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IEEE Adds DMCA Clause for Submitted Papers
xpccx writes: "Newsforge has this blurb about the IEEE changing its 'IEEE Copyright Form' for submissions to the 'IEEE Copyright Transfer & Export Control Compliance Form.' From the IEEE site: 'While the IEEE standard manuscript submission process has always required authors to represent that the necessary clearances and approvals have been obtained, the newly revised Form now requires the author's explicit affirmation that the manuscript does not violate U.S. export laws or restrictions.' And specifically from the new form, 'The undersigned further warrants that the publication or dissemination of the Work shall not violate any proprietary right or the Digital Copyright Millennium Act (the "DCMA").' Maybe the IEEE just wants to protect itself from DMCA lawsuits, but I hope their intention is not to abandon authors who get sued."
One of the few organizations that has the power and/or clout to stand up to it, instead retreats into capitulation. They are a huge orginization, that is not just american, but has influence worldwide. And they are a research orginization ...for shame. I'm seriosly considering cancelling my membership.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
After he published the special relativity theory he said:
"If I hadn't written it, it would've taken only a few month for somebody else to publish it. The time was ripe."
Whose ideas are the ideas we write?
(c) copyright 2002 Slashdot.org
Perhaps in the future, a good case could be made infront of the Supreme Court that the DCMA does stifle free speach - and this will be some of the evicence.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
In these days and times its not only the society they are trying to protect but the volunteer editors and staff as well. I am good friends with one the editors of the larger societies and he is constantly worried about getting sued for the smallest things. Yes its a shame that they have to do this, but they really have little choice in protecting themselves. If you feel disgusted then direct your anger and resources at the cause (The DCMA) and not at who its affecting.
You can have flame wars over this stuff. I can recall watching the folks who put this ageement together have an all out brawl over three or four months before they got it nailed down.
Of course people freak when they see a long license agreement. Paranoia takes over.
But there is the other angle, that people are being held responsible for the material they submit, so that the publication (web or otherwise) doesn't take the penalty for your stupidity if you put up something that could cause a legal problem.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
However, cutting to the chase, the IEEE and the authors it represents really have little to fear in reality. The IEEE isn't "2600" Magazine; it doesn't deal with controversial subject matter on a regular basis. They aren't in the computer security business and they are unlikely to accept any remotely controversial manuscript in the first place. They changed their rules for one simple reason: they think it will make people care about the injustices of the law.
Unfortunately, they are sadly mistaken. Engineers have zero political clout, here and anywhere else in the world. If we had clout, the CDA wouldn't have seen the light of day; Clinton wouldn't have been able to get away with jacking up the H1-B visa quota by 1.5 million every year during the tech boom; and the USA-PATRIOT act wouldn't have come to fruition. The IEEE wants to bring about public awareness of the injustices of our government, but they're just preaching to the choir. We, as computer professionals (especially the academics among us), understand the problem and want a solution. But we don't vote; we don't lobby; and we don't rent hookers for our congressmen.
What is the solution? The solution is to get the right people on our side. We need to forge a partnership with major corporations; we need to practice give-and-take to arrive at a compromise. That's hard for most techies to do because most of us hate corporations. But if we don't join them, they will beat us. The choice is ours.
bill
The Felton suit failed because the RIAA and the Justice Department ran away from a defendant who was clearly falling under the researcher exemption.
Now we have a publisher of academic papers ignoring the same exemption and asking authors to censor themselves. If that isn't strong evidence of the chilling effects of the DCMA, I don't know what is.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
To: webmaster@ieee.org
Please make this available to those in IEEE who may be monitoring public opinion on this issue. Thank you.
As a graduate student of Computer Science and former student member of IEEE, I was horrified to read (http://newsvac.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/04 / 4/0039211) that you require submitters of papers to represent that their research is politically correct wrt the DMCA. If anything, the IEEE should be taking an active stance against this law and using its lobbying resources to speak out against it, not bowing before the corporations that purchased this unjust (and inapplicable to academic security research, I might add) law.
It is bitterly disappointing to see an august organization like the IEEE acquiesce to those who would chill freedom to speak and publish in the technical arena.
Unless IEEE rapidly reverses this blunder, I will have to stop recommending IEEE membership for students of Electrical Engineering and to forcefully disassociate myself from the organization.
Respectfully,
<name>
~~~
"The undersigned agrees to indemnify and hold harmless IEEE ...
IANAL, but this sounds like the author is agreeing not to sue IEEE for actions arising out of publication, NOT that the author is agreeing to pay IEEE's expenses if someone sues the IEEE.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- A.E.
Since when does ITAR apply to scientific papers written by civillians?? If ITAR and DMCA apply to scientific papers isn't that a blatent violation of the first amendment??
Sure the flying monkeys behind ITAR and DMCA have threatened to sue to censure academics... but there's no way that they would go to court and risk overturning their precious little law.
Besides, ITAR doesn't apply to information that's in the general literature of a field. If you publish results in the public domain frequently and often you avoid the major hassle of ITAR. Otherwise you'll have to get a state department waiver to have a meeting with a foreigner to discuss basic science that they already know anyway.
It seems is IEEE would have stood up for academic freedom they would have had a good chance of overturning ITAR and DMCA in court.
Actually, I bet the new pollicy comes from the company that publishes for the IEEE and wants to protect DMCA from any constitutional challenge because they make piles of money appropriating copyrights for other people's work.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Yup. Dumb, dumb and dumber.
Every tech company I've worked at in the States has had around a 40-50% foreign engineering crew. Same usually goes for CS graduate students.
I know a number of people who cancelled their IEEE membership over the H1-B campaign, and I'm betting many more will cancel over this. The IEEE seems to have forgotten who its members are.
A.
And peer-review by people who know what they're doing? We could just use Slashdot! *smirk*
The problem isn't immigrants in general, it's underpaying immigrants so they can replace higher salaried Americans! That's what H1B VISA's promote! The IEEE has been trying to get this fact out, but people think it's an immigration v. anti-immigration issue. Not so! It is more complex than you realize -- and American companies are here to dupe you! Trust me, immigrants, the IEEE-USA is your friend in this!
What the IEEE-USA does is actually promote giving real green cards to immigrants who are engineers instead of H1B VISAs. They recognize the real problem and how companies abuse the H1B VISA system whereas they cannot "abuse the system" with green cards. Unlike H1B VISAs where companies can "put the screws" to immigrants who cannot change their sponsor, so they work for less, so they can replace Americans. So why does this matter?
Green card holders can change jobs so they demand the same salaries as Americans! As such, Americans don't get fired, nor do their salaries decrease! Green card immigrants are only brought in to augment them as necessary and become Americans themselves. H1B VISAs are used to temporarily gain access to lower-costing employees and destroy America in general for corporate profits (this still happens despite the supposed "loophole changes" in H1B VISAs). The IEEE promotes an "accelerated program" to allow real engineers to get green cards faster than the normal process. Linux Torvalds is one of their "poster childs" showcasing the enormous amount of BS he had go through.
Furthermore, they have tried to "educate" the public on a "technician" and the so-called "IT shortage" versus "engineers" who do not deal with IT!
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
(* You have heard the term herding cats? cats are not pack animals, they live solitary lives much like geeks. *)
1. We wouldn't be here on slashdot if we were truly solitary. Perhaps geeks don't like *personal* contact.
2. Some dumpsters seem to have an awful lot of cats. Perhaps they are simpy after the same grub rather than like to be together. But, it just seems like there are other dumpsters to "share".
Table-ized A.I.