgotten the Celestial Peace Square incident, when the chinese govvernment used tanks and army troops against unarmed civilians.
So I can not really figure why you you think the chinese could really protest against the arrest of americans without jeopardizing their own safety.
Please do not assume the whole world lives under the same legal protections and human rights garantees you do. Why do you think the International Amnesty members never write letters to their own governments?
Trust me, I've got first-hand knowledge of how legislators work. Tell them there's a problem, pref. through snail mail. They will at least write you back. Just be sure to include your name, address, and zip code.
Finding God in a Dog
If I had to make anything of it, it's that the ACLU, like most of the rest of the political world, is horribly and depressingly ignorant of what's going on. We need to make them aware.
Finding God in a Dog
Meanwhile, here in the US, a foreign citizen is still held hostage not for anything as serious as spying, but for challenging the authority of a corporation.
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
So, because everyone isn't touting your particular cause you feel they shouldn't tout any cause, or fight any injustice? Not to be rude, but what have you been smoking?
... only a small group is being actively persecuted. The message to the majority is simple: don't rock the boat or you might be next. By showing interest in only your parochial problems (or cause celebre) and dismissing everyone else's issues and injustices you place yourself squarely amongst those who are allowing, indeed facilitating, all of these abuses, including the very ones you rail against.
The War on Drugs is appalling. The obliteration of the fourth amendment that resulted was predicted and dismissed back in the early 80's in almost exactly the same way the obliteration of the first amendment was predicted when the DMCA was passed in the late 90's. The result, a terribble erosion of our fundamental rights with nary a complaint from the mindless, spoonfed masses.
The government has a very long and very dark history of picking minorities (blacks, native americans, youthful males with long hair, recreational drug users, high school misfits, and now programmers) and stomping their rights in the name of a photo opportunity or two, and an opportunity to feed whatever the public hysteria of the moment happens to be.
Saying "I don't care, they aren't part of my group" is exactly what enables this sort of serial, unconstitutional abuse to succeed. At any given moment the majority of the people are fat, well fed, and happy
Grow up, and look beyond your own interests for a moment. You'll be shocked at the number of people who, because of what they are going through, are more likely to be open to your point of view on your particular issues as well, through bitter personal experience. But not if you dismiss their problems while touting your own (which are as irrelevant to them as their's are to you).
Injustice must be resisted and fought, everywhere, in every context, or we shall all lose our freedom. This is a bitter lesson our parent's never bothered to teach us, and now things have progressed sufficiently far that we're all going to have the opportunity to learn it the hard way. Would that it were otherwise.
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The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Copyleft has Free Sklyarov t-shirts.
Use the self-destruct system that's already built into DMCA. Make your own CSS-encrypted DVD, or your own encrypted PDF, or whatever, and then sue the sue-ers for trafficking in devices that circumvent your technological measure without authorization. Then you'll have MPAA, Adobe, etc as defendants under DMCA, and nobody thinks they're hippie hackers.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Accepting it as a given allows them to ruin peoples lives without cost to themselves. Don't. Refuse to patronize them. Refuse to recommend them. Seek alternatives. Never accept it.
... well, read the trends. Any rescue effort needs to consider how things should be redesigned before it gets very far along. Otherwise we'll end up back at one of the "simple solutions", which are worse than a bubble sort (another simple solution).
Even if you don't succeed in influencing their actions this time, you may cause them to think twice next time. And, unless Linux, etc. win to a totally unexpected degree, there will be a next time.
And remember: The attitude isn't unique to corporations. Every group that feels itself invulnerable starts acting like this. Positions of power are attractive to those who want to exercise power. That's why it's important to design systems to eliminate that kind of position. Safeguards only work for so long before they get jimmied. The constitution was a magnificent effort, but currently
Note: Just like the bubble sort, the "simple solutions" can work quite well in small, restricted environments. I don't know what the analog to a shell sort, or a heap sort would be. Perhaps something will occur to you.
But the open source community has created something precious. It has created a large group of people and other entities that work together without significant coercion. And one of the keys to this is that there is no easy point where one could grab control. This is a gift to the country from the military, who intentionally designed a system (the internet) that it was difficult to grab control of.
One of the characteristics of the community is that there are many individuals in it who are quite protective of it. This is probably a quite important element in its success, despite the slighting comments that are frequently issued. The Open Source community doesn't use lawyers extensively. It avoids acutal coercion to the greatest extent that it can manage. But it creates an environment protective of its creativity. And the current protests against both Adobe and the feds are a part of that. And allowing Adobe to "get out of jail free" on the excuse that "that's how corporations act" is damaging to the community. If words (and code) are our only weapon, then we must use them in our defense. Adobe has grossly violated our idea of proper behavior. My must react appropriately. They must be cast out. They, and their works also.
I have been described at times as having a religious orientation, and I accept that. It's not any conventional religion, but in mine, actions such as Adobe's are cardinal sins. They are sufficient to justify excommunication. And forgiveness requires restitution. If they intentonally do irreperable harm, then there can be no forgiveness. (Well, that's putting things a tiny bit too harshly.) If they don't even try to perform restitution, then they cannot be forgiven. Forgiveness requires repentance, and that's more than just a few words to/from a PR flack. That includes the acceptance of the responsibility for the damage that you have done, and at absolute bare minimum, your best reasonable attempt to repair the damage.
If corporations want to be considered as people, then they must be held to at least as high an ethical standard as people are. Considering their power, and the amount of harm they can do even by accident, I feel that they should be held to a higher standard. Judge for yourself what kind of person would act in this way. Would you want them as a neighbor? Would you trust yourself to do business with them.
Avoiding Adobe and all of its products is as much an act of self protection as anything else. This time the convicted person was a citizen of Russia. Last week it was a German professor. Who might be next?
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Read the story's headline. Classic /. sensationalism ...
He says he doesn't even know about this gig!
mindslip
Ah. Seems he got confused. This is his 7pm gig.
Sorry!
mindslip
EFF Rejoins Protests After Meeting with US Attorney's Office
Representatives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) met with representatives of the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco today. There was a productive dialog, however the U.S. Attorney's office gave no indication of dropping the prosecution against Dmitry Sklyarov.
Having explored good faith negotiations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation rejoins the call for nonviolent protests worldwide to secure the immediate release of Dmitry Sklarov and dropping of all criminal charges against him.
A protest is already scheduled in San Francisco for 11:30am this Monday, July 30, at the Federal Courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Ave. Additional protests will occur in 25 or more cities worldwide in coming weeks.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Huh? So you don't think that an Adobe boardroom conference had the sentence "We need to send a message to those evil h4x0rs..."
Adobe pulled the trigger. They don't get to be sorry now that the bullet hit something. Their actions caused this chain of events to occur. They are not absolved of responsibility.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
When Adobe can make people think that cracking encryption is the same, morally, as raping people, they have won, and we have lost.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
No, I have most emphatically NOT missed the point. The law is unjust, and should not be obeyed. It's called civil disobedience.
Allowing companies to buy laws and then enforce them selectively and then let that company avoid the consumer backlash is WRONG.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
OK. I think I can agree with you that the FBI ought to enforce The Law evenhandedly and across the board. As a practical matter, I GUARANTEE that this will never happen, but for the sake of this argument let's assume that it can.
However, since Adobe purchased the (bad) law, and pointed the FBI towards Mr. Sklyarov, and is now attempting to distance themselves from what I believe many Americans will call an unjust arrest (once they are in possession of the facts of the case), I don't think we should let Adobe get away with it. Adobe can and should be tried in the court of public opinion, just as Mr. Sklyarov will be tried in the Federal court. Hopefully, the EFF will give him some very high-powered legal representation...if not, they're not doing a very good job of living up to their charter.
I don't agree with you that foreign nationals ought to obey our laws while they are on foreign soil. I've read LOTS of books that are not allowed in many countries...I should be able to travel in these countries with the reasonable expectation that a) I won't be prosecuted for "crimes" committed outside that jurisdiction and b) that if it WERE to happen, the American Embassy would raise a bit of a stink. Idealitic, I know, but if one doesn't aspire to an Ideal, what's the damn point?
As far as your last point, I believe that I am a civilized person. I don't know that I live in a civilized society, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is not a civilized corporation on God's green Earth. By definition, a corporation pursues profit for its shareholders singlemindedly. That singleminded goal is not conducive to good citizenship.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I hope some native speaker of American English will correct the inevitable typos and grammatical errors.
:)
No typos that I see, but you did contridict yourself. You said that all conditions must be meet, then you make one condition that he be free, and the last one gives the implications that as long as they are taking concret steps to free him that it is alright for him not to be free. You probably meant to imply that even if he is freed that if they hadn't taken steps to free him you would still not buy their products. So try to be more clear on that point
You're right, of course. But, here's my point: I listened to what the EFF's attorney said. (If you don't believe me, just go to science friday's website.) She said they (the EFF) met with the DOJ. The DOJ listened to what the EFF said. The EFF left. During that meeting, the DOJ gave no promise to drop the charges. So? Should we really expect them to instantly change their minds? I mean, as soon as they left the meeting, reports started to come out that the meeting was fruitless, which is not what the attorney said on the radio! The EFF goes out and tells the world that they had a meeting and they are waiting to hear whether or not the DOJ will drop charges or continue on with the case. Right now, the DOJ is doing nothing. (Which is something that should be protested in and of itself.) The EFF attorney said it is now in the hands of the DOJ. I do think the community should continue to pressure the DOJ to release Skylarov. But, it was a misrepresentation on the part of Slashdot to say that the DOJ "won't drop charges". They (the DOJ or the EFF) never said they (the DOJ) won't drop charges. I have not heard that report, nor have I yet seen those word used anywhere except here.
My distinction simply points out that Slashdot made a false report. "US Won't Drop Charges Against Sklyarov" implies that the DOJ came out and said that (or at least that the EFF accused them of doing that). Show me the documentation. As of the time when the story was originally posted, there was nothing to substantiate the claims made here on slashdot.
I fully support the protest movement. Let's see that the wrongs are righted ASAP, but let's also hold /. accountable for accurate news if we are going to depend on them for information regarding this issue.
But, one of the attorney's with the EFF (Forgot her name) was on NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday less than an hour before this /. article was posted. She said the DOJ (or FBI or whoever they met with) had listened politely and said they would consider dropping the charges, BUT that no decision could be made at that time.
If what she says is true (and I'm more apt to believe the words of someone who was actually at the meeting) then I think /. is mis-representing the story. (Not that it is a surprise.)
Personally, I think there is a HUGE distinction between "hasn't decided whether to drop charges or not" and "won't drop charges".
I would write to my senator(s) but being in NY they are both about as corrupt as they come, and already in the pockets of the Media companies.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Adobe should donate a VERY LARGE sum of money to the EFF to help cover the costs they are incuring to handle this mess that Adobe caused... if they are really so apologetic and resentful.
I didn't say they should pay for his defense, since I don't know if I would trust whomever they bought.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
(Emphasis mine)
So... has anyone spoken to RedHat to find out if either they are already a member, or if they have any interest in joining? Also, any universities care to join to give us an "Inside View" into whats going on (although non-profit members also have non-voting status).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
The big problem with the criminal justice system in this country, is while I can initially refuse to press charges (Yes, Mr. bad person broke into my house, but I told him to, or he was trying to stop a fire from starting, or any number of reasons). However, if I initially tell the cops to hang him, then find out 24 hours later the reason he broke into my house was for a legit reason, I can't easily get the charges dropped. Granted, it would be rather difficult to convict him if I myself got up on the witness stand and told the jury exactly what happened, and its unlikely the prosecution would pursue it that far. But the system doesn't move quickly. It can take months to get from arrest to court room, and while this is a good 6 month process in state cases, it can take years in federal cases (Mitnick, Ok city bombing, etc).
The problem is, he's in jail now, and there's a good chance that this case will never see a trial, but he could be locked up for a long time before somebody decides the case isn't worth pursuing. And there is very little we can do about it, at least with this specific case.
The REAL problem is, we raise our voices when someone has been wronged, which DOES have effect, but it doesn't have immediate effect. The problem is he got arrested in the first place, which means the laws are broken. Even if he's locked away for years, there is no restitution from the government because they've done no wrong, legally speaking. They had a proper case, a clear violation of a valid law (even if its a stupid one).
There are three possibilities here. We wait patiently for this law to get repealed. Look back carefully and see how many laws have been repealed lately. I mean, REALLY LOOK. You're not going to find many. At the very least, we're not going to accomplish anything by simply talking. We're too small of a minority to gain the proper attention. Which leads us to the second possibility.
Run for office. Get yourself elected to a position where, while you might not have enough influence to get the laws reversed, you will have a position you can argue against it in an open forum. The press will listen. Congress will listen, because you're in their face, and they can't simply walk away then. Even if you don't get elected, you can manipulate the issue into a major campaign issue and the issue will get discussed at length. People will hear.
The third possibility is we keep the law as it is. We stay away from politics all together. Instead we focus on the companies and take drastic measures to make sure that nobody will use the products of any company that implements encryption for the purpose of preventing competition. Ok. So how do we do THIS?
Well, thats not easy, but there are ways. The problem is, it will require a lot of us to be extremely ruthless. We will have to write free virus scanners that will locate this rogue software and complain to the user that they're using software could potentially be illegal, and cite court cases where people have been jailed for using such software. A lot of people could be scared into not running such software, or at the very least, they might pay attention, which means that congress might actually start paying attention. The problem is we might get into a situation where this is abused beyond the point where it does any real good but instead creates more problems than it solves.
In addition. We, as a community, all of us, need to write letters (snail and email) to the important people at every software company, promising that if they EVER do something as stupid as Adobe has done, you will no longer purchase any products they produce, and you will encourage all your friends and employeer to not use them either. The same will happen if they attempt to use a protection scheme that uses the DMCA to keep people from reverse engineering their products. If a product uses encryption legitimately, that algorithim should be disclosed, as any adaquate encryption algorithm should be unbreakable anyways. There is no reason to protect it otherwise unless they're trying to be anticompetitive.
And another thing. Adobe needs to make a massive display of goodwill VERY soon. Along the lines of fully funding the defense costs (top of the line) to this poor prisoner, along with adaquate compensation for his trouble and a sincere public apology. If they don't, they need to be destroyed. Any legal means we can, we need to make sure that company goes down the toilet, which is better than they deserve. It must be made an example out of so no other corporation that has an interest in making money will ever be so bold to try something as stupid ever again.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
<i>This is incorrect. You are referring to jury nullification, which has garnered jurors heavy contempt-of-court punishments in the past. From United States v. Avery, 717 F. 2d 1020 (6th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 104 S.Ct. 1683 (1984):</I>f site.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fi2i.org%2FSuptDocs%2Fju dic%2Ffija.htm>"Fully Informed Juries"</a> An excellent resource for researching the subject is at <A href="http://civilliberty.about.com/cs/jurynullifi cation/">here</a> and there are others, some biased in favor and others biased against the concept, easily found by most major search engines.
<P>
I never said that it was safe: defying authority <b>always</b> risks consequences. Judges have enormous power (much more so than most people realize) and disagreeing with one is extremely hazardous. I never meant to imply otherwise. Nevertheless, jury nullification is an established legal right. <i>The District of Columbia Court of Appeals -- the second highest court in the United States -- explains that the jury has an "unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instruction on the law given by the trial judge..." (U.S. v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1139 (1972).)</i> (<A href="http://civilliberty.about.com/gi/dynamic/of
<P>
As Alexander Hamilton remarked, the basis of jury nullification is the depth of the jury's conviction. To my mind, they key term is "conviction", not in the sense of whether the defendent is guilty or not but rather do honest people have beliefs which they are willing to fight for. I don't want to either pound drums or stand on a soapbox: exercising the right of jury nullification is not a trivial undertaking and will almost certainly provoke intense (and possibly painful) response. My point is that if this is something that someone considers doing, they had better be damn sure that they are sacrificing themselves for something they believe in enough to sacrifice their own personal well-being for, because there will be a price and the price will be high. This isn't something to do because you're bored and it's re-run season on TV.
Well, sort of. It is rare, although perfectly legal, for a jury to, for example, decide that the law under which a defendent is being tried is unjust and therefore refuse to convict. This principle upholds the ancient right of a democratic people to return to themselves the power and authority they may have temporarily granted to others. This right is fundamental to democracy and violation of this right directly leads to armed rebellion and insurrection, as governments always seem to forget sooner or later.
Things don't often go that far, primarily because citizens in our society (USA) are remarkably poorly educated about their rights and responsibilities as citizens. My wife would argue that since it is obviously in the best self-interest of government that the average citizen remain in ignorance of his/her rights, and since the government runs the schools, that this is deliberate. Me, I'm open to argument. We treasure our heritage of 'civil disobedience' as the primary means by which we express displeasure with our government and judiciary, but just as one medicine can't cure all illnesses, one means of protest should not be expected to right all injustices.
The (condensed) point is that citizens of a democracy are not bound, legally or morally, to blind acceptance of the dictates of those in power, regardless of how they came to be in power. The fundamental characteristic of a true democracy is the ability of those governed to correct injustices perpetrated on them by authority. Thomas Jefferson believed that the only way a free people could maintain their liberty was to occasionally reminded the government that the consent of the governed is subject to change. While no one is advocating violence (certainly I am not,) there are alternatives. Passive resistence can include refusal to cooperate (denying information or assistance to government, for example,) or the supplying of false information (yes, sir: I've got 15 kids here. No, you can't see them: they're all out right now.) There's also active resistance short of armed rebellion, including the refusal of a jury to convict someone of breaking an unjust law. All of this does require a significant minority of citizens willing to act together, which is where things most often break down, but that's another topic, I suppose. (It'll have to be: I've got a meeting in 5 minutes.)
If we punish adobe enough, they might even find it in their interest to lobby against the DMCA. That's what moves DC lawmakers: lobbyists and money. They don't care squat about protesters. The protesters are political deviants as far as DC and the grey masses is conserned..
So modify these stupid Outlook worms to send emails to everyone in an address book stating how bad Adobe is. Hell, it'll look like it came from a friend, and people will be more likely to read it.
But, until then, I keep getting people's resumes...
HI Mom!
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
"My dear lady, you can pass any laws you like. If they are reasonable, I'll obey them. If not, I'll ignore them."
(from "The moon is a hash mistress")
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
First off, let me say that I think it is undoubtably unjust that this man is in jail. The DMCA is a joke, and yet another argument for campaign finance reform, IMHO. The RIAA and MPAA are charlatans and crooks, and I'm hoping karma bites them in the ass realsoonnow.
Having said that, there are many, many other issues that are more deserving of attention. At the end of 1999, 1 in every 137 US residents were incarcerated. An estimated 30% of those are there for non-violent drug crimes. In 1999 alone there were over 1.5 million people arrested for drug related crimes. Sklyarov is an isolated case, whereas the imprisonment of otherwise peaceful citizens goes largely unreported because it is sadly so common. The abuses of personal freedoms in the name of the drug war are much more odious than those commited in the name of the DMCA. The United States has declared war against its own citizenry in the name of fighting drug abuse. Ask yourself which is more important.
Mod me down if you wish. And again, I hope that Sklyarov goes free, and soon. But I think that on the balance his incarceration, while unjust, pales in significance when compared to other issues. And the drug war isn't the only one that can be deemed more important: poverty, AIDS, and environmental abuses all rank higher in importance, due to the fact that they affect so many more people.
And no, I'm not saying that /. shouldn't cover this. Their audience is interested in DMCA related issues. But I will continue to dedicate my efforts at raising awareness of the tragedy that is the drug war. I feel it is more worthwhile to do so.
Sklyarov, as far as I can tell, is being held for acts he committed legally in another jurisdiction which happen not to be legal over here. Due process (at least his constitutional rights) appear to have been waived.
But you have a "who watches the watchers" problem. As well as identifying the people responsible. Even once you do that how do you get a jail to hold them or charges brought? AFAIK the US has never even charged anyone with "high treason"...
The US constitution assumes a well motivated (and armed) populace able to take corrective action on government misbehaviour.
If he came into America and wrote the offending code in America he should be responsible to American laws.
Such laws should be responsible to the US constitution which unambiguiously voids them.
Question --- isn't it unconstitutional to give people a right but not make them aware that they have it?
Remember that most of the US constitution is about denying rights to government (and denying government the ability to deny rights to people) the default is that people have every right possible. Unless otherwise stated.
Because the issues are complex and have so much financial consequence, Congress feels it's best if the affected parties (the various businesses who have a financial interest in copyright law) work out the law themselves.
Thus ignoring the majority of the affected parties. The copyright consumers. IIRC it is actually the job of the US congress to represent a couple of hundred million of these...
The current copyright law (the DMCA) is over 150 pages of lawyer-speak, far too much for everyone in Congress to read, comprehend and have an opinion on - just the way the media companies want it.
Sounds like they took the approach of "if we don't understand it then it's accepted". Rather than actually doing their jobs which is to either understand it or dismiss it.
Things don't often go that far, primarily because citizens in our society (USA) are remarkably poorly educated about their rights and responsibilities as citizens.
Probably more people know the words than understand their meaning...
The (condensed) point is that citizens of a democracy are not bound, legally or morally, to blind acceptance of the dictates of those in power, regardless of how they came to be in power.
Remember that police, lawyers and judges are also "citizens" so the same applies to them.
BUT he was arrested because he gave a talk on how to circumvent the encryption *while he was in the US*.
In which case whatever law he is arrested under must be void. Only possible way it could be a valid law would be to predate the first ammendement.
It doesn't say "when the Supreme Court has ruled"..
Possibly the original intention was for the US supreme court of routinely examine legislation and act on its own initutive. IIRC it's original purpose was only to handle constitutional issues, not to also act as a court of appeal.
The police and the FBI aren't bound to enforce such a law, but in general their job is to make the arrest and let the courts sort it out.
Or rather they have made this their job, whatever the intention of their job might have been.
Sounds not unlike the USPO, with their "pass anything and let the courts sort it out" policy.
Treason is actually very narrowly defined within the Constitution, because previous governments the founders were familiar with had taken advantage of broad and ambiguous definitions to punish whoever they didn't like.
With "high treason" apparently completly non existant, which is somewhat odd considering concerns over opressive government.
. . . that jury nullification would be possible? Indeed, are you so certain that after a brief statement by each side, that a majority of non-technical people would even disapprove of DMCA?
Lookie, when a few lawyers and civil rights types were screaming against the DMCA, it was very difficult even to get a whimper out of the technical community. The subtleties of the legal issues were too obscure even for a savvy technical community to get hepped up about until they saw its consequences.
And now that this is the law, do you really think that the American people are going to rise up because of the arrest of one russian hacker?
Felton was a far better case to get on CNN. This case actually makes the few Congressmen who are looking to change the law's job harder, not easier.
This argument is losing (and its one that lost in the DeCSS case, as a matter of fact -- wasn't even raised on appeal).
In particular, DeCSS doesn't need to rely on the Patent and Copyright Clause to remain valid law even if it didn't promote the sciences and the useful arts -- it would suffice if the statute regulated interstate commerce (the Commerce Clause, also Section 8).
Indeed, the proponents of DMCA made precisely this argument: "we can't put a fair use provision into this statute because if we did, it would be treated under the Copyright Clause."
At any rate, The conclusion in your argument is unfounded on the fallacious presumption that merely proving a failure to promote progress would suffice.
Well, sort of. It is rare, although perfectly legal, for a jury to, for example, decide that the law under which a defendent is being tried is unjust and therefore refuse to convict. This principle upholds the ancient right of a democratic people to return to themselves the power and authority they may have temporarily granted to others. This right is fundamental to democracy and violation of this right directly leads to armed rebellion and insurrection, as governments always seem to forget sooner or later.
Jury nullification is neither a right nor legal. To willfully ignore the facts and to refuse to uphold the law is a violation of a law taken under oath.
The poster is quite correct, however, that a jury's acquittal is unreviewable and cannot be set aside. No inquiry may be made, and no reprisals can be taken against the jury. This is not to protect any right of the jurors, but rather that of the Defendant - double jeopardy.
Thus, the poster has confused lawfulness with the ability of the state to enforce it. This is very similar to the mistake made by DMCA supporters, that the DMCA is right, and Sklyarov is evil because the law is enforceable.
DMCA is Malum prohibutum, not Malum in se. It is wrong only because it is prohibited, it is not prohibited because it is wrong.
The corporate shield provides limited liability for shareholders, but no immunity from criminal responsibility for individual acts of officers or employees. (Indeed, in many cases, an individual can be deemed liable for intentional torts committed by or in the name of the corporation. This is why the corporate officers are so often named in trademark and trade secret misappropriation cases).
The example you gave, where a corporate officer is held criminally responsible for financial misdeeds of the company, is in fact quite common.
Further, even if an individual didn't perform all of the acts necessary to commit a crime, there can be criminal responsibility nevertheless for conspiracy or attempt. All that is necessary for conspiracy is a joint agreement that the crime be committed and a single act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Every member of a conspiracy is guilty of the crime as though they were a principal.
Um, a bill titled "The Digital Millenium Copyright Act" (see "Section 1: Short Title") doesn't automatically come under the Copyright Clause?
Of course it is in Title 17. Of course, Congress might try to rely upon its authority under the Patent and Copyright clause for the power to pass it.
Of course it matters not one whit as to its constitutionality whether DMCA would qualify under the clause "to promote progress."
Congress has a list of powers in Article I. They are not mutually exclusive. If a bill does not satisfy one of those powers, it can still pass a law if it falls under another clause.
DMCA passes muster under the Commerce Clause, which is what the Congress relied upon for its passage. It therefore doesn't matter whether it promotes progress, at least with respect to its constitutionality.
Read the cases. Eventually, you'll get it.
However much I agree with you, the analogy holds no water whatsoever, apart from both individuals being arrested for violations of a crime.
The crime Rosa Parks violated was unconstitutional in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment because, had a similarly situtated white woman been there, it would not have been a crime.
The DMCA's constitutionality is undisputed, except as applied in the Felton case (suing over a threatened lawsuit, not an actual judgment under the DMCA) and the DeCSS injunction (suing over the overly expansive LANGUAGE of an injunction order, not the DMCA in itself).
DMCA is wrong -- its bad policy. There are certainly theorists who argue that even distribution of executable object code is free speech (Professor Junger, for example). But hey, there's a huge difference between these highly theoretical arguments and the blatant 14th Amendment egregiousness that infected the South in the 60s.
There is a reason that the American public ultimately got behind the civil rights movement -- they understood that it was wrong and why it was wrong. I have yet to poll a newbie without loading up the questions to find someone who "gets it."
This is not to say that killing the anticircumvention provisions of DMCA is not a righteous cause -- its that the present incarceration of a Russian Hacker is so far from a Rosa Parks scenario that you are simply deluding yourself.
about his status as Civil Rights Hero.
Perhaps he feels more like a victim of the illegal laws of a banana republic.
I just went to the CATO institute search site and there in no mention of either Sklyarov or the DMCA.
The silence is remarkable -- and deafening.
All you republicans should take note of this.
War is necrophilia.
Don't call it a blackout. Call it a moment of silence. As a protest have everybody who can disconnect whatever machine(s) they are in charge of machine from the network (whatever network that might be) for a couple of minutes. If enough people in charge of routers do this the internet would shut down for a minute or two.
If the entire internet shut down for a minute or two no real harm would come but the message would be sent loud and clear.
If the event was executed correctly and your boss got mad at you you could always point your fingers at everybody else and say "gee boss our systems are working fine but there seems to be a internet wide strike" it's not like your boss would know.
If that fails you can always rely on "just reboot your machine it should work fine afterwards" it's not like they haven't heard that one before.
War is necrophilia.
I think you're not being fair. Event though i live in Germany (and not in PA) i heard a lot about Pope, saw a lot of pressure applied to the russian government and i also heard international protest.
I believe the US sate department put some thought into it, how to handle that case. It may not allways be the best idea to fire with the big guns (i.e. the president) first.
A possible result may be, that the other side tries to raise the price for his freeing. It's allways a tragedy for a human beeing to be caught inside political clash between two countries or systems.
In the Sklyarov case i also believe that he being a russian "hacker" made him an jummy target for the prosecution. Just imagine him trying to defend himself in front of a jury speeking with russian accent. That must be a nightmare after fifty years of movies with half of the bad guys speaking like that.
CU, Martin
Nullification en masse (as in the case of jurors routinely refusing to convict Underground Railroad conductors or alcohol prohibition violators) can eventually convince prosecutors to quit wasting their efforts on a certain type of case, but a single case just doesn't matter.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
about his status as Civil Rights Hero. Must be rough on him. Still, Rosa Parks just wanted to rest her feet, and look what she started.
Best Slashdot Co
Hang on, there, guy. Sklyarov was an employee of a company (and, incidentally, the principal of the company was in the US at the same time he was). Prima Facie, the company may have broken US law - but they broke it in Russia, where it wasn't illegal. Sklyarov did not sell or distribute the software he's alleged to have co-written anywhere - the company that employed him did. And he wrote it, not as a private individual, but as an agent of a company under the direction of that company. So whether the company is guilty or not, Sklyarov does not personally have any case to answer - and how you prosecute a Russian company for doing in Russia something which is legal in Russia I don't know.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
One very concrete way we could show support for Dmitry is to send him postcards. This is a technique used by Amnesty International to show support for political prisoners. There are something like half a million registered Slashdot users, and if half a million postcards from all over the world landed up at San Whatever-it-is Penitentiary next week it would get noticed.
So: anyone got the surface mail address of the place he's in, and how you write to a prisoner there?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
For those of you who saw "Anna and The King", there is a scene where Anna has a tirade in front of the court about how what is going on is a farce, and she'll talk to the king and get her friend, and her friend's would-be lover freed.
The King berates her, in turn, for her public outburst and explains to how it has sealed the fate of her friends. He says that he was originally going to have the two publicly caned, and then released, but now he has to allow them to be executed. He explains to her that he can't be seen as being wrapped around the finger of a foreigner.
The US justice system faces the same dilemma. If they were to free Dmitry at the public request of Adobe -- in the same way that they arrested him at Adobe's request -- they would be seen as wrapped around the finger of a large corporation. This would vanquish the appearances, if not the reality, of the independence of the judicial system.
Thus it is that, by asking for his release, Adobe -- if they really want him prosecuted -- has managed to have their cake and eat it to. They get to make it look like they've seen the light. At the same time they have managed to paint the Justice Department into a corner where it will be harder than ever for them to release the man.
Book anybody??? Borrow them while it's legal!
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Drop 'em a line asking about their silence on this issue.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You can't "take" stuff from a web site (unless you crack in and delete files or something), you can only copy from it.
You're welcome to copy any of my poetry (though I doubt you'd want to) from http://infamous.net/poems ; I assert rights to authorship credit and to royalties on commercial use, but otherwise feel free to share and enjoy.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I agree fully. My response to the original poster was that you only have public pressure when there is public outrage. The above post about the Edward Pope shows that you only have outrage when there is media coverage. Granted, not all media coverage will lead to activism, but if people don't know about something, they can't very well fight against it. Furthermore, if the media only gives it minor coverage, then people won't treat it as something worthwhile. If the media makes a big deal, it's no guarentee that something will get done - people will have divided opinions - but with no coverage, ultimately, nothing will happen.
If an American were to be held in another country, you'd also have massive media attention and public outcry. Remember the whole caning thing a few years ago? People were upset that Singapore used it's legal system, which allows for caning (as I recall it was an act of vandilism), on an American (name escapes me) and people here went nuts.
In order for this to have a similar effect, you would need the Russian people, if not all of Europe to make this an issue. Then, maybe you'd have enough international pressure on the US to do something.
Giggle.
Your story #1 is a Reuters wire piece. Moscow Times or not, that still the "Western Media." Hehe!
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
... unless such speech or assembly is intended or may result in circumvention of a protection device or mechanism.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Only possible way it could be a valid law would be to predate the first ammendement
... not even then. The U.S. Constitution is the "Supreme Law of the Land" and superceded everything that came before it.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Let me see if I've got this straight: Your mom creates an humanoid format for carbon-based lifeforms, and someone develops something very massive, like a sledgehammer, allowing people to apply great force to the back of your skull. Your mom wants the sledgehammer inventer brought to justice for this affront to your very life, and you find something wrong with this?
You mean that if I invented the copy machine and get paid by companies to sell it to them, I would be stealing?
Everyone who's against the right to invent tools with positive and negative uses, please post your address so I can send you textbooks to full up your empty brain. And put your keyboard in the oven and set it to 450 degrees.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
It appears to be /.'ed
NPR had a 10 minute interview with the EFF lawyer who talked to the DoJ today. You can hear it here:
r mm
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/totn/20010727.totn.
We can't go after all the companies that supported the DMCA. There are too many of them. We must choose a single corporation and make an example out of it. Since Adobe was the first to try to enforce the fascist DMCA law, it is the logical target of our ire. As a start, do not use Acrobat and Photoshop. Concert your .pdf files to another format if possible. Make them sweat a little. As far as the music industry is concerned, my advice is: download it all and copy it all!
It's exclusively the job of the court to interpret the laws and also to determine if they are unconstitutional.
No. Every government official has a sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. That involves interpreting it and making decisions of which actions to take.
Additionally, if the government fails, the people have not only the right, but the obligation, to ignore an unjust law.
We should be taking names and then doing what we can come election time to bring havoc to their websites.
The best thing to do right now is to pressure the senate to REJECT Robert Mueller as FBI director. The FBI needs a director we can trust, especially after all the abuses. It's not Mueller.
Then at election time....
Good guys: Boucher
Bad guys: Coble, Feinstein
Direct links to boston, LA, and seattle information are at boston.freesklyarov.org, la.freesklyarov.org, and seattle.freesklyarov.orb.
Protests are also scheduled in NY and LA. There's interest in the UK as well, see ntk.net for more details.
[
This link is a little bit more interesting. It allows you to send them feedback. Maybe if enough people attract the ACLU's attention to this free-speech issue, they may take it up. Who knows, maybe it isn't a conspiracy, but just ignorance. Indeed, the issue may not be that obvious for someone not in the field.
Say no to software patents.
Hey, I live in Europe too, and I used their feedback form to submit them a comment. Given the US' position in the Western World, I don't consider it innapropriate to participate in US politics that way. Indeed, those US laws often find their ways into Europena legislation via international treaties. We better voice our opinion before these laws become binding for us too.
In case anybody's interested here's what I sent them:
Say no to software patents.
Ever hear of this guy? Edmond Pope is a US Citizen (I'm a friend of his daughter) who was held in Russia for a year, convicted of spying for purchasing plans that have been publically available for almost 10 years. There was almost no outrage here in the US, except here in his hometown of State College, PA. President Clinton even refuse to meet with his wife, for fear of damaging US-Russian relations. even though he was extremely ill (leukemia), Russian doctors refused to allow his doctor to see him, and there was no international outcry over his treatment.
m oran/tm33.htm)
And you think it wouldn't happen to an American? My thoughts are with Sklyarov, and I plan on continuing to write to my legislators and spreading word of his abuse under a law that has no place in this country.
( for the wary, the link is to http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/t
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
The ambassador's address is:
His Excellency Yuri V. Ushakov
Embassy of the Russian Federation
2650 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20007
On a side note, the ambassador's official title is "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary". I'm sure it's deserved, but I don't think I could actually call him that to his face without laughing.
--
Lord Nimon
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
What is thier position about the situation? I havn't heard anything about this yet, and was wondering if they had made any statements either affirming or condemning the arrest.
On a little aside, is Amnesty International involved in this in any way? You'd think that any country holding another country's citizen without a bail hearing would get those guys all in an uproar.
Has anyone really seen local media coverage of this? I know I really haven't. (But then again, I don't really watch any TV anyway.)
But back on topic: I really do agree with Rimbo. It's nice to see some Americans giving a damn and willing to fight bad laws (even good ones. That's their right, too.) and being allowed to. Ahhh... freedom. Hum "America the Beautiful" with me, people!
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
This rally brought to you by Pepsi, official caffeinated beverage of righteous coders everywhere.
____________________
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
- Adobe goes after Sklyarov, gets criminal charges filed against him and makes an example out of the guy for their benefit.
- There is a public outcry and protests. Adobe sees this as a direct threat to their corprate image and as a direct result....their sales.
- Adobe meets with EFF, and drops their support for the case, post-indictment.
- It is a PR victory for Adobe, they say they made a mistake, and their critics back down, the protests stop and Adobe looks like a good company that made a bad mistake and is owning up to it.
- Since this is a criminal case, not a civil one, Adobe cannot drop the charges against Sklyarov. The prosecution continues, Adobe looks like an innocent bystander in the whole matter and one of the "good guys" or at least no longer the enemy. With their corprate image restored, it's a win-win situation for them. Sklyarov goes on trial to be made an example of, and no one is viewing them as the "big bad corporation" anymore.
It was a cunning, calculated move, and I wonder how long it will take people to realize this. Everything Adobe wanted has been accomplished. They win. Sklyarov and everyone else loses.
Adobe, if they are serious and not on a PR bender, should hire an attorney for Dimitry. They wrongfully had him put in jail. The least they can do is pay the cost to get him out.
I can think of at least two valid reasons to break the encryption:
- I have a blind friend who owns a speech synthesis card. Getting the "book" out of encrypted format would allow him to use other tools to extract the text and have the machine read it aloud for him.
- All that goes under "fair use", like copying a few lines for a quotation, making personal backup copies, and doing word frequency analysis and other studies.
In Murphy We Turst
It has come to my attention that you asked the FBI to arrest Dmitri Sklyarov on grounds of delivering a speech at an academic conference. You may now have retracted the original request for practical reasons, but you still seem to be supporting the laws that made such act possible. This I find to be morally and ethically wrong.
Therefore I state that I will not purchase a single Adobe product, and that I will advice all my customers, friends, and family to do likewise until all of the following have come to pass:
a) Dmitri Sklyarov is free, and has received a reasonable compensation for the time he has been imprisoned,
b) You have publicly denounced your support for the laws that made this farce possible,
c) You have taken some concrete and effective steps to free Sklyarov and to repel the unjust laws that were used for his imprisonment.
Yours sincerely etc
I hope some native speaker of American English will correct the inevitable typos and grammatical errors, and that others may find this a useful template for a letter. If not, post good reasons why, and come up with a better letter...
In Murphy We Turst
Yup, absolutely. I saw two news broadcasts on Monday covering it here in San Francisco. One around 4 or 5 pm, while I was lifting weights, and another around 11, because after seeing snippets in the weight room, I wanted to see how they were covering it. All in all, I thought it was pretty fair. They did play up the "hacking" aspect of it with their language, but the statements they took from people (mainly protesters and the EFF) were all positive and articulate.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I hope this continues to court. I hope it continues to get attention. I hope the jury nullifies it, and if they don't that we all rally together and do whatever we can to get this situation fixed. As someone else said, all Rosa Parks did was sit down. Well gentleman (and ladies), now we have someone to rally behind. Someone who hasn't just been threaten, but has been taken into custody. Let's get together and fight this unjust law.
To that end, protests will help. It seems like those are being organized. Programmer unions might not hurt to make our voices heard. For those of us in that stats, what about letters to our senators and representatives?
We need to do all we can. If there ever was a cause that I could rally behind it is this one. Let's all stop talking and whining and actually do something.
Is anyone organizing anything but these protests? Is anyone getting us together as a nation and a world organized? We have someone to rally behind. We have the spirit. We need a leader. Who will step up for us - for this cause? Who will represent us? Who will help us get organized so that we all start acting instead of talking?
I didn't know that the DMCA counted as that sort of crime.
I hope some native speaker of American English will correct the inevitable typos and grammatical errors
That should be "advise", not "advice". The former is a verb; the latter a noun.
IIRC, a comma is only used in an "and" clause if the subject is restated. So no comma is necessary here.
As someone else said, that should be "repeal".
That's all I see. Better than most native speakers, as someone else pointed out.
Protesting? As in, standing around with a bunch of placards and signs? I thought that went out of fashion with the break-up of Sonny and Cher.
.gov domains. In fact, re-route it to the MPAA, RIAA and anyone else who has a stake in the DMCA.
How...archaic.
Seriously, you want to make people sit up and take notice? Co-ordinate an "internet" black-out. Just change the routing tables on those pricy Cisco routers for a few days, particularly ones pointing to-and-from
That should get some media attention. To increase the likelyhood of media attention, just re-route all traffic from the NY Times, Washinton Post, CNN, ABC, and LMNOP Inc. That should make p = 1.0 of media exposure.
Week are geeks. Hear us roar. But expect some serious lagtime on that ping. And email? Talk to the hand....
Worried about being laid-off? It's happening to all propeller heads nowadays, so don't fret too much. There's plenty of company at the bottom.
The last "protests" in many locations only had around ten people there. This was due in part to the confusion over the cancelation, then un-cancelation. Hopefully this time we can make a strong showing in every city with a protest.
If you show up at a protest, make sure you have plenty of information about the DMCA that most people will understand. Most people can understand that someone is wrongly imprisoned, but they need to know why. They need to know that there are laws being passed that restrict their freedom. They need to understand that this isn't going to be the only time someone is imprisoned for violating the DMCA. If nobody feels a threat to their freedom, they won't care.
"Although it's wonderful that there are some of us who do give a damn, it's disheartening that we have such an asnine law to begin with."
I thought so too, at first. But this is just the behavior of the American system -- things break, but they are fixed. That's why Jefferson said, "Eternal vigiliance is the price of freedom." (That quote may not be exactly right.) The system isn't designed never to break; it's designed so that when it does break, it can be fixed. But people have to care to fix it! If we ever stop caring, if we all throw up our arms saying, "The world's going to hell in a handbasket," that's the day our freedom and power will truly decay.
So don't be disheartened by the rattling sound coming from the engine...democracy requires constant maintenance to run smoothly.
I actually find it quite comforting. China arrests academics, and who comes to their aid? Americans, through diplomatic action and grass-roots outrage. A Russian gets arrested by a bad American law, and who comes to his aid? Americans, through a multitude of organizations (bug especially the EFF). Where is the Russian government in all this? Where were the Chinese protests of those arrests?
America has its bad laws just like any other place, but at least there are people who still give a damn. And as long as that's true, and as long as we aren't silenced, there's hope.
Here's to giving a damn.
"Nothing has changed since 1998 that would lead members of Congress to upset the careful balance that was struck," says Bob Holleyman, head of the Business Software Alliance.
>What is this guy smoking? "Careful balance"? The whole problem with this law is that there's no balance at all!
>It's completely one-sided, giving copyright holders dictatorial power over consumers.
BIG_BUSINESSSounds like a good balance to us!/BIG_BUSINESS
That still doesn't compare to Rosa Parks. Now, for example, when some parent gets fined $2500 for reading aloud a passage from the e-book of Alice in Wonderland to her 4 year old daugther, THEN we will have a comparable case.
The DMCA is evil, but it will take a story much more convincing to the average American that his very freedoms are under attack than a case involving a Russian "hacker". Considering the prejudice against both Russians and "hackers", he may not garner much sympathy from the non-clueful masses.
By then, the oppression will be very strong, unfortunately.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
We need a protest here in Las Vegas. He was arrested here, for speaking at a security conference (DefCon) here, and is being held here. The FBI has a field office here in Las Vegas too.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Quoted from HR 2281, DMCA, Oct. 20, 1998, Section 1201, Paragraph 5, sub-paragraph f:
`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title. This pretty much says that if a person buys a protected work (ie, eBook) they have the right to reverse engineer the protection for the purpose of interoperability. Seems to me that translating from eBook to PDF is "...interoperability of an independently created computer program..."
DISCLAIMER: IANAL
DMCA quotes taken from: EFF Website
--Stupid Sig Here--
I am not sure I agree here. If you travel to a foreign country you should be bound by their laws, not ours. Using the same resoning, if a native of the Netherlands comes here and picks up a prostitue then there should be no charges brought against him -- prostitution is legal in his homeland.
All that being said, the DMCA is horribly flawed and should be removed from the books.
Maybe I just misfire on all the same cylinders as the editors, but I don't think I've ever had a day where more than one story made me think "What is that doing on slashdot?" The selections are eclective and the thread connecting them is sometimes tenuous, almost ineffable... but it's still there.
I guess I'm just one of those (few? silent?) people who think that, by and large, slashdot works.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Fact: The DMCA does not specify, grant, or recognize any time limitation on the validity of the access-control mechanisms. That is, there is no given time after which it becomes legal to circumvent the mechanism.
Fact: For now, at least, copyright does expire (if only in 120 years or whatever) and hence, works will pass into public domain. In fact, DMCA could be used to protect works copyrighted long ago as long as the mechanism is true. Therefore, at some point (perhaps soon), public domain works will be locked behind proprietary access-control mechanisms.
Implication: By wrapping content in access-control mechanisms, a content provider can charge access fees and so control the distribution, even of a public domain work, essentially forever.
Fact: "Forever" cannot be properly encompassed within the term "limited Times".
Conclusion: The DMCA is unconstitutional.
Valid? Through some crime of happenstance, I don't happen to sit on the Supreme Court, so I can't say so definitively. Is there enough there as to question the constitutionality of the DMCA? You bet.
PS: I really don't give a hairy fig if "any average IP holding millionaire" woulkd hate to be like me. I don't measure my self-worth in dollars. There exists value other than economic value.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
- Title I is called the "WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act of 1998"?
- Title II is called the "Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act"?
- Title III "creates an exemption for making a copy of a computer program
by activating a computer for purposes of maintenance or repair", according to the report and summary of the Office of Copyright in the Library of Congress?
- "Title IV contains six miscellaneous provisions, relating to the
functions of the Copyright Office, distance education, the exceptions
in the Copyright Act for libraries and for making ephemeral recordings,
"webcasting" of sound recordings on the Internet, and the applicability
of collective bargaining agreement obligations in the case of transfers
of rights in motion pictures."? (same source)
Oh, by the way, the DMCA accomplishes its nefarious purposes by amending Title 17 of the United States Code. And amazingly enough, that title is called "Title 17: Copyrights".Do you really think any competent, impartial judge is going to buy an argument that the DMCA is not a copyright law and therefore authorized by the Copyright Clause?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I guess what I'm saying is, don't throw around the justifiably serious charge of treason just because people disagree with you. Yes, the DMCA is a bad law. Yes, its passage was a classic snapshot of all that is ailing the legislative process in America these days. Yes, the reps and senators who wrote it, voted for it, and are still supporting it probably were swayed by the gobs of money thrown at them by the networks, the content providers, and the software issues. Yes, it sacrifices time-honored proctections of the public for the narrow self-interest of some corporations.
For these reason -- as well as the basic affront to the Constitution that it is -- the law is bad and should be amended, repealed, or overturned. For these reasons, its supporters are misguided at best and quite possibly cynically manipulative.
But they are not traitors. Do not so quickly cut people off from the body politic based on a difference of opinion. Do what we can do: Call your rep. Write your local TV station. Run for office.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The right way to fight this is on constitutional grounds, as the Constitution is a law... the supreme law of the land.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I don't exactly know, but I'm 100% sure that Bruce Willis or Steven Segal would star in the movie version.
D
Mad Scientists with too much time on thier hands
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
I don't believe he was arrested because of writing the code or being in the company, etc. BUT he was arrested because he gave a talk on how to circumvent the encryption *while he was in the US*.
I believe the US government was more then willing to completely ignore the matter (happens all the time, getting a warning instead of a speeding ticket), but Adobe called up their lawyers and basically required the government to act on a law that's on the books (could you imagine the lawsuits over law enforcement refusing to enforce a law on the books). Once he was arrested a chain of events occurs (and from what I can tell he technically *did* break the law while in the US), which doesn't really give any shortcuts out; one pretty much has to follow the court process till the end. When one is arrested the government is commited to due process, which Adobe forced them to do.
Sklyarov from all accounts *did* break a law (whoops on him), it is a law full of loop holes that are being used for unintended purposes (shame on Clinton & congress), and Adobe is using the US government to run ruckshaw over a foreigner, and twist the law to things that the original drafter hadn't really intended it's use for (context wise)... shame shame on Adobe. Of course now Adobe wants to hide it under the run and act like they never meant for this to happen when it was them in the first place.
On a side note, I tend to agree with how the once you are arrested method currently works, other than it can be painfully slow; but once someone is arrested there is no turning back, so the arresting officer needs to make *damn* sure that something did occur, elsewise be expecting that "unlawful arrest" lawsuit to be coming over the fence. If they could just arrest and release people as they wish without any checks and ballances with no end trial, imagine the amount of abuse that would occur.
The heat should not leave Adobe's feet on this one, Adobe's fault should not be forgotten (and sadly it almost seems their PR dept has gotten if forgotten), since it is their fault that they twisted the law in this manner.
Previously, I'd thought that the DMCA might only be stopped by years of protests supported by the wide masses, and possibly with a revolutionary mood (a la 60s). However it does not have to be that way.
I believe that localized law (and just a bit of activist) action may cause the trial to go up all the way to the High Court, where DMCA could be overthrown. That way we could evade the really harsh consequences of the DMCA.
Of course, using such approach we take the risk that one of the courts will be bribed sufficiently to deny his appeal. Also, the public won't have the chance to develop a comprehensive attitude towards IP. However DMCA is such a major obstacle, that it's better to be removed as soon as possible. Skylarov's arrest is only the first word in the preface of a tragedy which could happen if DMCA stays.
Remember, the ACLU runs on donations. The ACLU gets huge amounts of money from Hollywood and other big media types. It's not that surprising, since the ACLU is known for defending free speech rights.
But it's times like this that you can see the payback. The ACLU likes to portray itself as non-partisan and independent, but it's an incredibly political organization.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm not the biggest fan of the ACLU, but I am surprised that they haven't weighed in on this.
On the other hand, the cynical side of me is not surprised, saying, "of course they haven't weighed in -- they've been in the back pockets of big media for years".
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
From the Wired article:
"Nothing has changed since 1998 that would lead members of Congress to upset the careful balance that was struck," says Bob Holleyman, head of the Business Software Alliance.
What is this guy smoking? "Careful balance"? The whole problem with this law is that there's no balance at all! It's completely one-sided, giving copyright holders dictatorial power over consumers.
Well I tried to write to Mdam Seantor, but it appears that her web site(ugh Webmail) doesn't accept well thoughtout, carefully considered letters. I had to shorten my responses to something that probably didn't truely get the point across, due to the limited space available for a response.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
This is exactly why, cases like his, and Felton's need to go to court, and need to have excellent lawers presenting them. The only way to get a bad law struck down is to go to court and prove its a bad law these days. Once Congress has pocketed the $$$ they are not gonna do a damn thing to reverse the assine law that they wrote, no matter how much we complain, and protest. Politicians don't listen to the people that elect them at all anymore. I write letter after letter to my congresspersons(as well as many others) I never get a reply so much as yes we got your letter. I know the govenment was setup is this representative system for a reason, it seems to me that if our reps are not voting in congress the way we the citizens feel, then there is something wrong with the system. The real fact is that our tiny voice is lost in the vast expanse, of those who don't know, don't care, are too stupid to care, or have to much cash with which to enforce thier opinion. I want campain finance reform that says Politician's must run on their own money and taking money/goods/services from anyone else is a Bribe pure and simple.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
As long as the public sees this as "a bunch of hackers" or "hippie anarchists" running around demanding the release of foreign national accused of committing a felony, nobody will take it seriously.
What we need is to have some establishment companies themselves coming out publicly against this as an abuse of the law they lobbied to pass, in the same way that the civil rights movement only gained popularity when a significant number of whites stood up and said these Jim Crow laws were wrong. Adobe has already recanted on their desire to prosecute Dmitri, if they went one step further and condemned the FBI action as overstepping the DMCA, it would make more people sympathetic to the cause.
No, I don't know how to do this.
czep
Dictionaries are for loosers.
Ok, I've got an idea that's not as illegal as what he was suggesting, but should get more attention than a tiny blue ribbon on the side of one page of my homepage.
My personal website gets 10 unique visitors a day, because I have some modestly interesting stuff there. I propose tearing my entire site down, and replacing it with a main page and a 404 page that is all black, with just the blue ribbon at the top, and a headline saying "these pages will remain unavailable until we are free again", plus one of those 3 paragraph explanations of the issue and Dimitry, plus links to all the relevant sites.
That's 10 people a day that'll get to hear about the issue. That's 300 people a month. (Until google re-visits my site, and the hits stop coming in. Guess I should set up some software that redirects Google to the 'normal' pages :)
I've got a question.
If this law so clearly violates our "Fair Use" rights, why won't it be simple to get it declared invalid and struck down?
And how many different Constitutional approaches are there to having this declared unconstitutional?
Personally I was supprised at the EFF's approach to some of it's previous cases, focusing so much on "code is speech", and ignoring the "it's necessary to excercise fair use" approach.
I guess "fair use" isn't a direct constitutional right. Also I'm too close to the issue. I can't see why anyone could NOT find something wrong with these laws and rule against them.
Get me on that jury!!
That said, why should the government drop the charges? It is the job of the Attorney General to enforce the law, not to make law. If the law is bad, change the law. We should be complaining/protesting/recalling to the Congress that voted for the DMCA instead. Let them tell the Attorney General to back off.
They can all be used to open shrink-wrap, which is intended to keep people from copying DVDs, CDs, Software, and other Intellectual Property. Knives, Keys, Scissors, and other metallic, plastic, or wooden sharp objects are circumvention devices, and need to be removed from our society.
Think of the children!!!
Information wants Coq
If the mobs never rise up, the Courts can safely ignore the will of the people. Courts are a buffer to slow down the social change demanded by the people, for better or for ill, but it's wrong to think that the mob is not a check on their power, it's just not officially enshrined in the law.
I think you view the law as real in and of itself, when it's really just a system for managing power relationships and politics.
Bryon
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Here's a reality check for you. This guy is in JAIL. In a foreign country. He came here, as a graduate student, to give a talk at a conference, and he's been arrested and jailed and so far as we know unable to contact his family.
The reality check is that your distinction doesn't matter- the fact that they are aware of the situation and *have not yet dropped* the charges is sufficient cause for alarm.
Bryon
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
this internet was not made for you. and you got burned. now go away and let us get back to what we were doing, whaddya say?
i could live a little longer in this prison
Now, thought the Justice Department and the FBI may insist on trying Sklyarov here in the US, unless he was selling the cracking software or sharing the source code, he'll get off scotch free. Since he was just talking about the details of Adobe security technology, there's hardly anything to get excited about, right?
Go ahead, mod me straight to -1 for my unpopular opinion- the groupthink around here is thick enough to carve with a knife. But the reality is, this is going to end in an utterly anticlimactic way, and the only effect of the EFF and all of you 'activist citizens' will be prolonging Sklyarov's harrassment. Obviously the officials are treading lightly out of fear of a public outcry. If you all would just let this die down, it would be over in a heartbeat!
I sent this email to programmers I know in the SF bay area:
Hello fellow bay-area programmers/technologists,
I'm thinking of attending the Free Sklyarov protest on Monday in SF. This is an important moment in our nation's history to defend Free Speech and fair use rights. Check out the links below for more info.
Slashdot article: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/27/183821 2&mode=nested
Flyer that sums it all up: http://www.tabinda.com/freedmitry/free_dmitry_flye r_20010726.html
Info about the rally: http://www.mycgiserver.com/~byoungvt/meeting.html
If you have a website, join the EFF blue ribbon campaign: http://www.eff.org/br/
Note: I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone with this political e-mail, but I feel *very* strongly about this and all programmers should consider the DMCA and its ramifications on their and everyone's free speech rights.
Best regards,
Steve
P.S. Please feel free to forward this to any programmers you know in the SF bay area.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
We need to keep the pressure on Adobe. We need to let them know that the boycott will continue. We need to let them know that they cannot pressure the FBI to press charges against someone and then back-off when they witness the PR fallout. Keep writing the letters. Keep sending the emails. Keep encouraging people to boycott this company!
If corporations do not understand that there will serious consequences to both their reputation and bottom-line when they pursue prosecution under the DMCA (regardless of how they feel the morning after!), then they will continue to do so under the flimsiest pretenses.
They want to make an example of Dmitry? Fine, then we'll make an example of Adobe.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
I'm not suggesting we punish companies out of vindictiveness - I'm suggesting that we make it clear to corporations that they need to choose their battles carefully. Corporations can ruin people's lives by following Adobe's example - and allowing them to do so in ambiguous cases like Dmitry's is something we cannot do.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Dear Honorable Representative Charlie A. Gonzales,
..) Adobe, Inc. ordered the FBI^h^h^h SS to imprison Dmitry Sklyarov,
a Russian programmer and father of two young children, because he gave
a speech that described the flaws in Adobe's encryption process used in
one of its products. An act no different from Ralph Nader describing the
flaws in Firestone's tires. An act not only legal but required in his own
country so that Russian citizens can exercise their fair-use rights under
Russian copyright law and so that Adobe could thus legally sell its product
there. An act of speech. Free speech, that once was protected under the
First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. But
not free anymore. He remains in jail as I write this, having been denied
not just bail but unconstitutionally denied a bail hearing. He has been
charged with felony criminal violation of the DMCA, a law bought and paid
for by Monied Interests to protect their intellectual property by violating
the First Amendment of our Constitution. Leaders in Congress are now saying
that this is just what they expected of the DMCA and are applauding his arrest!!!
Like the Pentagon Papers this sticks in my craw and turns the screw in ways
that constitute Cruel and Unusual Punishment. This is evidence on its face
that many of your Dishonorable Colleagues are of such nonexistent morality
as to have re-election funding as their one and only desire and motivation
(to hell with the Constitution) that makes Clinton^h^h^h Nixon^h^h^h Hitler^h^h^h
Satan look like the Second Coming of Jesus H. Christ Himself. It is they
who should be in jail right now, not Sklyarov!!! And we complain when China
detains our citizens!!! Boys and Girls, can you say, HYPOCRISY? Can you say
Pot? Kettle? Black? I thought you could!!! Too bad your Sold-Out Dishonorable
Colleagues in Congress can't. And they won't care either because the sheeple
who voted them into office will never hear about the DMCA or Sklyarov because
the Monied Interests who bought the DMCA and who had Sklyarov illegally jailed
will make sure they'll never hear about it on TV or in the newspapers or
they'll slant the news to make it look like it's the DMCA that's good and
it's the Big Bad Evil Hackers who are Just Getting What They Deserve.
I would have written to you about this matter earlier but I've felt a sense of powerlessness that I'm sure most ordinary working Americans share; that possessing only a voice no longer has any meaning to an institution that has become an Ebay where laws are written and sold to the highest bidder.
This sense of powerlessness is in my belief the greatest single threat to our National Security. That the self-evidence of this is completely lost on our nations conscience and government is just more proof of how far we as a people have lost our ability to govern ourselves to the Monied Insterests. Timothy McVeigh took lives and gave his own life just as the Minutemen who won our nation's independence from England; his belief in the principles which founded this nation and his sense of powerlessness to fight our current government's lack of respect for its own Constitution by speaking up drove him to fight in the only way he knew how and to have the courage to stand up for his truly American beliefs all the way to his last breath before his state-sanctioned murder, without remorse. As long as the Monied Interests continue to buy laws that violate our Constitution this threat to our National Security will remain. No missile defense, no amount of spending on our military and police can protect us from the next Timothy McVeigh. The Timothy McVeighs that our sold-out government will continue to breed through their disrespect for our Constitution will continue to blow up buildings and kill innocent women and children or infect and kill with biological agents everyone in a large city or two (maybe even Washington, D.C.) on the ever-increasing number of anniversaries of FBI^h^h^h SS misdeeds until Congress returns to respecting the very Constitution from which it derives its sole legitimacy. When the next McVeigh strikes I'll just smile and say to myself "I told you so," knowing just whose hands really bear the blood. It's like Thomas Jefferson said: "The Tree of Liberty must, from time to time, be watered with the blood of patriots." And while I'll deeply admire and respect the McVeighs' belief in our Constitution I'll deplore their actions because it will give our sold-out government another "excuse" to further repress our freedoms and trample our Constitution. Lest you get the wrong idea I'm not a terrorist who would ever commit an act of violence. The terrorists that I view as role models are Gandhi and Martin Luther King - terrorists who created terror in the hearts of the Establishments of their times through non-violent means. I am a terrorist who would dare speak up against the Monied Interests that have purchased our government; a terrorist who's act of terrorism is to write to their representative as I am doing now and risk imprisonment by Big Brother for unapproved thoughts (thought-crimes) that might cost the Monied Interests a penny or two of their soon to be constitutionally guaranteed profits. Yes, you read that right, Rep. Gonzalez, I'm so disillusioned that I'm equating the act of writing my Representative in the House of Representatives of the United States of America with an act of terrorism. It seems that the Monied Interests and their bought-and-paid-for government already believe that their profits are a constitutionally granted right - that competition and survival in the marketplace and responsibility to society at large are obsolete - so they might not get around to fixing such a mere technicality.
Having said that, I'm writing you this letter to protest the FBI's^h^h^h^h^h SS's latest Ruby Ridge, their latest Waco. On July 16, 2001 (A Date That Will
I would also like you to know that I found the courage and fortitude today to kick a habit more addictive than Crack Cocaine, a habit more "American" than reruns of "Little House On The Prairie." To protest the DMCA, I called AOL Time Warner and canceled the cable television service that I was paying $70 a month for. I told them why. Not that they even bothered to ask. I kept my broadband internet service because even though it comes from a Monopoly it's the only way I can keep myself informed about what is really happening on our planet but if the Monied Interests And The Congress It Bought And Paid For has its way the Internet will become just as relevant here as it is now in China. Then I'll have to cancel my Internet service, and then I don't know what I'll do, maybe quit the computer profession that our nation is now as dependent on for its economic survival as a newborn baby human is on its mother and drink vodka all day to drown my sadness and misery at what the once great United States of America has become thanks to the Monied Interests and the Government They Bought And Paid For.
I've also considered renouncing my American citizenship and moving to another country, but where to? Within the dictatorship of the multinationals who buy not just the laws of nations but the treaties between them as well, no land will be safe for freedom. We may as well all live in one big Afghanistan.
I need to digress here and say one thing. Although campaign finance reform may be what's needed to get the Monied Interests out of bed with our government I have to say that passing campaign finance reform legislation that violates the First Amendment is no better than the DMCA. We need to carefully consider a Constitutional Amendment to fix the problem. Why can't the Congressmen who are so anxious to get a constitutional amendment to punish those who burn the flag consider a constitutional amendment to return the government to the people? Answer: their bought and paid for. They have to be to get the sheeple to elect them. The United States of America is (expletive deleted).
So please, Rep. Gonzalez, Save Freedom. Save us from those who want to "Round Up The Terrorists Who Warp Our Childrens' Minds By Saying On The "Evil" Internet That It Is OK To Burn Our Flag, Write Software That Competes With Microsoft And Give It Away For Free, Own Guns, Worship Allah, Read Playboy, Have An Abortion, Play Video Games, Etc. Etc. And Subject Them To Cruel And Unusual Punishment And Then Execute Them And Let The Sheeple Watch It On Pay-Per-View So That The Conservative Media (The Monied Interests have convinced the sheeple that it's the "Liberal Media", a "Hitler Big Lie" if there ever was one) Can Fund Your Dishonorable Colleagues' Re-Election." De-Motivate The Next Timothy McVeigh. Defend Us From Monied Interests Who Have Paid Congress To Trample Our Constitution To Protect Their Profits And Further Widen The Already Enormous Gap Between Rich And Poor. And, Please, Rep. Gonzalez, FREE SKLYAROV. REPEAL THE DMCA. YES, I KNOW THAT WE ARE REQUIRED BY THE WIPO TREATY THAT WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY MONIED INTERESTS TO IMPLEMENT THE DMCA BUT IF WE CAN IGNORE THE ABM TREATY AND BUILD A MISSILE DEFENSE^h^h^h MAGINOT LINE WE CAN IGNORE WIPO AND REPEAL THE DMCA. ALSO, OPPOSE THE NOMINATION OF ROBERT S. MUELLER, III, - THE NAZI GAS CHAMBER OPERATOR WHO FOLLOWED ADOBE'S ORDERS AND INSTRUCTED HIS MINIONS TO ARREST DMITRY SKLYAROV - TO BE HEAD OF THE FBI^h^h^h SS. Stand Up For The People. Stand Up And Defend Our Constitution. Do It For Your Constituents. Do It For The United States of America. Do It Because You Know It's The Right Thing To Do. Do It For Our Children.
Now, here's a much more coolheaded letter that someone else who calls himself "bsdbigot" (an afficianado of the BSD computer operating system, no doubt) on www.slashdot.org wrote that I've "cut and pasted", an act which will soon be illegal if the Monied Interests continue to have their way with our Government. I'm way too bitter to write as he has so I have no choice but to use (or as the Monied Interests say, "pirate") his words:
"I am writing to you to voice my concern with the legality of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (forthwith DMCA), signed into law Oct. 28, 1998 as Public Law 105-304. I do believe that the government has a responsibility to aid in the protection of copyrighted materials. However, the government, first and foremost, is responsible for ensuring that citizens retain their rights.
The DMCA serves only as a monetary protection to the corporations publishing digital materials. It does not address "fair use" by law-abiding citizens, which is a cornerstone of copyright law. More importantly, enforcement of the DMCA deliberately restricts freedom afforded in Amendment I of the United States Constitution. Corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders and investors. One side effect of the DMCA is that poorly engineered software - something that should be a liability to a corporation - is effectively certified as saleable by the government. Imagine, as a parallel, walking into a grocery store to purchase a steak for dinner. Imagine that all the beef for sale was in a pile on the floor, unwrapped, not refrigerated, next to the store's loading dock and garbage chute. If the DMCA applied to this hypothetical situation, it would prevent you from telling anyone about the unsanitary conditions in which the beef was purchased. That is an affront to the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech." If the DMCA applied in this situation, you could only cook the meat exactly as the store instructs you, not because the DMCA says that you must use only the store's recipe, but because the DMCA prohibits development and dissemination of the technology required to make fair use of the meat. If the store's recipe called for pan-frying the steak, charcoal grills would be illegal circumvention devices.
This analogy describes what has occurred concerning the encryption system used by the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) movie industry. The encryption was found to be faulty and not worthy of protecting billions of dollars of copyrighted material. Whether or not the intent was to slander the grocery store, to steal the bad meat from the grocery store, or to protect people from eating bad meat, DeCSS was released. DeCSS showed the world that the grocery store is not able to protect its meat from going bad. Under the DMCA, DeCSS is unlawful. Under previous copyright law, DeCSS is lawful - it provides a method for you to eat steak tartar, steak and lobster, filet mignon, or charbroiled porterhouse. Like the FDA and various Departments of Health, previous copyright law already prohibits you from reselling your meat in a manner that is dangerous to public health. In its current form, the DMCA does no service to either the shareholders and investors of the grocery store, or to the citizens who shop there. The DMCA only protects the store's secret about how the meat is handled and ensures that the consumer will use the store's recipe for preparing the meat.
A report this week by Scott Hettrick of Variety indicates that approximately 20% of all television-owning households now has a DVD player. The report also says that 460 million DVD movies have been sold since 1997, when the format was first publicly available. In fiscal years 1997 and 1998, Warner Home Video's gross sales of DVD movies were $50 million and $170 million, respectively. If you figure an average consumer cost of $20.00 (US) for a single DVD movie, you have a multi-billion dollar industry, which is supported by an optimistic ten percent of the US population. Ten billion dollars have been spent on DVD movies in only 3 years! And, the growth rate is phenomenal - 200% to 250% per year. These facts should make it clear that any piracy that might occur without the DMCA would be, from a fiscal standpoint, irrelevant. Let us not forget that criminals are criminals - they have no respect for the law. The DMCA is supposed to protect against piracy, but I would argue that piracy will continue with or without the DMCA, and piracy can be prosecuted under existing copyright law. In this light, the DMCA - already a bad law - is also extraneous.
DeCSS is not the only challenger to the DMCA - I use it in my example because it has been high profile in the last year. Last week saw the arrest of Russian Dmitry Sklyarov in a case that is sure to put DMCA to the test. His company (based in Russia) sells a product that takes advantage of poor encryption on Adobe eBook data. This product gives consumers back their fair use rights, but it has been labeled a circumvention device under the terms of the DMCA. This is a sad misnomer - neither DeCSS nor this other product circumvents any protection device. They use an alternate or similar algorithm to decrypt the copyrighted data within. The only thing being circumvented in either case is the manufacturer's intended use (the store's recipe). In fact, in the case of DeCSS, significant advances have been made in the speed and reliability of the decryption - a fact that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) would prefer to hide from consumers. So, here we see another adverse affect of the DMCA: the market for complimentary products is being stifled. Of course, this latest case is also an "international incident," which can only serve to add stress to already strained relations between the United States and Russia. As a result of the DMCA and Sklyarov's arrest, various groups and individuals have initiated a boycott of all Adobe products and a boycott against all international conferences held in the United States. The DMCA is actually hurting a large corporation - the free market is starting to reject corporations that support the DMCA.
There are other challenges to the DMCA in the making. Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) and Digital Music Access Technology (DMAT) are two multi-corporation technologies that threaten to eliminate fair use. There are initiatives to provide alternatives to these corporate strategies, but reality says that the money that the large corporations can invest in saturating the market with these new technologies will prohibit people from trying to find an alternative.
I do not advocate piracy or plagiarism, and I understand that those practices are exactly what the DMCA is supposed to prevent. The DMCA is good for preventing these practices, but it reaches that goal at the expense of citizens? rights. This is truly a new genre of legislation, and it is asinine to assume that the DMCA is the answer to all questions that arise, or to assume that previous copyright legislation is sufficient. There has to be a happy medium, and I?m convinced that it has yet to be found. Whatever the middle ground is, it needs to be beneficial to both corporations and consumers.
I am pro-business. America continues to remain the most significant world power largely because of the corporations that support our economy and our government, and I have no wish to detract from our success and continued position on top of the world. The government, however, has no business protecting business from consumers. Inherent to a free market economy is the ability of the consumer to choose. The DMCA prevents choices. The government should limit its involvement in the free market to protecting consumers from business and preventing attempts to undermine our economy. I ask that you take my position under advisement and do what can be done to repeal the DMCA."
Sincerely,
Blind_RMS_Groupie
P.S. Yes, I'm aware that you're not on the committee that according to House procedure has the sole power to repeal the DMCA. But you could read my letter into the Record. If you do that, please let me know when so I can go to a friends house and tape it off of CSPAN, assuming of course that Congress hasn't sold the copyrights to its own deliberations to Microsoft AOL Time Warner Disney GE Bertelsmann Sony, Inc. (MSAOLTWDGEBS on the NYNASDAQSE) and that it is still legal for me to do so. OH, WAIT, ON SECOND THOUGHT, PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!!! PLEASE, KEEP THIS LETTER A SECRET!!! IF MSAOLTWDGEBS, INC. FINDS OUT ABOUT IT THEY'LL ORDER THE FBI^h^h^h SS TO COME AND BREAK INTO MY HOUSE, STEAL MY HOUSE AND BELONGINGS AND AUCTION THEM OFF AND POCKET THE PROCEEDS, ARREST ME AND THROW ME INTO A PRISON, OWNED AND OPERATED FOR PROFIT BY MSAOLTWDGEBS, INC., WHERE THE GUARDS CAN WATCH AND LAUGH AS BUBBA POUNDS ME UP THE RECTUM UNTIL I DIE FROM INTERNAL BLEEDING.
P.P.S. I'm unenployed right now, which explains why I have the time to write this letter. Since I can no longer in clear conscience have anything to do with Microsoft or Adobe or their products I might have to flip burgers to support myself when my savings run out. Fortunately, with my living expenses being as low as they are, I can support myself that way.
cc: POTUS (vice-president@whitehouse.gov)
cc: w (president@whitehouse.gov)
cc: President Putin (president@gov.ru)
cc: automated constituent opinion talley system (Phil_Gramm@gramm.senate.gov)
cc: automated constituent opinion talley system (senator@hutchison.senate.gov)
I'm gonna be trolled for this, but...
Let's remember something: we may not agree with the DMCA, but it's the law. It's the prosecution's job to bring law breakers in front of the court. It's exclusively the job of the court to interpret the laws and also to determine if they are unconstitutional. So while the law is obviously unconstitutional (obviously to us, anyway), Sklyarov is going to be treated as a suspected criminal. It can't properly end until a court declares the law is in violation of the consitution and the law is revoked.
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Developers: We can use your help.
Incorrect. He broke a law on US soil. He's being held for disseminating information on how to circumvent a copy control mechanism. That's probably why he was arrested after his presentation and not before. He's not under arrest for cracking the encryption. He is not being prosecuted as a representative of his company, but as an individual speaking in public on the methods of the decryption. Check out the DMCA... you now aren't allowed to speak about methods of circumventing encryption of copywritten material.
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Developers: We can use your help.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I can't imagine the kind of outrage the American Congress would be expressing if an American programmer was being held in jail inside of Russia for a law which does not exist in America. I would think that the American politicians would at least recognize the horribly arrogant nature of something like this going on. Worse, what would Bush do if it were an American held by China? The DMCA pushing the agendas of Big Business is a small issue in my eyes when compared to the dangers this case presents on a more global level. America already has a bad enough rep. in most foreign nations, this only pushes it even further.
Free Skylarov?
/. uses two spellings of his name in the very same post!
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The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
After a little digging, it appears that it passed the House by a voice vote (no record) and passed the Senate by unanimous consent (no one said "no", but someone might not have voted). The house sub committee that approved it voted to recommend it to the full House with a vote of 41-0.
:(
Looks like it swept through without too much a fight
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
I got off my butt and wrote all three of my elected representative on Wednesday asking then to "repeal or amend" the DMCA. I highly recommend killing a tree and writing them a letter, as email is not treated as well in most circles. Send a letter to Washington instead of preaching to the choir...convince the people that can make the DMCA go away!
f m
/. crowd) and start complaining to the people that can (politicians).
To find out who your Representative is, see: http://www.house.gov/writerep/
To find out who your two Senators are, see: http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.c
Remember to be polite and clear but firm. Tell them why the DMCA is bad and how it upsets the balance between fair use and copyright holders. Make sure to spell and grammar check it (it won't be effective if it is full of grammatical errors) and make sure it is not inflammatory or threatening.
Lastly, donate a buck to the EFF. They are the ones that will help you speak louder then you can by yourself.
Do your civic duty. Stop complaining to all the people that can't help you (the
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Cue "Dear Kindly Sargeant Krupke"...
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
The problem is with legislators who either don't have a clue about the implications of what they are legislating or who love campaign contributions from cash-flush media companies. The problem is, in short, with people like Senator Feinstein. Protest in front of your legislator's office: they are the ones who created this mess, and they are the only ones who can fix it. We can't keep looking to the courts to throw out badly written laws.
I can't believe that those people are content seeing this unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail (copyright Bob Dylan) We should be taking names and then doing what we can come election time to bring havoc to their websites.
Not that I condone that kind of thing...
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
Then what will 'we' do?
Fighting the DMCA will require more stick than carrot. By using the stick on Adobe, a signal is sent to other companies. If you try to use DMCA against the people, it will cost you a lot of money and good will. If the boycott is called off the day after it started, the message is: "Milk DMCA for all that it's worth. It won't cost you a penny". For that reason, a boycott of Adobe should be intensified.
If we punish adobe enough, they might even find it in their interest to lobby against the DMCA. That's what moves DC lawmakers: lobbyists and money. They don't care squat about protesters. The protesters are political deviants as far as DC and the grey masses is conserned..
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
-all dead homiez