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The Internet Under Siege
Gorgonzola writes: "Lawrence Lessig has written an accessible article in Foreign Policy on the threats to freedom on the internet, including the threat the DMCA poses to open and free software. Nothing new to Slashdot regulars, but good to see something appear in an influential magazine like Foreign Policy. An article mentioning the Sklyarov case like this one does, is going to draw a lot more attention from policymakers to the problems the DMCA and other legal troubles are posing to online freedom than your average rant on a board like this, how well reasoned it may be."
"Lawrence Lessig has written an accessible article in Foreign Policy..."
/. effect seldom misses.
Give it time.
the only effect is that it generates a huge underground that replaces what the laws take away. and forces people to become criminals. (Prohabition in the 20's)
The only use for any information control laws is to make a very few filthy rich at the expense of the general populace.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What is the current status of the Skylarov case? Is there a website regularly posting updates about it? Did he return to the MotherLand or is he still chillin' in NoCal? Anyone have any new information?
xxx straight edge xxx
The bill that became law in 1995 (signed by Bill Clinton). What role does it play in the DCMA era? Is the law still valid?
:/
I am canadian, I don't follow american law too much.
As Niccolò Machiavelli described long before the Internet, "Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new."
Price gouging, foisting inferior products/bands on consumers, ripping off artist, directors, consumers.
Explains so much...when you fear for your life and livelyhood because you can't compete anymore you fight like hell with words and deeds.
(Jafar voice)Hummm, Interesting (/off).
If it is not on fire, it is a software problem.
Ever see The Distingueshed Gentleman with Eddie Murphy? It is a documentary on Washington politics.
Fight Spammers!
The time has come for the population to stand up and demand universal, unrestricted Internet access from our government. I would no longer balk at paying 1/3 of my salary in taxes if it meant that this country could start moving into the 21st century. (Observe the higher quality of life in Canada and the proliferation of subsidized Internet access over there. The two are related.) Freedom of speech means nothing if the government is not willing to provide its citizens with access to the predominant form of expression in the so-called "Information Age."
Besides a more educated, more globally competitive populace, what else would this achieve? It would reduce transaction costs in general and put many parasites out of business. Many distributors and other undesirable middlemen would be out of business because people will learn to buy direct. If your neighborhood is devoid of useful businesses, you can order everything online - problem solved. Payday loans will become a thing of the past as consumers find decent rates from online bankers who actually need to compete with each other.
Universal, unrestricted Internet access would work wonders for our society, promote competition and more efficient markets, and put some of that wasted money we pay in taxes to good use.
~wally
Fight Spammers!
Vsyah basha osnoba - preenadpyehzhat nam.
On July 17, 2001, the FBI arrested Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian computer science student for an alleged violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). He delivered a speech in a Las Vegas hotel regarding Adobe eBooks entitled:
"eBook Security: Theory and Practice" The application addressed in the speech bypasses Adobe eBooks security only if you have previously purchased the eBook. Furthermore, it allows the purchaser to backup their eBook, read the eBook on a platform other than Windows and is useful to the Blind. Adobe had him arrested.
Since when are people arrested for pointing out a flaw? We believe this law, which enforces a WTO Treaty, should be reviewed and challenged. Free Speech allows someone to critize and/or demonstrate flaws within corporate products.
Programmers speak in Code.
The intimidation has already begun. The Public Libraries are next.
For those of you not familiar with Larry Lessig, he's the equivalent of Jon Katz, except he writes much better. Typically his articles/books contain self-coined buzz words, and rallying cries, but lack substantial arguments.
..." Typical Lessig style. He uses a term-of-art with legal significance, but does not develop it or analyze it properly. His intent is to get everyone to agree that no country should regulate a commons. He even implies that "commons" are unregulated. He tries to illustrate this point by turning to patent law. Mr. Lessig is wrong on two counts.
He's a lawyer that has never practiced, and his Computer Science training is specious at best (a couple of undergrad classes at Penn.) Thus, before everyone gets a hard-on that a Stanford professor and a major magazine is pushing your political agenda. Please take a look at the article and see if it really goes somewhere. Here are some examples of Lessigism in practice.
"This commons was built into the very architecture
First, commons are regulated. Most parks and public properties have rules of use, and offer fines for those transgressing those uses. Mr. Lessig fails to point out any commons that does not have a regulation scheme. Please go to your nearest public park for an example of a regulated commons.
Second, the patent law scheme that Mr. Lessig says threatens the Internet is not a US creation. The GATT imposes IP protection on its signatories. TRIPS expands the provision. Both are international regulatory conventions, not US conventions. No country was forced to sign either document.
Mr. Lessig also rants about software patents, but mistakes several facts. Far before State Street and Excell, the cases Mr. Lessig implicitly sites for the crime of patenting business methods, inventors were able to achieve software patents by writing the claims to the machine. This was true even for the Member States that now make up the EU. Mr. Lessig, and most anti-IP pundits, seem to make this out to be a new creation.
Its true that most people will empathize with the plight of Skylarov. Hopefully, these situations will help keep the laws in check. However, Mr. Lessig continues to post information that is only substantiated in his unresearched view of the world.
the www.foreignpolicy.com website at the moment.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
The best solution to our problems would be voting for a politician who knows about technology and open source. To that end I am calling my congressman and encouraging him to vote yes on resolution 453 which would make "cowboy neal" an option on every voting card in the United States.
Dozings.com -- Its kinda funny... If you're as crazy as me.
Sorry to go against the party line kids, but I'm just getting tired of all this talk of oppression, big brother, etc., etc., etc., and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Got Rhinos?
Basic Rights are:
Food
Water
and shelter
Unmetered Internet access is nothing more than a luxury. I know it may seem hard for *you* to live without such "necessities" as Jon Katz and Napster, but in the grand scheme of things, these are nothing more than another way to pass the time.
While it would be nice to have a nice fat fibre pipe going to my flat, in no way is my government under obligation to provide me with such. This rings especially true when there are so many around the world who are forced to do without their real basic rights of food, water, and shelter.
Before you write your representative demanding your God-given right to free 'net access. Think about those less fortunate, who would trade a lifetime of Internet usage for a single bowl of rice.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Consider the ramifications if applied widely. To call attention to, say, meat products in McDonald's supposedly-vegetarian food (as in India). To Nike's sweatshops. Even if the information is true, the ISPs might prefer to yank it rather than verify that it violates copyright. And, since you're obviously a troublemaker, they might cancel your account completely.
So welcome to the DMCA future, where an unsubstantiated accusation carries punishment even without a conviction -- so long as the accusation is coming from a moneyed source.
(Actually, given that people accused of crimes often have their reputations ruined, even after acquital, perhaps it's just a logical extension of the world today. But it still sucks.)
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
The Internet runs on fat pipes, and access to those pipes can be throttled. You can weasel your away around all you want, but ultimately whoever can control a router between you and the backbone controls your ability to speak. Right now, cable providers have terribly restrictive TOS, such that in some ways I'd almost prefer dialup if I could really get 56k instead of never quite making it to the full 33.6k.
Unfortunately, the same entertainment industry we rail at for the DMCA and the like largely owns broadband to the home, (I guess ATT has some cable.) and they set the TOS. So far I haven't tried peer2peer, and I know that they've at least left port22 inbound open. But they could interpret their contract to shut down EVERY incoming port, if they so desired.
I wouldn't feel too flush with civil disobedient power, especially with a business friendly administration in place. Otherwise, we're going to have to start rebuilding the old home BBS network.
I agree that the real power of the Internet will emerge as peer2peer comes into its own, and flexes its muscles. But at the moment, the entertainment industries are POWERFUL and would just as soon turn the Internet into another broadcast medium, like the Vast Wasteland called TV.
Give up? No way. But choose battles carefully and keep an eye to the desired end.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
So many of us have lost our patience but have no additional outlets or avenues (already wrote the congresscritters, don't own any weapons of mass destruction...). Now the venue is becoming larger and--hopefully--the public will become aware of the creeping fascism. 'Cept if the five remaining media companies successfully spin this to prove to the masses that freedom is indeed slavery and war is indeed peace, etc...
Anybody have a rock I can crawl under 'til the dust settles?
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
It seems like for all the time I've been on Slashdot (at least 3 years now), there's been this constant discussion around whether we're losing our rights or not...
I want this discussion to end. Not because it's not a valid discussion, but because conclusions have already been made.
Yes, we are losing our rights.
Where are we losing them from? Some say government, others say industry, and some insist that we're not losing our rights at all.
I'm not interested in arguing with those who insist everything's just fine.
There needs to be a basic analysis of how anarchic cultures like that of the internet and that of the free software movement interact (and many times, are at odds with) with heirarchical structures like the state and the capitalist marketplace.
Ultimately, power corrupts, and any strong concentration of power moves towards greater concentration. In other words, "Welcome to the new economy, same as the old economy."
Our rights are lost as corporations consolidate, create bigger lobbies, and government bends over backwards to accomodate them. Things like DMCA don't come out of anywhere, and if corporations and the "power elite" (C.Wright Mills) truly believed in a free marketplace, then DMCA would never have been created.
So, you have us, the idealistic internet users, techies, free software advocates, etc., up against the biggest economic superpowers the world has ever known.
What do we do? How do we fight this?
Well, in one way, we've been doing really well in the realm of creating alternatives. Free software work, it works well, and it's not dependant on the NASDAQ for it's survival. Very good.
In other realms, we haven't done all that well. There's been talk about creating a "tech" lobby, but it's never really materalized. And could it even stand up to the hegemony of the lobbies that are already entrenched in Washington DC?
The EFF is a wonderful organization, but look at what they're up against. Look at how hard it is for the ACLU to influence lawmaking, and they've got a support base that's much larger than the EFF. The ACLU has written scathing reports on the threats to civil liberties that the USA-PATRIOT ACT (and the even scarier Illinois version), yet these are being pushed through without any consideration.
I think in order to properly preserve our rights, and more importantly, greatly *EXPAND* them, we need to abandon all notions that the market and the state are on our side, in any way shape or form.
Think in terms, not of what we want to oppose, but what we want. How should intellectual property be handled? Is it really *wrong* to reverse engineer something? Should a law stop us? If a law makes something illegal, can we create a technical solution to make it impossible to regulate (ie, gnutella/freenet?). What about a large project to create an internet service provider collective with incredibly cheap internet access? What about free internet access for everybody? Don't think we can do it? The hell we can't!
And furthermore, does this only affect us, or does it affect everybody? Why are we only preaching to the choir? How do these issues tie in to other issues that affect people?
Think about it. I hate to use the cliche, but we're gonna have to fight back. Sitting around on Slashdot, complaining about how we're losing our rights doesn't solve anything.
Maybe we should, to use the old syndicalist slogan, start building the new world in the shell of the old...
Dominion
However, the closing part of Lessig's argument, that American lawmakers should not regulate in an extra-territorial fashion, nor give tools to that effect to other entities, just will not work. Your government already has numerous laws pointed to enforcing American mores on other nationals. Time and again, your government has refused to modify those laws in the face of persistent criticism, particularly from your allies in Canada, the European Union, and Australia.
What exactly convinces Lessig this will be any different?
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
The DMCA doens't threaten 'the internet'. IT threatens people from using the internet to legally disseminate information. IT's not specific to the internet.
In the case of an actual copyright violation, parts of the DMCA make sense. It's just overly broad, with some bad sections. It's bad law, for sure.
But it doesn't threaten the internet.. it threatens the actions of individuals and businesses.
It's like making a press stop printing a certain book , or a store from selling that book, because the information inside it is stolen.
In conjunction with his new book, Newsweek this week had a brief interview with him, mostly covering similar concerns; again, not enough space to convey everything that is wrong, but a very good read for JQPublic. (Eg, he likens how before the Internet, talking about Star Trek amoung friends was concidered benign, now you have to play on PAramont's rules if you use the Internet).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
The Internet has not only inspired invention, it has also inspired publication in a way that would never have been produced by the world of existing publishers.
F'n A!
This is what I have been saying for the longest time, even in several discussions elsewhere.
One particular reply said, in effect: "So, broadband/the interentet is good only for stealing".
Ummm, no. I suppose in a way I alluded to that is one "infringing use" but the rapid dissemination of *information* and *content* is what the net is all about.
Now my brain is kinda fried after a long day, but the article said exactly what I am saying now.
Information/content has to be thought of in nebulous terms, unfortunately, and that throws people off (and pisses them off, too. Referring, of course to the RI/MP-AA).
If my train of thought leaves the station, the point is a network does not care "what is transmitted" only that a 'reasonable effort is made to get it to it's destination'.
Therein lies the danger to the MP/RI-AA...content and information in the form of video, audio, text, images, html, voice, data of all kinds.
Data is data. Binary, text...all data, correct?
Video? Data. Audio? Data. Text? Data.
All of the MP/RI-AA's "precious resources" are becoming commodities, plain and simple, just like air and sunshine, but, they are fighting like hell to "cut off our air supply" and keep people in the dark to keep themselves in business.
Like I said before, it explains a lot.
If it is not on fire, it is a software problem.
That many people are now robbed of their right to free speech may utlimately cause a renaissance for free speech. I've heard stories from Russia, how during the Breshjnev period, there were lots of underground theater groups. Profound books were written, criticizing the regime. Protest singers were among the most popular artists. There was this guy singing about the wolfs, running through the woods with the wolfs biting at his heels. The song was really about the regime.
Because of the censorship, they had to hide their messages, using creative images and fables. The people knew instinctively that these messages were important and they craved them.
Then Glasnost came about, and eventually the Iron Carpet came down. Suddenly the people were free. Starved of free speech, there was a short flurry of popular political activity, with large political meetings, marches and what not.
Then things settled down, and one day they woke up. All this new stuff they had been denied all these years was now available. What a disappointment it must have been to them to discover that although the political messages in the western press might be of a different color, most of the stuff was ads, tabloid reporting on celebrities, porn, worthless fiction, stupid game shows, and soap operas. We fought all these years to hear the message from the other side, and all they have to tell us is "Drink Coca Cola?"
If I was Russion, I'd drown myself in vodka, too.
And what has this to do with the DMCA? Just the fact that it will force U.S citizens to be vigilant (break the DMCA laws) in order to have their free speech. By being in opposition to the ruling regime (the megacorps), U.S citizens can enjoy the excitement of getting their free speech, in spite of the regime. Now it's worth something. Hard to come by free speech is valuable. Gratis free speech is worthless.
Pardon my sillyness, but I can't seem to get this image out of my head.
If you remember the "Beggin' Strips" commercial: I kept picturing that dog's nose saying "It's DATA! data-data over here, data-data over there...What's this?! I can't read!
The MP/RI-AA is the "dog" chasing the smell of bacon/data (i.e. wielding the DMCA, lawsuits and general nastiness) and "they can't read" the writing on the wall, as it were, with code being free speech (or falling under the 1st Amen.)
Honestly, I think the idea applies more to the MPAA than the RIAA, because of DeCSS's implications.
Napster issues aside (and I am not touching that one) consider mp3, though.
Mp3's are not illegal. Consider taping a program to ripping an mp3 being approximately the same.
You are not stealing your own music, but you are "shifting" its form for later/different use.
(I hope that made sense. Enterprise is on, gotta go)
If it is not on fire, it is a software problem.
This is a further stretch, but... One could say that the internet is just part of freedom of the press. In that by allowing everyone to broadcast their opinion, freedom of press is more guaranteed.
I guess you've taken my 'rebuild the BBS network' and done me one better. Great.
Next...
From what I hear, the next rev of 802.11 is something like 5 times faster. 11Mbps is pretty neat for what wireless is doing today, but not so hot when trying to rebuild the Internet we knew and loved. Robert Cringely had an article on taking wireless and hooking it to a high-gain antenna to make a line-of-sight connect well beyond normal range. Stuff like that is next.
What happens when two wireless bases have overlapping coverage?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The FBI could surreptitiously censor subtly or DOS sites that criticize the government, for example.
A "basic right", as you put it, is something that is manditory for survival.
Basic Rights are:
Food
Water
and shelter
---
The only "rights" we have is what those who rule grant the huddled masses. We dont have rights. We have privledges. And it really annoys me when poeple simply stamp and shout saying they have RIGHTS!!!
For example, while for an infant, you have the pirvedge of a mother or father whom feeds you. This is not a right. There are laws in place to make sure that this pivedge is not taken away, but the point remians - your parents could well deny you food and shelter and you could have no recourse. The law of course says something about that, but it dont affect you when your dead.
A right is something to be taken for granted. A privledge is something to be fought for / achieved. The USA have a misnamed document called the Bill of Rights that were a hard won set of privledges.
A right is not something I need to struggle for. A privledge is. Are our privledges worth fighting for? Some are and some arent. It's really up to yourself to work out which ones are worthwhile.
Right now, it is our privledge to have anonymous web and everything that comes with that. Is that worthwhile fighting for, to keep that? Worth keeping the privledge of free speech?
I think so. Because once a privledge is removed, it's hard to get it back
"Old Rallydrivers never die - they just fail to book in on time"
Suggestions appreciated.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
remember we are a very young country, only 200+ years old, actualy i've gotten drunk in bars that were twice as old as the US was while in Germany. It could be argued that our country was a beta test for the French revolution, let'em see what worked and what didn't before they commited to themselves.
Sure there is problems, we are learning, the US is starting to "play nice" with others. Our version of capitalism keeps trying to slip back to a form of political-industrial fuedalism. We are an evolving system and the pressures on us aren't realy that much different than on others just the form is different, here its money=power other countries its gun=power, in others it's who've married or know that counts.
at least if we don't like the way a company acts we can buy stock and vote against the dirtbags at the stock-holders meeting.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I am looking into a way to use copyright law to stop spammers.
Fight Spammers!
Where does he get this service?
I've been pondering the idea of such a 'connection reverser', but didn't know any existed.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
To put it short, Prosperity has mellowed that part of the people that is willing to fight for freedom. It's like 'Freedom for Money'.
... exactly what is needed for maximizing the production of consumable meat.
Or like being "fattened up" for the slaughter. Cattle one week away from the slaughterhouse are amazingly well fed and (relative to their earlier existence) happy creatures
Which is exactly what we so-called consumers are to the multinationals clipping our wings and purchasing legislation designed to maximize their short term quarterly profits by stripping away our freedoms.
By the time we are hungary enough to want to exersize those freedoms they will have been long gone for quite some time, and we'll all be feeling like the cattle must, as they stand in their stalls awaiting their execution, the smell of blood and mass death of their kind wafting in the air as a forshadowing of what awaits them in the very near future.
Bin Laden (may his fanatacal, mad soul twitch in fear the short duration of his remaining life) managed to kill thousands. Lets not forget that it has been governments (Khmere Rouge, Taliban, Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, etc.) and corporations (British Opium Oligarchs a couple of centuries ago, Bayer AG during the early 20th, etc.) that have enslaved and killed millions. How ironic that we flee in fear of the former, minor threat and in so doing grant unprecented powers, ripe for abuse, to entities bearing remarkable organizational similarities to the latter.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy