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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."
The IEEE "Export Control Compliance Form" at the IEEE web site reads "Digital Copyright Millennium Act" (DCMA), and not "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (DMCA). Is this a clever ruse by the IEEE to confuse dyslexic lawyers?
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"
As a body that tries to appear International without explicitly saying so, shouldn't they also adhere to the Icelandic Indecency Act of 1536 or the Samoan Code Against Sodomy as well as the Kansas Internet Cleanup Code?
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
Why else would they make authors warrant that their work does not conflict with the DMCA? If the IEEE finds themselves named in a DMCA suit, they will go after the author (more probably, the author's employer) to recover their costs in a breach of contract action.
Bottom line, IEEE is folding like a full-service laundry. (Boo, hiss as appropriate)
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
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>
~~~
Right now, it is a small group of people devoting a limited amout of resources to fighting the DMCA. As the Felten case showed, it is possible to use the threat of lawsuit to prevent publication, no matter how constitutionally unsound (remember, when it looked like it was headed for the Supreme Court, the plaintiff backed down). This announcement by IEEE should send shockwaves around the world. With "more than 377,000 individual members in 150 countries" and as the producer of "30 percent of the world's published literature in electrical engineering", this will make more than a little noise.
IEEE has clout and reputation, it is doubtful that something like this is going to kill their journals. I am an optimist; I like to think that they are stepping up to the plate rather than backing down.
...just publish your tech reports, research papers, etc, on your own University web page. Use your own University's department to organize conferences and other get-togethers.
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.
The IEEE isn't exactly a rich organization. They exist to promote research, education, & the development of standards in the Electronics/Electrical/Computer/Software engineering fields. This is their main concern. They wish to distance themselves from any possible liability because one large lawsuit, whether just or not, could bankrupt the entire organization. This is why they probably aren't taking a stand against the DMCA - holding themselves blameless is the lesser evil.
The IEEE takes the same approach with their code of Ethics. The code is a recommendation, one which many groups have worked hard to meticulously craft. Nevertheless, the IEEE cannot back up someone who is coming under legal fire for abiding by their Code of Ethics' principles. The reason is again that any large organization/corporation with deeper pockets than theirs could wipe them out, and then all the greater good that the IEEE accomplishes would be lost due to an attempt to stand their ground for one minuscule portion of what they represent.
While the DMCA stands as a law in the USA, the IEEE will respect it. There are many other organizations and people (& hopefully you, the Slashdot reader) who can fight the DMCA with much less risk. Support the EFF, or it's variant in your country. Spend a few hours working on any government initiated review of Copyright law, if this is happening in your country. Win the big fight, and non-profits like the IEEE will lift the restrictions that they are legally obligated to enforce.
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