Slashdot Mirror
Students, ISP Sue Diebold
Quixotic1 writes "The campaign against Diebold that began as electronic civil disobedience took an exciting turn today as the EFF announced that they were filing suit against Diebold for abuse of copyright claims. They will be representing Swarthmore College students and the ISP Online Policy Group, who hosted and linked to copies of controversial internal memos."
Those memos are very interesting. They show that the Diebold people did not care a bit for the elections.
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
Now's a good time to Donate to the EFF. As we all now, small donations can add up to a lot, if people who care pitch in.
... and everyone else should too, if you can possibly afford it. This case is the tipping point for me. I've always admired the EFF's work, but most of it hasn't affected me personally. The voting machine issue affects everyone in the US, and given the importance of the US globally, everyone on Earth. Put your money where your mouth is.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I disagree. Most of the general public has never heard of them.
Here's why the fair use argument will hold up in court:
- They show intent to break the law (among other things, patching an election system without having the patch certified, not to mention faking demonstrations for elections officials). You can't claim copyright on the plans to rob a bank and then complain when people start investigating.
- The work is factual. This isn't about pirating The Matrix or Britney Spears.
- The memos (themselves) are not marketable. Yes, of course, this will affect Diebold's business immensely. But the DMCA's fair use clause only applies to works that themselves have a market.
- They're fundamental to democracy -- and aren't checked in any other way. The Supreme Court can operate "in secret" (though it's not really all that secret) because they are checked by the Congress. We have no mechanism for impeaching Diebold, especially if they cloud all of their vote-counting procedures under trade secrets or spurious claims of copyright(-infringement).
I would say, in fact, that this is one of the most solid copyright-contesting cases to come along in a while.
--
the sewers belch me up.. the heavens spit me out... from ethers tragic I am born again... and now i'm with you now
If you want to cause trouble for them, just demand a recount. When it is found to be impossible, people will notice. For the conspiracy minded, notice that the loser didn't contest the election and demand a recount - This makes sense if you think they are all really on the same side and the public is the enemy. I'm not that cynical yet, but a lot of /. readers are :-)
Of course Diebold retains copyright to its memos.
But copyright does not trump all other interests, specifically copyright does not prevent the documents from being used in a criminal investigation or civil discovery action. It doesn't even prevent the documents from being used in making arguments to open a criminal investigation or initiate a civil suit.
IMHO (and as a non-lawyer who has a strong professional interest in civil liberties) what Diebold is doing is legally no different from some sick bastard who videotapes himself drugging and raping women trying to prevent his victims from taking the video to the police. The harm caused by allowing the complaints to be squelched is far greater than the harm caused by forcing disclosure against the wishes of the copyright holder.
Now if Diebold was sending C&D orders to prevent their inclusion in a general interest book on computer voting systems... then they might have a case. In that case the memos would be used to enrich somebody else, not to call attention to a matter of critical public interest.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Slot machines in Vegas don't serve the same purpose as voting machines, but the system set up to regulate those slot machines, their manufacture, programming, every part of their operation, is very secure. Voting machines are just another example of an industry prime for careful regulation.
I regret to say that I must agree with you: This case is going to be a tough one for the EFF.
The primary problem is that past court cases have already "settled" the question of public interest vs. copyright. Sadly, the courts decided that copyright trumps compelling public interest, and that copyright holders can silence any critics who attempt to use their own words against them in the theater of public debate. These decisions were sought and obtained by the Scientology cult.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Most of the public has seen their names on ATM machines. While they might not know much about the company, they know they give them cash, and that's good enough for many a joe consumer.
Scientology documents have marketable value; ie they were made available to high level members who pay money to achieve that high a level in the Scientology organisation. It is therefore possible to argue that the Scientology documents lose value as a tool to encourage members to progess within the organisation (and get access to thee documents) if made publicly available.
So there is a difference between these cases.
Um, the only thing *civilized* governments fear is people in the streets (not a correction to the quote, a correction to the idea). Take China, for instance. People marched in the street, and even stood up to tanks. Then they got mowed down by machine gun fire and were run over by the tanks.
Try this quote, instead: "Power comes from the end of a gun." Considering that quote is from someone who actually seized power over a country with hundreds of millions of people and not a wide-eyed visionary novelist, I think it delivers a more powerful statement.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
OK, I've been doing a little background reading, and my question is, how are internal memos copyrightable? Isn't a copyright supposed to be issued to a work for sale? Unless someone in the company is selling copies of the internal memos, how is it protected?
If they wanted to protect the information, couldn't they invoke Trade Secrets? It would seem to me a better path than copyright.
Of course, couldn't Diebold be liable for sedition? They are trying to usurp the power of the election, something clearly listed and enumerated in the Constitution. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, check out the wording.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2384.html
"Now, let's think about the United States. Gun ownership is much higher, and involves much more sophisticated weaponry."
I wasn't aware that the general american populace had access to something more sophisticated than surface to air heat seeking rockets.
But this is a fight we have to take on locally. Find out what's used in your district. If they use black-box machines with no paper trail (virtually everyone does) then hit 'em with a big ole ream of this. Send it your city councilmember, call your Congresscritter and your Senators, bitch to your local paper, blog. Do something.
My favourite excerpts:
Or how about:
Or even:
Makes me feel all warm and gooey inside, but not in that comfortable, sated, internally glowing way. In that queasy, rumbling, internally bleeding, hosting-an-Alien-baby kind of way.
What's that old saying? "Open mouth, shoot self in foot." Something like that.
Diebold might win this case, but just the fact that it is being brought means that they have lost. All the facts will be aired and Diebold will lose the public trust. It's hard to imagine how a voting machine company could continue to operate under those circumstances.
But on to the case itself: According to the traditional four points courts consider in determing fair use, I'd say the EFF has a pretty reasonable case. (Though the DMCA will probably come into play and, as we all know, the DMCA can shred fair use rights entirely).
Here is my layman's analysis of the four points of Fair Use as they apply here:
1. "The nature of the copyrighted work"
As a long, factual type of work (as opposed to a work of artistic expression, something highly creative and original, or something like a short poem or song), these memos will enjoy the LEAST possible amount of protection of any kind of work, under this point. This point clearly weighs towards the students/ISPs.
2. "The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"
The character of the use is clearly non-commercial, which weighs heavily in favor of fair use. Especially since students and a university were involved, there could be some argument made about "nonprofit" and "educational purposes". Here, too, is where EFF can argue convincincly that it is in the public interest to have these important documents in full public view. Furthermore, extracts from or summaries of the documents would not serve the public interest in the same way that the full set of verbatim documents do.
3. "The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"
This is the only point that weighs heavily against the students/ISPs. Unfortunately, some judges will find in favor of the copyright holder if even ONE of the four points weighs in favor of the copyright holder.
4. "The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." The market value of the literary copyright on this work is $0, and this weighs heavily in favor of the students/ISPs. Diebold never intended to sell these documents or make a profit from their copyright on these documents.
Entirely irrelevant is the fact that Diebold may lose money because of negative publicity or as a result of the revelation of embarrassing information in the copyrighted material. I believe that there is good precedent on this matter (though I'll have to leave it to the lawyers among you for the details).
The court is supposed to weigh all four factors together. Three of the four factors weigh towards the students/ISPs, which is certainly good. But I did happen to read a case not that long ago (not being a lawyer, I can't give the citation, sorry) in which the judge summed up very similar to they way I just did, found that 3 of the 4 points clearly favored Fair Use, and then ruled for the copyright holder. In his opinion, the fact that ALL of the work had been copied outweighed all the rest of the points. (I seem to recall that the case was actually rather similar to this one, and involved verbatim copying of "Church" of Scientology documents which proved various nefarious actions on the part of church members.)
Someone said that copyright doesn't apply until something is published. That isn't true (at least in the U.S.) and hasn't been for many years (since 1979?). Copyright in a work exists from the moment it is fixed in a tangible medium (ie, from the moment it is written, typed, recorded, videotaped, etc. etc.).
No copyright registration or copyright notice is required. However--the damages that can be collected are severely limited if the work was not registered with the copyright office BEFORE the violations occured.
The copyright for the Memos was certainly not registered when this whole t