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Federal Judge Rules Against Reverse-engineering
zurab writes "A federal judge in Boston threw out a challenge to the DMCA brought by the ACLU for a Harvard Law School student. Ben Edelman decided to ask court's permission to reverse-engineer the Internet filtering software made by N2H2 in fears of being sued by the company. Of interest is a quote from the ruling: "there is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that Edelman can assert that outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted material from an invasive and destructive trespass." Full story on Yahoo."
Write to your elected representatives. Do it now.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
If this stands up, it will be a kick in the teeth to freedom. A free society depends on public disclosure and peer-review. It's sickening to see how so many laws are being aimed at those two targets these days.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
he first one relates to the article "Edelman had asked a Seattle company called N2H2 for a list of sites its software blocks, but was rebuffed."
Now supposedly the judge says that this list of blocked sites is copyrighted. Excuse me but I'm totally baffled as to how a 3rd party company has copyright on a list that contains domain names that belong to a 4th party. I really need someone to explain this. Does merely making a list of otherwise publicly available information make it copyrightable? Does the mere listing make it something new and special?
The second big problem here seem to go against (IIRC) previous case law on reverse engineering. If this ruling stands you might as well kiss RE good bye. Every company is the US is gonna whine DMCA and "invasive and destructive trespass".
Why do I hear a huge sucking sound?
This case was a poor choice for the ACLU to cahllenge the DMCA on. Edelman was clearly trying to grind his ax against a web site filtering company. The ACLU needs to find a single issue case to pursue. I think the guy who is being sent to jail for selling XBox mod chips would be a good case to challenge the DMCA on.
People like Edelman need to realize that the filtering companies are doing nothing but building products to meet a demand in the market place. If they are actually concered about cencorship, they need to focus on regulating the implementation of these products by public organizations. As for businesses, they are free to censor all they want.
there is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that Edelman can assert that outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted material from an invasive and destructive trespass.
...
no constitutional interest eh?
Edelman had asked a Seattle company called N2H2 for a list of sites its software blocks, but was rebuffed.
"It's highly desirable that these products are accurate, that when they say they're blocking pornography, they're really blocking pornography, not people running for Congress who talk about the evils of pornography," he said Wednesday. "Yet the research to date indicates they make a lot of mistakes."
Hrm... I'm not completely familiar with the American constitution but I was under the impression that Freedom of speech and by implication the right to discover what speech you were being denied access to would outweigh the right to protect copyrighted material. Oh and BTW how does finding the list constitute an invasive and destructive trespass.? Yes it could hurt them if competitors used their list in their own products (after all the accuracy of such a list would be the essential element of their system) but I hardly feel it would be destructive in any way. Is the judge just refering to economic damage or is there some other potentiaal cause for damage?
I stole this Sig
-Waldo Jaquith
You make one big assumption---that given the run of all the message boards on the internet, students will only go to the "good" ones---that is, the ones that promote discussion and whatnot.
All I can say is, it must have been awhile since you were a student. The purpose of blocking message board sites is so kids dont dick around when they're supposed to be working, tying up what might be already scanty bandwith (my highschool had 1400 students with several labs and all teachers' computers on a 64k ISDN line.) doing things that are not at all school related.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Just so you know, you don't need a PAC to lobby your own congresscritter. Many congresscritters are happy to hear from their constituents, and really give some consideration to what they have to say. Sadly, senators often have a much less substantial relation to their constituents.
Also, even without cash (well, other than to buy stamps and paper, or to pay the phone bill), you can get involved. A congressman almost always has a local office in their district that they visit, for at least a few weeks while Congress is not in session. You might want to talk to his staff about getting some time to visit and talk directly while your representative is in town. If you get access, do your homework ahead of time and bring copies of supporting documents that you can give (executive summaries are nice too here).
You can also offer time. If your congresscritter is doing a good job, volunteer to help on their campaign. If your congresscritter is doing a bad job, look over there opposition and see if there's someone there you'd like to help out instead. Nothing modifies a congresscritter's opinion faster than popular support for an opponent with a contrary opinion. If you hate all of these bozos, consider running yourself.
Basically, the more involved and visible you are (in a friendly, non-wacko, non-stalker sort of way), the more likely the congresscritter is to give credibility to your opinion. Involved people don't just vote, they influence other peoples' votes, and that means a lot to someone who is up for reelection every two years.
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Open mind, insert foot.
Every company is entitled to keep trade secrets. It either that or they must patent their inventions. Patents require disclosure.
Yes patents require disclosure in return for Federal protection of the exlusive use of the thing described. They are very expensive for a company and they give away all your hard work so that others can use it.
Now, thanks to the DMCA, you don't have to chose. Neat eh? You can have your trade secrets published publically in an encrypted form and the US Government will make sure others don't tell anyone about how it works even when they are bright enough to figure it out. They will protect your feble trade secrets from "invasion"! This is really cool, now no one has to tell anyone anything AND be protected by the government. What a great trade! I pay taxes which are used to keep me from understanding the things I own.
Well, I used to own things. Now that I can't do what I want with them or share what I do with my friends, I think some of my things belong to the people who made it. Just imagine this being applied to software! Oh wait, this is software! Really really neat. If I install that program on my computer so that I'm not tempted to look at things someone else thinks are nasty, I'm not only giving up my right to read, I'm giving up ownership of my computer! That's just unbelievable. Next thing you know, you won't be able to share what you know about BIOS. Well, it's good that other people are willing to be responsible for the things I want to use. That way I don't have to worry when they break. Someone will always take care of me.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
A couple years ago, I saw a reverse-engineered list of the keywords that Bess considered illegal. In addition to the standard seven unprintable words, there were many context-sensitive words like "breast". But the really disturbing find was "MacMillan" - a rival publishing company.
i lter.html
OK, I'll admit some of the politically sensitive oversimplifications in their scientific textbooks were obscene, but not enough to ban them for.
Tried to find the link again, but this is the closest I could come up with on short notice:
http://danny.oz.au/freedom/censorware/if
I know it's not an authoritave source, but this is slashdot.
I think one of the main points of school is to lock kids up and keep them out of (most) trouble. But anyway...
Banning reverse engineering?!?! What's NEXT?! I bet they're going to rule against literary analysis in English! Reading too far into something would endanger the author's critical intellectual property---if we knew *how* he (or she, of course) wrote what he wrote, there would be countless knock-offs and imitators! Oh wait, there already are..... so?
Anyway.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
The Court actually simply decided that there was no case in controversy. Edelman sued, before he did anything for a declaratory judgement giving him permission to reverse engineer. The court said they wouldn't decide the case, because it's not sure that N2H2 would sue, or that Edelman would do anything. The only time a court will make a decision if nothing has happened yet (like here, about future potential lawsuits) is if a fundamental right is at question. While copyright Fair Use is important, it is clearly not a fundamental right. So, chill. And wait for someone to actually be sued under the DMCA for reverse engineering for research purposes. If the Court then holds that there is no right to reverse engineer anymore (in spite of Sega v. Accolade.
Thalia
If it were either invasive or destructive I'd have more respect for this Judge and his ruling. Despite arguments to the contrary, altering the flow of bits through a computer that you own doesn't invade anyone, and the notion that bits can be destroyed is laughable. The Judge needs to reissue his ruling without resorting to terms don't mean squat in the virtual world.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
have the right to protect their copyrights.
Reverse engineering is independent of copyright violation.
To break a copyright, you make copies of the material.
Reverse-engineering means you come to understand material already in your possesion.
It does not damage copyright at all, except via circular reasoning.
The DMCA is continually pounding more nails in the coffin of American ingenuity and relevance in the high-tech sector. Until America wakes up and realizes that the proper way to grow both business and society is without laws granting broad protection for "intellectual property". America is already falling behind in the technical arena to other countries with more permissive laws about reverse engineering. Companies should be held to the same scrutiny that research is held to in matters of security, which means full access to the source and algorithms. As a company I would welcome such peer review. Copyrights should be enough to prevent my competitors from "stealing" my secrets. I would also be wary of using any company's products that actively prevents people from putting my product through such peer reviews.