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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."
and its so freaking intrusive. it once banned slashdot for "vulgar language" (how often do you see that on /.?
btw, fp!
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!
If a product is really doing what it says it's doing? If it has an accurate method for filtering out what is pornography from what isn't? If the people writing the program used proper definitions of pornography when deciding what should be filtered? What the court has done is grant this company impermeability to review or criticism.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
There is a serious problem, maybe it's not with n2h2, but the fact that governement is using software to protect it's citizens completly blind. Sure it sounds all peachy, but cmon, if you're gonna block people off, make sure you know what is being blocked, don't give a company like n2h2 the playground.
There are plenty of open source alternatives anyway, where you can manually control the blocked list, who is doing for the "consulting" for the governement, most likely someone who wants to keep his job. (prolonging the problem brings in more money)
This is bad both ways, gov wants to use proprietary over open source, and gov dosen't care that they can't control which sites are blocked and which aren't.
To be honest, that list should be public to the community, and sites should be debated by a community coucil for their library, to decide which should be allowed by standards in the area, no main entity is the know it all genie of what is right for everyone.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
While the judge's reasoning in this case appears to be wrong, the outcome of the his decision is correct. Part of the anti-circumvention clause states that the Copyright Office was to hold hearings to decide on specific classes of work that should be exempt. They only picked two, which were:
In other words, what the plaintiff wanted to do is not illegal, so he has no standing to challenge the law. You can read about it here. FWIW, that may not be true for long. The Copyright Office is holding another round of hearings, and one of the scheduled topics is whether this exemption should be continued.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Did the submitter read the article?
N2H2 claimed that providing such information to Edelman would compromise trade secrets, and that Edelman had no legal standing to be granted such permission because there was no imminent threat he would be sued.
Maybe they should have picked a more suitable case to file their lawsuit?
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
and I can post it on Slashdot right now,
right after I answer the knock at the door...
Cheers, Joel
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
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
The problem is, everyone on slashdot would rather just complain on slashdot instead of actually writing thier representative a well worded letter.
I was actually thinking about this the other day. What about a slashdot sponsered letter writing compaign that gave people a tangible reward for writing a good letter to thier congress(wo)man.
They could have everyone write an email about what really matter to them, any topic, preferably a technological one as thats what scores points around here. Then have them mail them to thier representative and CC a copy to contest@slashdot.org as well as post it as a comment. Say, 10 highest rated letters win a free subscription (however many page views that is). The cost would be negligable, but the impact of tons of well worded emails coming from intellegent people would have an amazing impact. So, editors, what do YOU think? --btw, the letters should be worded better than this post.
Am I the only one who actually read the Judge's VERY CORRECT opinion? The case was being brought under Declaratory Judgement, ie. I am suing N2H2 because they are about to sue me. The Judge ruled that there was not any proof that N2H2 was about to sue, so the case was thrown out. This ruling had nothing to due with the validity of the DMCA or the scope of reverse engineering exception.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
The real problem is that most /.'ers would rather browse http://www.whitehouse.com than http://www.whitehouse.gov.
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Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
The problem is, everyone on slashdot would rather just complain on slashdot instead of actually writing thier representative a well worded letter.
/.ers are international. We see daily just how fucked up the good ol' US of A is becoming, and can do nothing about it. Now, that's not so bad - I don't ever want to travel to the USA myself, let alone live there, but in the meantime, our own counties are threatening to follow in their footsteps, so that we can further our trade agreements.
Actually, the problem is a lot of
So in that way, we whinge about the USA laws, because they will eventually influence our own laws.
Read the court documents here. Edelman asked the court to permit him to a) ignore the license which bars reverse engineering, and b) ignore N2H2's copyright by publishing the web sites he discovered. The judge noted that Edelman hasn't actually done anything yet, and declared that the court is not in the business of handing out a "get out of jail free" card in case he ever does his research, and N2H2 seeks relief.
uses a filtering "service" that's always down. The NT4 proxy servers only resolve an ip correctly two tries out of three.
It's not too bad, because they have an 802.11b net my Zaurus and iBook can access as well as a "secret router" on 10.0.0.3 that I'm not supposed to know about.
BTW, the NT4 proxy is sp2; I made a single URL that can crash the proxy if entered on any school computer. They really should fire the techies and let me do the job for a gym credit.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
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.
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
It is so important in these uncertain times that we focus our vitreol on case where there is actual legislative or judicial overreaching.
Read the judge's opinion before leaping to conclusions. This is NOT a case that was decided on the merits of an underying DMCA claim.
The plaintiff in this case was not N2H2, but rather the fellow who wanted to do his reverse engineering. He sued under a theory of equity, seeking what is called a declaratory judgment. Before even reaching the question about whether the plaintiff is entitled to act, the Court must first address whether or not it has jurisdiction.
This isn't a light issue -- the Federal Courts only have jurisdiction over ACTUAL "cases and controversies." This is a constitutional limitation. The federal judiciary does not offer what is called "advisory" opinions -- ever.
Here, without touching on the DMCA issue at any level, the Court simply ruled that our erstwhile declaratory judgment plaintiff didn't have the standing to drag D2H2 to court. I agree with others here that the reasoning for no standing was not the Court's strongest argument, but in view of the Copyright Office excemption, this case just doesn't hold water on the standing question.
C:\> ren dwi2.exe notepad.exe
Get your own free personal location tracker
Of course, to do this his program needs to interoperate with N2H2's software. Hello DMCA exception:
In addition to its main function, the program also happens to identify sites that shouldn't have been blocked.
This ruling does not even reach the merits of the DMCA or reverse engineering. It is concerned with a legal doctrine called standing. The law of standing in Federal Courts means that you must be a proper person to bring a claim. Article III of the US Constitution requires that there be an ACTUAL "case or controversy" for a court to hear. The US federal courts decide cases. The courts do NOT give advisory opinions - e.g., if you do this you will (not) be breaking the law.
The plaintiff here was a Harvard Law Student who asked the court to declare that IF he reverse-engineered the software THEN he would not be breaking the law - essentially asking for advice that the federal courts will not give.
The federal Declaratory Judgment Act allows federal courts to "declare" the rights of the parties, but that is different from giving advice. There still must be an actual case or controversy. To show that, the plaintiff must show that he has a "reasonable apprehension" of being sued. Usually that is done by showing the court some communication between the parties in which one party has either explicitly threatened a lawsuit or because of the relationship between the parties it is obvious that a suit is coming. Here, the law student could not show that, so he lacks standing to bring this suit.
If you doubt the correctness of my statements, look to the key part of Judge Stearns's quote: "there is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that Edelman [the plaintiff law student] can assert that outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted material...." He can't assert the rights he is trying to assert. In other words, you aren't the right person to bring this claim, you have no reasonable apprehension of actually being sued by these guys, you are merely asking for advice, we don't do that here, get out of my court but feel free to come back if you actually go ahead and reverse-engineer and you are threatened with a lawsuit.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.