Slashdot Mirror
The Year In Tech Law
Selanit writes "CNet has an article rounding up the year in IP law. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this article is that the SCO case gets only one paragraph out of a fairly lengthy article. It's good to get a reminder that there are other issues out there, including content filtering in libraries, the potential for a tax on Internet access, pop-up ads, domain name legislation, and of course file-sharing."
And here I was thinking that I'm gonna get my daily SCO fix....
I wonder how many slashdotters immediately stopped reading after realizing this is not about SCO?
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this article is that the SCO case gets only one paragraph out of a fairly lengthy article. It's good to get a reminder that there are other issues out there that would be a good reminder for the editors, too...
Yeah, quoted right from the blurb.
The SCO case introduces no new law. The case relies almost solely on existing law.
I have been pwned because my
Think about it, how many Cnet readers even know what Linux is? Ok that's sarcasm but you get the idea, Windows users are not horridly affected by Darl McBride/SCO and company. However this regulation has many people in the Linux community wondering (well duh).
Spam on the other hand affects all of us, and the effectiveness of the new law will bring a shrug from most of us. If it's effective, great; if not the battle rages on...
Pop-ups? Same thing, affects everyone, legislation in any direction would be interesting to all.
Illegal music downloading also has popular appeal. The draconian efforts of the RIAA affect anyone who could be sued (including the grannies they were suing who barely knew what a computer was...)
Domain names? Got a fair amount of mention apparently, the reach on that issue is medium, lots of people own domain names these days.
Taxes, DEAR GOD NO!!! Good they're not going anywhere yet...broad reach so gets decent mention...
So in the end this is the reporting I'd expect from CNet...
...in bed
Why wasn't the Supreme Court's upholding of serial copyright term extension (Eldred v. Ashcroft) mentioned?
As another year has passed, I reflect on the cases that made this year 2003 a memorable year. With the awards in damages and the patents granted.
From your friendly patent attorney.
At one time we didn't NEED internet law. It was understood that certain standards of behavior we're required so that we could all "get along". People that refused to follow the rules were "banned", essentially made non citizens of the global eletronic world. It was a brutally effective punishment.
Now we have no real accepted standard of behavior, and no penalty that is effective. Thus we have to create "Internet Laws" and find someway to enforce them. The early system was elegant and egalitarian. The current system is simply a miserable failure. I do not pine for the early days, I do not secretly sit in a dark corner complaining about the unwashed masses. I am vocal and write to my representatives when internet issues come before them, I try to enlighten my friends and family on the issues. Perhaps someday we will have some represntatives with a modicum of internet savvy. Then and only then can we start to write good internet law. Until then, 2003 was merely a stepping stone in a long arduous process.
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
I feel as if I've lost a whole slew of civil rights as far as anything connected to computers goes. Starting with libraries, continuing on to my "illegal" linux DVD software and culminating with DCMA. The fact that congress is taking every opportunity to connect *everything* to the "war on terror" does not bode well either.
The article claims that the outcome of this SCO case could affect the future of Linux. Wooo, scary! Just the kind of statement they want!
How about a more accurate statement like: "Unless SCO comes up with some evidence behind their so-far meritless case, SCO is likely to accelerate their self-destructive business trajectory."
There is simply no conceivable way SCO can win this case. The future of Linux has a better chance of being affected by the second coming of Cthulhu.
It's an overview. No single case gets more than a brief mention, and although there has been lots of FUD and SCO has made an ass of itself, there hasn't yet been much action in court. In any case, there is a sidebar menu for "most popular headlines" which includes a link to a page about the SCO case.
Pop ups have become a non-issue. If you don't know how to get rid of them, you deserve to look at them.
Nuff said.
What is this? Karmic suicide?
These stories shouldn't be run until February!
Is that one of those things people who don't use Mozilla get? :-)
Twenties Retirement
If someone said "IP" last year, people in the tech-world would probably assume they were talking about the internet protocol.
This year however, its all about "Intellectual Property"
Sad..
... "good old times"
I think there's a presidential election next year,... go fix it
Merry-X-massexcucution
The criminal arena. The first ever "felony" spam arrest, followed by two more spammers surrendering.
A cybersquatter goes to prison for pr0n linking to mis-spelled children specific sites. Not trying to be redundant, but this article is informative.
My personal favorite, "DVD Jon" acquitted.
Of course then there's the software patenting nonsense. At least the patent office has enough sense to realize it needs to reform itself.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
And out of curiosity--there have been plenty of high-profile spammers interviewed in various publications; now that an anti-spam bill has been passed, are those folks all fair game for law enforcement?
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Laughing Stock: The Darl McBride Story
The title works on so many levels...
Breakfast served all day!
Who says I have to use "the" root DNS servers?
Who says I have to use "official" ICANN IP address allocations?
Am I committing a crime in the United States if I put up a private network running TCP/IP, put up some DNS servers that are authoritative for "CartoonNetwork.com" and put up some web servers to host pornography for that domain name? What about if I invite other people to participate in my private network? What about if I sell access to the public to my private network? What if I sell rights to corporations to join my private network? Where does the idiocy end?
Idiotic legislation to attempt to control the behaviour of the Internet is going to result in "multiple internets". We may well end up with the "United States internet" and the "rest of the world internet". Hell-- we practically have a "Chinese internet" and a "rest of the world internet" now.
Cooperation on the Internet works on the basis of social pressure, not on legislation. Legislation will only cause the Internet to fragment and "route around" the stupidity.
The Attitude Adjuster, I hate me, you can too.
what "system" are you talking about? you're remembering a time that never existed. yes, in fantasy-land there's no need for rules. everyone just listens to the words of the fairy princess and lives a happy, productive life.
in the real world there are rules governing all types of behavior and there have been since well before the dawn of the internet.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
- Darl "Bill Gates" McBrideand
Kevin "Mini-Mc" McBride-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
And although outright pornography isn't found in libraries, some books are considered pornography to conservatives.
An erotic work will fall into one of two classes: "obscene" erotica without artistic or scientific value, and merely "indecent" erotica considered "harmful to minors" even though it may be art. The Supreme Court has long held that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right to disseminate "obscene" material. The COPPA/COPA/CIPA controversy mostly considers 1. preserving adults' access to legitimate "indecent" erotica, and 2. preserving access to non-erotica that censorware miscategorizes as erotica, such as breast cancer pages, Philip K. Dick pages, pages that promote adoption over abortion or vice versa, Matsushita's site, etc.
Case law gets made when somebody loses their case, it goes up to a court of appeals, and the appellate court either affirms or reverses, issuing an opinion. So it's neither interesting nor surprising that the SCO v Linux case isn't mentioned in the article, that case is still at the trial court level.
Pacificroot had alternate servers running years ago.
More recently I don't know what the status is. But it was sure nice being able to type in www.bbc.news and get the proper website!!!
Pacificroot had alternate servers running years ago.
Oh, I'm not arguing that they don't exist-- just that nobody really uses them.
I'd love to see what would happen, though, if someone "collided" with an existing ICANN TLD. I would expect that criminal proceedings could well be touched off.
The Attitude Adjuster, I hate me, you can too.
It's going to be even more disturbing when we all wake up and find that none of us have "root" access on our computers anymore. All our packets on the Internet are going to be authenticated and cryptographically "secured" (i.e. "secured" from US), and the content publishers and distributors will hold all the keys.
I don't know diddly about crypto... but what you've described is exactly why Hollywood wanted CSS.
If Xing had protected their key better, we might still be trying to crack DVDs. (I'm not really sure how strong CSS is.) But take note of the approach -- a combination of leveraged industrial power, tech, and legislation. I think we'll be seeing this hybrid approach more and more. Try to lock 'em out, and if(when) the hackers find a way in, make sure the path they took was an illegal one, and a federal case to boot.
To wit: "Content providers" believe that when you skip commercials in TiVo, you're "stealing" from the networks. New TiVo's don't have this feature. (Or maybe it's ReplayTV, I'm a bit ignorant since I barely watch TV.) When you decipher Adobe's eBook, you go to jail for a few months -- the Sklyarov case being the equivalent of the Feds dipping their toes in the hot tub. Linking is looking less and less like protected speech. Jon Johansen gets retried for DeCSS. Microsoft rams Product Activation down our throat, and Windows XP loves to phone home.
While everyone's caught up looking at the trees, here's what's happening in the forest: We're inching ever towards limiting the common man's access to "intellectual property" (whatever that is). In doing so we're walking away from the past five hundred years of intellectual freedom brought about by Johannes Gutenberg and Martin Luther.
This is a huge, gigantic assault on the philosophy of the Enlightenment, on which (to some extent) our country was founded and our Constitution based. Yet my impression is that most comptuer geeks only see the tip of the iceberg --e.g. "I can't legally play my DVDs on Linux" or "ROT13! WTF J00 AD0B3 LAM3RZ!" The strongest fight is coming from librarians. I think librarians are the only ones to realize that, were libraries to be invented today, they would promptly be sued out of existence by the RIAA for illegal filesharing.
Though I think the librarians missed the obvious solutions when faced with CIPA and COPA: Deny Internet access to minors, and let adults surf unfettered. Let's see how Mommy and Daddy respond to that.
We have been fortunate enough to be able to live through the "Pilgrim" days of the net, as well as the "Wild West" which we are just starting to come out of. We've experienced many exciting things, and it doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon.
In 5 or 10 years from now, we may all be under the draconian rule of M$, the RIAA, the MPAA, or whatever organizations might strip our net freedoms, but they can never take away our memories of what it was like in the golden days.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I will be sure to tell my future children and grand children of the glorious days of yore when you had to be a real computer geek to even access a BBS, or when almost any song or movie or software program could be found online for free if you knew where to look.
Take a step back and absorb all you can about the great things we take for granted on the net right now, for you may log on one day to find out they've disappeared over night, like a broken link.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
>At one time we didn't NEED internet law.
We still don't NEED internet law.
Everything that's illegal "on the internet" was already illegal to begin with, offline. Copyright infringement ("piracy")? It was illegal long before the internet came around. Fraud? That was illegal before computers were even invented. Breaking and entering ("cracking")? Already prohibited by law. Child porn? That wasn't OK before the Intarweb either.
No, we don't NEED internet law, the current laws already apply to just about any internet crime imaginable. The new [insert existing crime] "on the internet" laws are just yet another powergrab with longer sentences. But try convincing your congresscritter of that, without making a campaign contribution.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
The words "fix" and "presidential election" seem to go together rather well in a sentence, considering what happened last time...
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
point of order: as was explained recently in a /. story, Jon Johansen wasn't re-tried, as we Americans think of it (a la double jeopardy); rather, he went thru a level of appeals which, in his country, means there is some kind of trial which happens in front of the new panel of judges. so if you compare that to the American system, it was more like the continuation of his previous trial -- the continuation of his entire legal process. i believe in America the appellate court simply *reviews* the proceedings of the lower court, maybe with some additional arguments, but in Norway they have a whole *new* trial.