Attorney Mike Godwin Answers 'Cyberlaw' Questions

In this Q & A session, in which attorney Mike Godwin answers your questions, you'll see talk about many topics that get chewed up on Slashdot over and over again -- except this time the person speaking actually knows what he's talking about. Note especially the bit about liability for what you post online. A *lot* of people who post on Slashdot ought to read that part... Is there any hope? - by griffjon

By the time your daughter grows up, do you think there will be any of our cherished freedoms on the Internet left, or will everything be wrapped in legalese and DRM? With the passage of laws from the DMCA to the PATRIOT act, I've been increasingly pessimistic about the US's ability to pass any sane legislation that interfaces with the Internet...

Godwin:

If I didn't have hope that freedom would ultimately prevail on the Internet, and in the world around us generally, I would have moved on to some other kind of work. My current work, with Public Knowledge, is deeply satisfying -- I think the action now is at the intersection of intellectual-property law, technology policy, and constitutional law, and I have a longstanding interest in all three.

I don't think DRM by itself is deeply significant -- I think it's part of an ongoing cycle by vendors of digital products to attempt to increase control, then to relax it when the marketplace resists that control. Badly crafted laws, such as the DMCA and the PATRIOT Act are worse problems, in a way -- there's a strong tendency in the legal system for laws to ratchet up restrictions that are then only rarely ratcheted back down. The key thing in response to such laws is to identify points of tension where the laws lead to absurd results, and to focus challenges there. That's what EFF and other activist groups try to do.

The worst problem is when badly crafted laws, such as the DMCA, intersect with DRM to lead to results that effectively deprive people of rights they otherwise have under the Copyright Act, or under other laws. But I don't think such problems are intractable -- I think they simply require an immense amount of long-term effort by reformers.

Lesser-known cases that have a big impact on law. - by Viperion

Mr. Godwin - Lots of /.ers follow the SCO case, followed the DeCSS, Napster, IP, CIPA, etc. What are some lesser known cases/laws that you forsee as having a large potential impact on 'cyberlaw' as we know it?

Godwin:

I think we've come a long way since the early 1990s, when key cases might be handed down that affect online rights and responsibilities without generating a lot of publicity. The cases you hear about now through Slashdot and through traditional news media are the leading cases.

Where the real focus needs to be, it seems to me, is on the efforts by content companies to get the Federal Commuications Commission to become, in effect, the arbiter over DRM and computer arhitectures generally. Some of this is occurring in the FCC's broadcast-flag proceeding, and some in the FCC's administration of "plug-and-play" compatibility for cable services. Right now, the content companies are hoping to steer consumer-electronics companies and computer companies against using analog interfaces, because analog interfaces aren't as easily subjected to copy-protection technologies. Never mind that analog connections may be a source of compatibility among a wide range of different technologies.

Another front in cyberlaw is the efforts of the movie companies to seek changes in state-level regulation that would prohibit you from hooking up your computer, or other "unauthorized devices," to services you're paying for, such as cable television service. What the movie companies would like is for it to be criminal for you to hook up any device that might be more flexible than consumer-electronics tools in capturing and playing back content. I understand their concern -- they're freaked out by the prospect of folks digitizing content and putting it up on their Internet -- but I don't think their concern should trump the general preference we have for convergence between consumer-electronics devices and information-technology devices. The fact is that, already for a lot of us, watching TV on computers is the preferred mode to view TV content. Ditto with movies.

Internet law, International law? - by heironymouscoward

How far do you think that the internet will be responsible for creating a de-facto international legal system? Property rights, shared criminal databases, shared economic systems,... it seems that the influence of TCP/IP packets has no limits on our society. Will we one day see a world government to enforce international law? And lastly, will this be the US?

Godwin:

Well, I can't dispute that there are some strong pressures to harmonize legal systems among nations. The Internet is certainly part of that, although the pressures predate the modern Internet. But, you know, the experience we've had in the United States has been that there have long been efforts harmonize law among the various states -- the result has been a greater degree of uniformity, but not complete uniformity, among the states. What I anticipate over the long run is that, due to the Internet and other factors, we'll see a greater degree of uniformity among the laws of various nations, with critical exceptions such as the United States's greater degree of tolerance for defamatory speech.

The key focus will coming up with standard rules for deciding which courts have jurisdiction over activities that occur on the Internet. For some kinds of cases, it will turn on where the Internet activity or communication originated; for others, it will turn on what kinds of effects the Internet transaction has had on a particular jurisdiction.

I think we're a long way from "world government." You need a greater degree of inter-cultural harmony than we currently have, if the world government is going to play a dominant role. I think the U.S. has created some credibility problems for itself with the war on Iraq that tend to undercut its moral authority in other spheres. Even without that problem, there is longstanding resistance among other nations to ceding to the United States too much influence or control

Internet Pollution - by iplayfast

It seems to me that most (if not all) spaming and advertising done on the Internet is simply polluting the lines of communication. Like any pollution, it reduces the stuff you want, by increasing the ratio of stuff you don't want, thereby making the whole environment unusable.

Is it possible that this view can be used in any legal way to go after Internet polluters?

Godwin:

While legal theories derive to a large extent from analogy, it's usually not quite on such a wholesale level. Plus, economists already have some useful analogies to deal with the problems raised by SPAM -- "the free-rider problem" and "the tragedy of the commons." (These concepts also have been applied to environmental pollution, by the way.)

Where the pollution metaphor departs from our legal system is that most SPAM is also speech (albeit frequently speech that is garbled in order to thwart Bayesian and other types of filtering). Prior to the Internet, we saw the development of so-called "commercial speech" doctrine in American constitutional law -- it was aimed at creating a framework that allowed regulation of speech that invites someone into a commercial transaction, without affecting all the other kinds of speech, but has never been fully laid out or defined. The SPAM problem may result in more development of this doctrine.

What most of us who complain about SPAM want, I think, is a world in which we never get unsolicited commercial email, or at least in which that email is kept to a minimum. Plus, we'd kind of like to get back the bandwidth that we think is being eaten up by the spammers. (Obviously, blocking spam at the user level -- which I more or less have to do, since my email address has been the same for a decade and a half -- doesn't address the waste of bandwidth due to SPAM.) I'm not sure I know how one properly addresses the problem from a legal standpoint; I'm pretty certain that mere technical solutions won't work, absent some major reworking of the architecture of the Internet (which I would disfavor).

What we say in Cyberspace - by MrIrwin

I have always considered comments that are said on newsgroups and forums to be personal opinions of the sort one might overhear in a bar, so if you say "Apple nicked all their ideas from PARC" you would not suddenly expect a summons from Apples legal department.

On the contary, if a site passes itself as an "eNewspaper" site, an eMag or whatever, and it publishes mistruths, then I would expect it to be sued as any pulp publication would be.

Are there any legal precedents or specific laws on this?

Godwin:

First of all, make no mistake -- you can be held legally responsible even for things you say in a bar! Our law addresses the kinds of reputational damage that one can do in a bar conversation; we call that area of law the law of "slander" -- that is, the law of spoken defamation.

There's also already plenty of law on the books with regard to defamation on the Internet. Generally, the analysis is that because the scope of Internet communication can be much greater than that of overheard-in-the-bar conversations, libel law (generally speaking, reputational damage attributable to publishing in a mass medium) is more applicable than the law of slander.

You're right that Internet publications that edit their content before making it available to the public probably fall under the same rules as any publication on "dead trees." What was harder for the legal system to grapple with in the early 1990s was the BBS/Compuserve problem -- how do you treat systems that reserve the right to edit or remove stuff, but don't normally do so? I spelled out what I thought was the answer to that question in articles I published back then, later collected and reworked in my book CYBER RIGHTS: DEFENDING FREE SPEECH IN THE DIGITAL AGE.

I think I came up with "the right answer," applying existing libel-law principles, but my prescription about how to handle libel on the Internet was trumped by the Communications Decency Act, which later was incorporated into the 1996 omnibus telecommunications legislation. In the runup to the CDA, service providers negotiated an legal-liability exemption for themselves for cases in which their subscribers (rather than, say, magazine editors) originated the content. Needless to say, this was not a part of the Communications Decency Act that we challenged in Reno v. ACLU, the case in which the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court's finding that the CDA's ban on "indecent" content on the Internet was unconstitutional. One of the nicer outcomes for service providers and for the rest of us was that the ISP exemption remained even when the guts of that law were struck down. (I also talk about this case at length in CYBER RIGHTS, by the way.)

DMCA - by JoeBaldwin

Do you see the DMCA as a law that can truly benefit the world as a whole, or just a tool of the big corporations (MPAA, I'm looking at you) or whatever?

Godwin:

Well, I think it's primarily a tool of copyright-holding companies, who continue to be terrified (with justification) about the impact the digital world is going to have on their ways of doing business. For two or three centuries, depending on how you count, publishers and distributors have relied on the technological happenstance that making a copy of a creative work was difficult. The digital world makes copying easy and cheap, which undercuts a basic assumption behind copyright law, which is that unauthorized copying is generally so expensive that only bad guys with commercial motives would bother to do it. Suddenly, computers and the Internet have created a world in which ordinary, otherwise-law-abiding people are empowered to make unauthorized copies for free, and to share those 100-percent-perfect copies of creative works with other people -- maybe millions of other people.

Now, one response to this is just exactly what we've seen -- the copyright industries have been trying to shore up the existing copyright framework by DMCA lawsuits (either against Internet service providers or against individual users), by seeking architectural changes over computers and the Internet (to make copying harder), by classifying noncommercial copying as a criminal or civil wrong, and so on. And because these are well-moneyed copyright holders who do in fact employ lots of people and contribute to the economy, they have a lot of influence with policy-makers.

The problem here isn't merely that the copyright industries are trying to demonize peer-to-peer file-sharing, and digital copying of content generally. Instead, it's that they don't realize (or don't care) that they're attempting to roll back or otherwise restrict what can only be understood properly as design features of computers and of the Internet itself. Digital technologies at some fundamental level are about the making of perfect copies of information (whether that information is your content or someone else's). It's very hard to put technological hobbles on computers and the Internet that distinguish between lawful copying and unlawful copying -- if you want to throw out that bathwater, you're going to end up throwing out the baby as well.

A better approach, it seems to me, is that suggested by, among others, law professor Jessica Litman in her book DIGITAL COPYRIGHT. In the last chapter of her book, which I recommend to anyone interested in the DMCA and related digital-copyright subjects, Litman suggests that as we revise copyright law in the digital age, we try to make it as much like pre-existing law as possible. I agree with that -- my major criticism of the DMCA is not so much that it serves only one set of interests but rather that it prohibits circumventing copy-protection technologies even if you have an otherwise lawful reason to do so.

I have one other thought on this subject that's been on my mind lately, and it's this: just as much as peer-to-peer file-sharing is a basic feature of the Internet, music sharing (and the sharing of other treasured creative works) is a basic feature of human culture. We want to share the songs we love, the books and movies we love, and so on. I think what we've got to aim for is a legal system that preserves the goals of the Copyright Act while accommodating, to the extent possible, the human impulse to share the cultural creations we love.

Future Lawyers - by Fros1y

As a computer science student graduating college and hoping to head to law school, I wonder if you have any particular advice about what training, if any, will help to prepare me for "cyber-law". Many schools seem to have programs focusing on this aspect of the law, but I've often thought that the generalist approach to a field yielded better results.

Are there any experiences you'd advise a young prospective attorney interested in this field to seek out?

Godwin:

My belief is that the generalist approach is the right approach. The best lawyers in this field, I believe, are generalists -- people not only comfortable with a wide range of areas of law, but also with as wide a range as possible of technologies, creative cultures, and so on. Fortunately, any good law school has the resources to give someone a good general background on the legal side; as to the technological and cultural stuff, basically you have to make an extra effort to keep up that side of your training as well.

I never took a copyright course, or any course in intellectual property law, but I haven't found them particularly hard to acquire as a working lawyer. That's partly because the legal training I did receive enabled me to learn new stuff in a hurry. So, aim for the best legal training you can get, and don't give undue weight to the question of whether the law school has a program in cyberlaw or not.

There was, of course, no cyberlaw course being taught anywhere in the late 1980s when I was in law school, and I haven't felt the lack.

Spyware and its legal status - by medication

While I find spam as annoying as the next person, I'm more interested in the legal status of spyware. What are the rights of the individual when he visits a site? What rights to the individual's machine does the site have? Is permanently altering a user's browser a legal operation? What constitutes permission with regard to this type of manipulation?

Godwin:

The general answer is, if you give knowing consent to let this stuff be installed on your system, the spyware company is off the hook. "Knowing consent" probably means something like "did you have a chance to reading the licensing terms before clicking 'Agree'?"

Most of the companies that want to install stuff on your system that monitors what you do or otherwise takes over some of the cycles of your CPU for their own purposes will put such waivers up front in the installation process. Those that don't fully inform you about what they're doing, or that simply install stuff secretly, may be running afoul of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (or a state-law equivalent).

Making DVD Copies - by iammrjvo

Is it legal to make and edit copies of commercial DVDs for personal use? What about loaning out the edited copies to friends?

Godwin:

Personally, I happen to believe that making copies of your own DVDs for your own personal use ought to be understood as legal. Ditto for edited copies, to a limited extent. But beware -- the further you get from personal use, the more copies you make, and the more people you loan the copies to, the more likely it is that some movie company will try to classify you as an infringer and get you sued or prosecuted. (This risk is even greater if you've been editing the DVD content.)

We're living in a time in which there is a lot of pressure from content owners to put harder and ever more restrictive limits on what you can do with commercial content -- even content that you've lawfully obtained. Until the next paradigm shift occurs (and I don't know when that will be), you need to be alert to the prospect that your seemingly innocent, noncommercial behavior with digital content will set off a tripwire in some copyright lawyer's office somewhere.

What makes the net so special? - by jdunlevy

Why is it that there "have to be" laws specific to the internet? If a spammer sends an e-mail using forged headers, why doesn't the law go after him (or her) with good old-fashioned anti-fraud laws? Does the main failing of these kinds of old laws lie in ingorance that makes law enforcement unable or unwilling to enforce the laws without further clarification, or is something else going on here?

Godwin:

I've never been one for Internet-specific laws. I like to think our law works best when we incrementally change existing law to accommodate new situations. That's what happened with the law of common carriage, for instance -- a branch of law that dealt with carrier liability when the carrier was likely a stagecoach or a locomotive ultimately was adapted to apply to the telegraph and telephone, and the outcome of that incremental growth was liberating, both commercially and socially.

There may, however, be areas of law where something Internet-specific (or computer-specific) needs to be specifically developed. Take SPAM, for example -- the problem with SPAM may be understood as the fact that there are few inherent economic limitations on filling people's mailboxes with unwanted email. (By comparison, junk-mailers have to pay postage, printing costs, and the like.) So maybe the fact that there are no economic disincentives for spammers to flood your mailbox means there should be legal disincentives. Similarly, computer viruses are a kind of noxious hazard that does not have a precise counterpart in the non-Internet world, so it seems appropriate to address virus-writing miscreants with computer-specific or Internet-specific laws.

In general, though, I like applying old rules in new ways. My book takes this approach as one of its themes -- I try to show how traditional, well-understood principles of free-speech law can be adapted relatively straightforwardly in the digital world.

Privacy and domain names - by Tablizer

Do you feel that one should have to make their (human) name and street public information to receive a domain name? It is perfectly possible to keep such information private except to law enforcement under request. The debators on both sides seem to see it as an all or nothing situation: open to everybody or open to nobody.

Godwin:

I'm not a big supporter of mandatory self-identification, whether it comes to domain names or anything else. Our culture, including our legal system, has established a pretty high tolerance for anonymous speech, and I'd hate so see that tradition abandoned, whether in the course of fighting spam, or preventing terrorism, or whatever the evil of the day is.

Question (continued):

Godwin:

For that matter, what are the legal barriers against having a single "recipient number" for all types of communication so that one can move and still keep the same number? Email, phone, paper mail, etc. can then be redirected to such a number, and internal lookup tables would supply physical locations or addresses for final delivery. But to senders or callers, it is just one stable number.

There's no restriction on keeping your same email address, so long as you keep the same provider, so far as I know. (Your provider may have policies that restrict your ability to do this, but I know of no general legal restriction.) The key thing for the Internet is DNS -- the domain name in your email address tells mail servers something about where to route your mail. I don't know for certain, but my instinct is to believe that email addresses are not going to be portable anytime soon in the way that (thanks to regulation and deregulation) cell phone numbers are, and landline phones may someday be. At least not until we see some successor to the domain-name/IP-address model, which I wouldn't look for anytime soon.

GNU General Public Licence - by Vexware

I have written some software and have decided to distribute it under the GNU General Public License. I then find out some established/incorporated company has modified the software without redistributing their modified version freely, that they are making a profit out of the modified undistributed version, or that they are redistributing the software without pointing out that what they are giving is not the original version of the software. What exactly are my rights? Is it worth taking the company to court, or is this too risky? To come to the point, is the GPL actually a license which has some value in the courts of justice?

Godwin:

I'm not an expert on the intricacies of applying the GPL -- for that expertise I'd refer you to Eben Moglen at the Columbia University law school, since he's thought more deeply about GPL problems than I have (not least because he developed the current version of the GPL in consultation with RMS). My short answers are:

A. Yes, I believe the GPL is actually a license that has value in court.

B. I can't tell you whether it's an appropriate business decision for you to pursue some legal action against some company that has violated the GPL that accompanied the code with which you provided them. I do think folks at the Free Software Foundation and other free-software/open-source advocates would likely take an interest in a case like the one you describe, so it wouldn't hurt to contact them for advice if this problem comes up.

Groklaw - by robslimo

What effects, positive or negative, do you think sites like the popular Groklaw have/will have on corporate technology litigation? Do lawyers pay any attention to the research and opinions of amateurs and the general public?

Godwin:

I think sites like Groklaw provide valuable information as well as (occasionally) entertainment for those of us, lawyers and nonlawyers alike, who want to track certain kinds of computer-, Internet-, and technnology-related issues. I don't have any strong sense that lawyers who represent the big corporate players give routine attention to what people say on the Net about their cases -- for them, as for the rest of us, the Internet may well be what Vernor Vinge memorably termed "the Net of a Thousand Lies." That said, history suggests that if there's enough of a groundswell of opinion, positive or negative, about what a company is doing, the company ultimately pays attention to the reaction (with the CEOs paying attention perhaps more quickly than the lawyers do).

Comments

Thrid psot

[Anonymous Coward]

Nazis!

domain name registration/information

[garcia]

Privacy and domain names - by Tablizer

Do you feel that one should have to make their (human) name and street public information to receive a domain name?

Godwin:

I'm not a big supporter of mandatory self-identification, whether it comes to domain names or anything else. Our culture, including our legal system, has established a pretty high tolerance for anonymous speech, and I'd hate so see that tradition abandoned, whether in the course of fighting spam, or preventing terrorism, or whatever the evil of the day is.

Exactly! I have mentioned this particular tidbit before and have been roasted because your domain name shouldn't be considered something that is private.

The more and more we find these little pieces acceptable the more ground we will lose in the future.

Yes, it will make it difficult to prosecute spammers. It will also make it difficult for people to harass people minding their own business.

Should we eliminate the privacy of 99% of the population for what the other 1% does? I don't think it should fly in this particular instance.

Just my .02,

Re:domain name registration/information

[spamacon]

My domain registrar (registerfly.com, not affiliated, bla bla bla) and others provide a service where they put some mangled address/telephone that they control so that any of my personal info is hidden. If anything comes to them for me, they would forward it to me. That seems like a way to get anonymity while still being able to follow DNS rules.
tink tink (2 cents)

Re:domain name registration/information

[MisanthropicProgram]

Sir:
A fucking men

I'm a firm believer that personal privacy should be the prime criteria for most laws and regulations.

For those of you who think - if you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about . Well, post your:

Name

Address

Date of birth

Social Security number (or eqivilant)

Sexual preferance

The last person you slept with

Your politics

Everything else...
Yes, I have a lot to hide! All of it is legal --- for now!

Re:domain name registration/information

[garcia]

and you have to pay for that... I should be allowed to protect myself w/o having to pay someone else.

We are doing this because of 1% of the population that would find another way around it anyway.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Professr3]

(human) name As opposed to...?

Re:domain name registration/information

[Mandrake]

I think you should have also requested shoe size and mother's maiden name.

Re:domain name registration/information

[NamShubCMX]

I wish I had mod points right now...

Not having done anything wrong does not mean not having anything to hide

Simple as that.

Re:domain name registration/information

[MisanthropicProgram]

Oh, fuck! you're right!

Add that to my list!

Re:domain name registration/information

[Skidge]

Having to pay for privacy seems to be pretty standard. Last time I signed up for telephone service, they told me I'd have to pay extra to not get listed in the phone book.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

J00R 1337 |-|4x0r |\|4m3!!11!!~~!!1

Or your professional business name. Given that registerd companies have afforded to them several of the rights and privelidges given to an individual, why can they not use their business name?

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

Name: Rob Malda
Address: 2001 Woodlark Dr., Holland, MI 49424-7643
Date of birth: 04-01-72
Social Security number (or eqivilant): 567-68-0515
Sexual preferance: Bottom
The last person you slept with: CowboiKneel
Your politics: Anything to fellate RMS or Linus Torvalds
Everything else: I once cheated on CowboiKneel with Michael

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just wanting to post your anti-OO rants without anyone knowing that topmind/tabilizer/FlakeyMind is really Bryce Jacobs.

Re:domain name registration/information

[MisanthropicProgram]

Mr. or Ms. Moderator,
I was responding to the parent post. Please reconsider.

Thank you, MisanthropicProgram

Re:domain name registration/information

[cellocgw]

I should be allowed to protect myself w/o having to pay someone else.
Well, to follow Godwin's them of matching Internet law to the laws in the physical world, I'd like to point out that you pay someone else to run your house security/alarm system, you pay someone else to guard the streets (albeit a government agency, i.e. the police), and so on.
Not to say you couldn't (maybe) do these things yourself, but that would take significant effort and skill.... not unlike creating your own domain&webhost with your very own set of anonymity tools.

Re:domain name registration/information

[whovian]

Well, for one your home telephone company gets away with charging you to have an unlisted number. People who do need to know your number in case of emergency (police, 911) just use caller ID to sniff your number anyway.

The alternatives cover the whole range of costs. AFAIK cell phone carriers keep subscriber numbers unlisted (for now).

Re:domain name registration/information

[MisanthropicProgram]

To the moderator who mod'd me "Offtopic" --FUCK YOU!

Re:domain name registration/information

[Tassach]

Should we eliminate the privacy of 99% of the population for what the other 1% does? I don't think it should fly in this particular instance.

I don't think it should fly in ANY instance. The rights of the majority should not be infringed to punish a minority, nor should the rights of a minority be infringed to cater to the whim of the majority.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

so? This proves my point exactly. You are paying off the telephone company to stop them from making more revenue off something you really don't have a choice but to have (at least before cell phones).

You are allowing this to go on and it's only getting worse.

Thank you.

Re:domain name registration/information

[mritunjai]

Well I do have modpoints, but I'll reply instead!

Here are three points, ponder over them-

1. Can you buy property anonymously ? Do you think you should have right to know at least Name and Address of person living 2 doors next to you ? Don't you think you should have the right to know who else is living in your apartment ? Then why do you think you should be able to buy your virtual address anonymously ? You think real world law of free speech should apply in virtual world, then why not the custom that demands you give your name/address while getting a phone service/www service or a domain name ?

2. Some things can (and are) classified as "none of your business (NOYB)" in certain circumstances. If a person in street demands your shoe number, you can tell him NOYB... but not to the shoe shop attendant! You name, address and phone number ARE NOT your secret assets... however, your SSN is! So learn to make difference... that is called "common sense".

3. I'm from India, but know enough of privacy law stated in US constitution. It says you and your private property are protected from unreasonable searches. You DO NOT have right to be anonymous while communicating! (Heard of CallerID ? Telephone Directory ?)... and Internet is just another communication medium. No privacy here! Just because its easier to be anonymous on Internet does NOT mean you have RIGHT to be anonymous.

Finally, if it bothers you, just don't do/say things that you won't in front of 2000 audience on a stage... or on phone with another person.

- Akhilesh

Re:domain name registration/information

[dgatwood]

My opinion is that anonymity should be allowed only for services that are "pull-only"---that is, services like web servers where someone actually requests your content. There should be no anonymity for "push" services where you are able to force your content on other people.

It's just like in the real world with phone numbers. You can have your phone number unlisted, ensuring your privacy as long as you are only receiving calls. However unless you block caller ID, the second you make an outgoing call, somebody knows your number. Even if you block caller ID, if you use the number for evil, the source of the call can be reported to law enforcement (though the person you called won't see it).

In much the same way, the only outgoing anonymity should be pseudoanonymous trust relationships, where you trust some third party to provide a pseudoanonymous account, i.e. that third party knows who you are, and agrees not to make that information known except to a court of law.

Thus, a domain name could have bogus contact information, but in order to send email, the person running the mail server should have to register a legitimate physical contact address with a central authority, along with a host key used to sign each message sent from that host.

Just my $0.02.

Re:domain name registration/information

[stanmann]

Actually, they don't... they use ANI.. call id can be blocked or dropped with little difficulty. OTOH spoofing ANI is non-trivial.

Re:domain name registration/information

[cayenne8]

You can get a sort of 'unlisted' number for free...I got this from a girlfriend of mine that worked at the Phone Co.

You can TELL them how you want your number listed. I have them list mine as first intial, and middle name. So, there is no listing with my real searchable name (first and last name). And a neat by product of this is, that if a phone sales/survey calls asking for Mr or Ms middlename, I know immediately they got the number from a scan of the phone book...and I tell them no one by that name resides here.

They often list women's numbers by first intial and last name...I just didn't list my last name. No extra charge for this.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Cro Magnon]

First Name - Cro

Last Name - Magnon

Address - Hmm, let me see what's chiseled on my cave

Date of birth - 9/5/1,000,000 BC

Social Security number - What's a number?

Sexual preference - The more the better!

The last person you slept with - Um, does my saber-toothed tiger count?

My politics - Kill the lawyers!

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

My domain is registered with fake info, and my registrar has never done anything about it, even though they sell a service (DomainsByProxy) similar to what you mentioned. I don't think anyone really cares TOO much, and my registrar has thusfar been great about it (though I'm posting as AC here because I don't want them to catch on if they've just missed it ;^).

Re:domain name registration/information

[DunbarTheInept]

It's not anonymity that's the problem. It's lying about anonymity that's the problem. If you want to be anonymous, you have every right to, but only if you honestly admit to being anonymous, instead of trying to pretend to have a real name with a real return address. Anonymity is a right, but having a fake (but seemingly real) identity is not. A spammer sending me mail allegedly from "John.Doe@some.server.com" is guilty of the same thing as a person using a fake ID card.

Re:domain name registration/information

[mamba-mamba]

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

You are right that the 4th ammendment doesn't say anything about anonymity. But there is still a problem.

In the old days, it was possible to be a pamphleteer, and have people pass out your works in the town commons. If you were careful, people might not ever connect you to the work. But nowadays, the internet has sort of become the commons, and to be a modern pamphleteer, you need to use the internet. So there should be some way for people to publish radical political works without disclosing their identity. I'm not saying that this principle is enshrined in the constitution, but it is still good policy and an important freedom.

MM
--

Re:domain name registration/information

[DunbarTheInept]

Everything else...

I was about to show you up by showing I would do the above un-abashedly (since some of it is irrelevant, and the stuff that is relevant can all be obtained by other means anyway) But then I realized you asked for "everything else" and I don't have that much time.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Can you buy property anonymously ? Do you think you should have right to know at least Name and Address of person living 2 doors next to you ? Don't you think you should have the right to know who else is living in your apartment ? Then why do you think you should be able to buy your virtual address anonymously ? You think real world law of free speech should apply in virtual world, then why not the custom that demands you give your name/address while getting a phone service/www service or a domain name ?

The difference is that one associates speech directly with the person, and the other (property) does not. I can see someone speaking on the street corner but they can keep their anonyminity, or if a flier gets posted somewhere there again is no threat to anonyminity.

You DO NOT have right to be anonymous while communicating! (Heard of CallerID ? Telephone Directory ?)

Ever hear of CallerID Blocking? Ever hear of unlisted phone numbers? True, you have to do something to gain anonymous status, but it is possible.

Re:domain name registration/information

[DunbarTheInept]

He already said "everything else" in his list.

Re:domain name registration/information

[garcia]

1. Can you buy property anonymously?

yes. it's called cash. Buying a domain is not buying property. It's buying a service to point to an IP. I shouldn't be required to tell someone my physical address for that.

As long as I paid for it that's all that matters.

Re:domain name registration/information

[yamla]

I can definitely buy property anonymously. You may perhaps mean real estate instead of property, in which case I presume I could not buy real estate anonymously.

I do not think I have a right to know at least the name of a person living 2 doors next to me, though their address I can obviously obtain as I already have my address. It seems strange to me that you think I _do_ have a right to this information. Certainly, no such right is in the legal code of Canada (the owner of the house could be, and in this case is, different from the resident). Similarly I do not believe I have the right to know who else is living in my apartment building and I find it strange that you do.

That said, I am undecided as to whether I should have the right to find out names and addresses of owners of domain names. I certainly believe I should be able to find this information out under court order, I am just not sure if I should have the right without a court order.

Re:domain name registration/information

[fenix down]

Even though this is a completely insane analogy, you do pay for someone else to guard the streets on the internet. They just decided to use that money to make you give everyone your phone number.

Re:domain name registration/information

[B'Trey]

Your analogy doesn't hold water. I pay (directly or through taxes) security companies, police, the fire company, etc. for a service they provide. I don't pay them NOT to do something. I have to pay a particular registrar or the phone company NOT to publish my info. Police, FD, etc. are protecting me from the actions of other people. Registrars and the phone company are, in essence, "protecting" me from dangers that they theyselves cause. It's almost like a protection racket. "You pay us money or we're going to publish your info for everybody to see."

Re:domain name registration/information

[An Onerous Coward]

Let's see. I've recently developed a sort of antipathy towards extreme privacy proponents. So as an intellectual exercise, let's see how comfortable I am with this list.

Name? No problem.

Address? Why? Is someone trying to hunt me down and kill me? I know a lot of my posts border on flamebait, but certain stalkers out there really need to get a sense of perspective.

Do a whois lookup for delusionsofadequacy.org, and you'll have my name and address. I don't much care. And if you check, I don't much care about the website either.

Date of birth? Dear Lord, someone will know whether I'm more likely to respond to an ad for rollerblades or denture cream. Seriously, unless I'm trying to pick up teenage girls in chat rooms by pretending to be fifteen, I wouldn't much care.

Social security: Okay, this one is over the line. I don't want it to be public information. These days, it's absolutely dangerous to your life and livelihood for your SSN to get into the wrong hands.

But let's stop and think about the reason for this. What is a Social Security Number? It's a unique, system-wide identifier. It should be as safe for someone to know your SSN as your full name. Where it becomes dangerous is when certain security-n00b bureaucracies decide to use it as a convenient password rather than an identifier.

If they used names the way they use SSNs, anyone who knew your name could access your bank account, incur debts in your name, cash your paycheck, and all the other things that fall under the rubric of "identity theft."

Eventually, these bureaucracies may get a clue, and start using SSNs for identification, with a separate password for the purposes of authentication. Then we will have entered the golden era, where we can say that Social Security Numbers want to be free.

Moving on.

Sexual preference: As a member of the current reigning sexual affinity, I don't have a problem with people knowing: I likes the gurlies. If I were a homosexual, it would certainly be a touchy situation.

If we were a more enlightened society, then it wouldn't matter much whether someone was gay or straight. Admitting to being gay would be about as threatening as admitting that you were fond of frozen yogurt. Unfortunately, homosexuals are still persecuted--and yes, it is a very apt description of what goes on.

So what happens when suddenly, everyone knows? What if this technological repository of all knowledge we're carelessly slapping together ended up forcing everyone out of the closet? Some relationships get strained, or broken. Some job and family situations would suddenly become intolerable. But for many people, it would also put a human face on this amorphous "pink menace" that they've allowed themselves to demonize.

It's hard to say whether the mandatory "outing" of all homosexuals would lead to a greater acceptance of the lifestyle, or ghettoization. I'm definitely struggling with that aspect of the whole privacy debate.

"The last person you slept with." I'm not volunteering any information on that point.

My politics are pretty much a matter of public record. We've all heard the stories of bosses who couldn't stand the idea of having an employee whose views differed from his own, so public information might lead to severe reprisals. On the other hand, the information would also be available for new hires. This would have two effects: the talent pool available for such bosses would shrink in proportion to their own intolerance--presumably making them less successful--and people wouldn't end up in situations where their political views were dangerous to their continued employment.

The same questions arise when it comes to having any secrets made public: affairs, tax fraud, porn surfing habits, etc. When an affair is made known, there are a number of options a couple can take. The cheating partner can break off the affair, or break off the marriage. Wheth

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

jack everlane
1457 poplar st.
luckenbach, tx 78624
04/01/1942
423-58-7821
straight
my wife, emma
southern democract
(not sure what this means)
shoe size: 12
mother's maden: happerton

Re:domain name registration/information

[ScooterBill]

Excuse me Akhilesh but you are making some pretty bold assumptions.

First of all, we make our own laws and regulations. There is no intrinsic rule to govern the way your information is used other than those rules which our legislature has enacted.

Second, there is always a balance between privacy and your interaction with the world. If you never talk, write, email, etc to anyone, you'll probably never get spam, junk mail, unsolicited phone calls, etc. It's your choice and if you don't like the way it works, then either change the way you communicate or write your congressman to have the laws changed.

Third, even though we have a constitution and laws and the appearance of order the one with more money, influence, power will almost always have the upper hand. I realize this sounds cynical but that's the way it is.

M

Re:domain name registration/information

[Alsee]

Can you buy property anonymously ?

I don't know real-estate law, but you can certainly buy property through a lawyer. If that's not 'anonymous' enough you could always go through a foreign lawyer and or foreign corporation.

Do you think you should have right to know at least Name and Address of person living 2 doors next to you ?

The address is a pretty silly example. I don't have any particular "right" to know the address, but all I need to do is open my eyes and look.

As for knowing their name, do I have some "right" to shoot or imprison my neighbor if he refuses to answer my questions?

Don't you think you should have the right to know who else is living in your apartment ?

Again, do I have some "right" to shoot or imprison my neighbor if he refuses to answer my questions?

And it's no different for a motel. If I pay the owner of the building (possibly in cash), what gives me any right to forcibly extract their name if they don't fell like talking to me? I don't have any right to force the guest next door to say anything.

the custom that demands you give your name/address while getting a phone service

Pre-paid cell phones anyone?

You should be able to pay for a land-line in cash too, though it's way more complicated because it involves access to your property.

You name, address and phone number ARE NOT your secret assets

They are whenever I don't feel like handing them out.

Obviously if I want something delivered by mail or otherwise delivered to my home I'll generally need to tell them where to send it.

Obviously if I want to be billed rather than to pay up front, or if I agree to a contract to make future commitments of any sort I'll need to sign a contract (including my name). And as far as I know here in the US you can pretty much change your name at will simply by using that new name. Getting something like a drivers licence changed takes specific effort, but I can have all of my mail addressed to John Q. Doe and start signing all of my contracts with John Q. Doe at will, and it is legally binding.

privacy law stated in US constitution. It says you and your private property are protected from unreasonable searches.

Yeah, the right to privacy is a bit of a mess and an issue at the moment. The constitution makes NO specific mention of a right to privacy. The 4th amendment only lays out some rules about search warrants.

The 9th amendment was intended to cover things like this. It says:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

It basicly acknowedges that it's impossible to make an exhaustive list list of our rights. It says that unlisted rights exist. It says the fact that some right is not listed is NOT evidence that it isn't a right.

I think virtually every Americal agrees that there is a right to privacy. The issue we are having is over the the type of judges appointed to the top courts and the Supreme Court, whether that are inclined to protect individual rights and read the 9th amendment as giving broad protection to the people, or whether they are inclined towards granting greater power to the government and reading citizen's rights narrowly.

You DO NOT have right to be anonymous while communicating!

Many of the most important documents leading up to the American Revolution were published anonymously. Anonymous speech is considered an absolutely VITAL element of US free speech rights. Speech criticizing the government is only completely free when that speech can be made anonomously and free of fear. And that freedom carries over to non-political speech.

Of course that does not give me any right to force some newspaper to carry my speech. Of cource if I spraypaint a message on a wall they will attempt to locate me for vandalism. Blah blah blah. But if

Re:domain name registration/information

[RedHat Rocky]

Can you buy property anonymously ?

Registering a domain name is NOT buying property, it is rent! You do NOT own the domain. By registering a domain, you are entering a legal contract with the registrar.

That being said, I think just as folks have the right to privacy, folks as sellers making contracts (ie rental agreements) have the right to CHOOSE to do business only with known individuals. This is important: you're certainly free to do business anonymously, that does not mean anyone should be forced to do business with you anonymously.

Re:domain name registration/information

[BLAMM!]

Do you think you should have right to know at least Name and Address of person living 2 doors next to you ? Don't you think you should have the right to know who else is living in your apartment ?

The realtor and the bank may need to know who I am, but that doesn't mean you do. I have the right to be anonymous to other people in my neighborhood/apartment building. You have no right to my identity if I don't want to let you in on it. Don't answer you question for me. Especially when the rest of your argument hangs on it.

You name, address and phone number ARE NOT your secret assets... however, your SSN is! So learn to make difference... that is called "common sense".

Its not the information, its the situation. You may feel safe sharing your name, phone#, and address with a person in the street. But I dare you to share them on /. I bet your answer is NOYFB, and you would be right. THAT is common sense.

You DO NOT have right to be anonymous while communicating!
Of course you do. I'm posting this with my ID but I could just as easily post it as AC. That is my right. If I cared to, I would have the right to make my identity even more secure here. That is also my right. Caller Id and telephone directories both have methods being anonymous. I have the right to be anonymous with either.

Finally, if it bothers you, just don't do/say things that you won't in front of 2000 audience on a stage... or on phone with another person.
If it bothers you to not know who is speaking because they have chosen to remain anonymous, tough. It's NOYFB.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. it's called cash. Buying a domain is not buying property.

He meant real property, as in real-estate. If you think you can buy real-estate anonymously with cash, then you have never purchased real-estate. The closest you can get is to buy it through a trust.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Napalm Boy]

Can you buy property anonymously?

I don't know of any law that prohibits or demands this. Likely you can find some way to do it that's not illegal, given enough money.

Do you think you should have right to know at least Name and Address of person living 2 doors next to you?

No.

Don't you think you should have the right to know who else is living in your apartment ?

No.

You think real world law of free speech should apply in virtual world, then why not the custom that demands you give your name/address while getting a phone service/www service or a domain name ?

Really, the only reason that you need a name and address when you get phone service is so that the company can 1) enable phone service to that address, and 2) bill you for it. The first requirement doesn't come into play for DNS, and the paying for the service may or may not actually require an address depending on who you do business with.

Some things can (and are) classified as "none of your business (NOYB)" in certain circumstances. If a person in street demands your shoe number, you can tell him NOYB... but not to the shoe shop attendant!

Actually, you're perfectly within your rights to do this. It may not be in your best interest if you need shoes, but you could.

You DO NOT have right to be anonymous while communicating!

You don't not have the right, either. Generally, people are allowed to do things so long as they're not illegal. You might not have the right to be anonymous while posting something on the Internet, but there's nothing stopping you if you want to be.

Generally, I think things like this come down to refusal: you have to right to refuse to give your name/address to anybody you don't want to give it to, including the phone compnay. The phone company has the right to refuse you service if you don't give it to them. If you want to live your life as a hermit in a privately owned house without phone service, newspaper delivery, &c., that is perfectly within your rights.

Re:domain name registration/information

[flossie]

The right to use pseudonyms is as important as the right to anonymity. /. is a perfect example. Many people don't like responding to ACs despite the fact that they don't know any more about most of the logged-in users. The difference is that pseudonyms allow a degree of continuity. They allow conversations to take place without everyone having to make their real names public - thus allowing significantly livelier (and often more childish, admittedly) debate than would otherwise be the case.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I assume that by "property" you mean real estate. (Otherwise, the answer is clearly "yes": I do that every time I go to the store and pay with cash.)

You cannot buy real estate with complete anonymity because the local government needs to know where and to whom to direct the property tax bill. On the other hand, you can buy real estate through a trust or corporation, such that the publicly registered owner is the corporation and not you personally.

You don't, in fact, have any inherent right to know the name of your neighbor down the street. His address, of course, is available by casual observation -- after all, you know the name of the street, since you live there too. But he can keep his name to himself if he damn well pleases. The same applies if he lives in your apartment building. (Of course, I do know the name of anyone sharing my actual apartment: namely, NOBODY. But that's beside the point.)

As for setting up phone service, there are two reasons why the phone company would need your name and address. The first is, in the case of a land line, to know where the line must be physically located. This is not a legal requirement, it is a technical one: you cannot install a wire pair unless you know where the hell you need to put it! In the case of a cellphone, the equivalent need would be to know where the phone set should be delivered -- but, if you pick up the phone yourself from the store, then the need goes away. The second reason for requiring a name and address is, of course, for billing purposes -- but it is entirely possible to have the bill sent to a post office box (I've done it before), or to your employer (if the company is willing to pay for the phone), etc.

2. Of course my name, phone number, etc. are my "secret" (more accurately, private) assets. Where in the nine Hells did you ever get the idea that they weren't?

3. Caller ID, the phone book, etc. do not constitute a disproof of the right to privacy. In fact, when caller ID was made available to the public, one of the requirements was that there be a way to block your name and number from appearing (that is, to remain anonymous). Of course, there is also a way to refuse to accept anonymous calls, but at that point, the matter is no longer an issue of public vs. private. It's a matter of deciding whether I want to talk to you or not. Odds are, I don't :)

There is a considerable amount of case law and statutory law in the US and the several states, which makes very clear that there is a right to privacy, and that there is a right to anonymous communication. The Constitution doesn't spell out exactly what the extent of that right is, although its existence is implicit in the first and the fourth amendments. The ninth amendment is also relevant. Be that as it may, though, the Constitution is just the basis, not the entirety of the law.

Re:domain name registration/information

[InfiniteWisdom]

Heard of CallerID ? Telephone Directory ?

Heard of *67? Unlisted numbers? Payphones?

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree. Take fax transmissions for example. You can receive faxes from anyone. However, when you send out faxes, they're supposed to have your fax machine's phone number on them. It is illegal to misrepresent your number.
The FCC has also passed laws concerning direct marketing via fax. A hefty fine is in place for all marketers who don't respect a recipient's wish to stop receiving faxes.
In both cases, enforcement is still playing cath-up with the laws, but at least they are there. These laws took about 10 years to be written. It seems like the time might be right for spam/spyware laws.

Re:domain name registration/information

[Egekrusher2K]

Dude... I live like a half hour away from you...

Re:domain name registration/information

[EvilAlien]

You can get free obscured domain registration in Canada: Privacy.ca. Of course, our new privacy laws are very strong and designed to protect the individual Canadian citizen at the cost of onerous business processes, etc etc.

<joke>And, you can share mp3s</joke> ;)

Re:domain name registration/information

[Anonymous Coward]

The last person you slept with
She didn't give me her name, for privacy reasons.

Re:domain name registration/information

[DeputySpade]

Admitting to being gay would be about as threatening as admitting that you were fond of frozen yogurt.

Isn't that the same thing? *blink*

Re:domain name registration/information

[DunbarTheInept]

I'm not against using psuedonyms. I'm against lying about what your name is. If someone says their name is "flossie" or "DunbarTheInept", then it's pretty obvious that it's an anonymous name. Spammers aren't doing that. They're trying hard to make their names look real, under the hope you'll be fooled into thinking you're seeing a message from a person instead of from a computer. That's dishonesty, just as much as outright lying, and it pisses me off.

Re:domain name registration/information

[jnicholson]

Telecom NZ used to charge extra for an unlisted number. Someone complained to the commerce commission or some other regulatory body, and Telecom were forced to stop doing this. Now you pay for an additional listing if you want more than one, but being listed once is free and being unlisted is also free.

I had a friend who used to list his diallup connection under a fake (and unrealistic) name, since it wasn't attached to a valid phone and he didn't want to pay for an unlisted number for it, back in the days when it wasn't free.

Re:domain name registration/information

[flossie]

The problem is that removing spammers' rights impacts on the rights of everyone else. There are times when it is desirable to lie about your name (although here in Scotland you can change your name as often as you like with no fuss!)

A couple of years ago, I sent a response to the UK government's consultation on software patents. If you type my name into google, this response comes up on the first page. Despite the fact that my (former) employer had an opposing view on this issue, this isn't a problem. However, consider the case where my political views might be in direct conflict with some aspect of my employer's business. It is certainly reasonable to assume that there could be views which I would wish to express to the government but do not wish to have on the first page of results when current or future employers type my name into google.

I could, of course, send a response anonymously - but I would expect everyone to understand that anonymous responses are not given the same consideration as signed responses.

I would therefore be faced with the choice of participating in the democratic process on the same terms as everyone else, but potentially harming my career; or reducing my democratic participation in order to avoid such career limitation. Neither option is satisfactory. In this case, it would be perfectly reasonable for me to use a false, but realistic, name.

It is easy to come up with other examples. Sticking with DNS in particular, suppose that I work for a very large company, but wish to set up a campaign against some activity that the company engages in - forced child labour to produce nuclear landmines, or whatever. It would clearly be damaging to my career if my employer ever found out that I was orchestrating the campaign. The ability to obtain a domain name without revealing your true identity to all-comers is something that we should seek to preserve if we really want to protect a healthy democracy.

Or another example. Consider a woman who has been a victim of domestic abuse and has runaway from her abusive husband. Should she be prevented from buying a domain name for fear that he might be able to obtain her address?

It is legitimate to have secrets. It can sometimes be legitimate to lie about who you are.

Re:domain name registration/information

[The Snowman]

I feel that domain names are similar to titles. When you get a title for a house, car, or boat, you provide a valid residence address and it is both printed on the title and made part of the public record. Is that a bad thing too? No, I believe it is another form of identification that helps to protect one's property rights.

If another John Gaughan decided to hijack my property, be it one of my domain names or the legal rights to the car in my driveway, I have more legal recourse: my name AND address. It identifies that title as belonging to ME, because my car's title does not have my SSN on it. I think domain names should work the same way to protect my legal property rights.

Additionally, valid address info helps us track down spammers, scammers, child pornographers, etc. If someone owns the domain name "nakedchildren.com" and dishes out child pornography, it is easier to bust down his door if we have a valid address and do not need to subpeona web hosting information. This information can also be used for bad (I.e. Big Brother), but given that the government already knows where I live (titles, taxes, and I am a federal government employee), I do not see how this is an issue.

Re:domain name registration/information

[mdpye]

Is it different for .com/net/orgs? Only I didn't have to have my address and phone number made available to purchase a domain:

mp@gremlin mp $ whois mdpye.co.uk

Domain Name:
mdpye.co.uk

Registrant:
Michael Pye

Registrant's Address:

THE REGISTRANT IS AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS ELECTED TO
HAVE THEIR ADDRESS OMITTED FROM THE WHOIS DATABASE

Is this because my domain is regulated by Nominet UK?

MP

Re:domain name registration/information

[r4bb1t]

Regardless of whether or not the 4th Amendment includes anonymity and privacy directly, the Supreme Court in many instances (Griswold v. Connecticut being the first) upheld a right to privacy that Justice Douglas (in his opinion in the above case) describes this way:

"In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion"

Anonymity and privacy, generally, fall into the same bucket.

Re:domain name registration/information

[jazznjava]

Not exactly... It's more like "We'll give you a reduced rate if you let us publish your information."

Re:domain name registration/information

[ingvar]

Yes, for a "non-commercial" domain (that is, one you are not using for business) you can get away with basically anythin under .uk but for one taht is used for business purposes *not* having correct contact information is enough grounds for Nominet to suspend the domain.

He should have started his posts with IAAL...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since he really is a lawyer.

I'm grateful that ..

[MisanthropicProgram]

Godwin answered our questions. I'm also grateful that he didn't preface his answers with - IAAL.

Re:I'm grateful that ..

[svallarian]

I glad that he didn't mention Nazis or the whole discussion would have imploded.

Steven V.

Not just posters

[Anonymous Coward]

A *lot* of people who post on Slashdot ought to read that part...

Editors should be carefvul as well. Michael, I am looking at you.

Re:Not just posters

[adzoox]

I would agree - I would also caution editors about story submission favoratism and just outright copying story submissions.

Slashdot editors, as of late, have also been "harassing us" with political speech - Bush/Republican bashing - it only serves as preaching to the choir. Tech unites us here on Slashdot, politics - most often divide us.

Re:Not just posters

[JWW]

I agree wholdheartedly with you.

I think a lot of effort is being expended to speak to "slashdot demographics" as defined by the editors.

While I would agree that Linux, Technology News are of core demographic interest to almost every slashdotter. Being politically liberal is not common across the audience. Its nowhere near as common as the editors think even.

If I really wanted a liberal discussion about purely political news, I'd go to Kurh5hin. K5 is worthless purley because of all the political noise found there.

Re:Not just posters

[Anonymous Coward]

Did everyone else notice that all of a sudden when the moderator got ahold of this the parent got negative moderation for offtopic and overated? It has a QUOTE from the article - how can THAT be offtopic? All of it's replies are rated Insightful and Interesting - how can that be rated OVERRATED?

Re:Can he answer by what law America does this?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... the anonymous ones.

Legally Correct?

[ElDuderino44137]

I didn't have a chance to read the whole article ...

But I'd just like to mention that ...
There's a difference between the currently accepted legal position ...
And right vs. wrong ...

Too many times legality is mistaken for ...
Morality.
And the Judiciary is mistaken for a ...
moral compass.

I fear the notion of ...
keeping someone from ...
creating clothing ...
that looks just like your line of clothing ...
stamping your label on it ...
and selling it.

Has mutated into ...
I am the only one w/ the right to sell clothes.

Cheers,
-- El Duderino

Spam

[evilviper]

(Obviously, blocking spam at the user level -- which I more or less have to do, since my email address has been the same for a decade and a half -- doesn't address the waste of bandwidth due to SPAM.)
[...]
I'm pretty certain that mere technical solutions won't work,

Well, I can't agree there. First off, the less-bandwidth-utilizing solution is simply to do the filtering on the SMTP server end. A simple blacklist (perhaps one erring on the side of caution) would take care of the large majority of spam with practically no badwidth wasted.

However, even besides that, the solution can still be a technical one. All it takes is enough end-users blocking spam to start causing SPAM to be less profitable. Soon enough, the costs of bandwidth and pay checks are higher than the profits from idiots buying products through spam messages.

There are even more solutions I could go through. Blocking e-mails, based upon the lack of a key in the subject line, would also be very easy on bandwidth if done on the server end. (eg. before downloading the message)

My point being, there are lots of technical solutions to the spam problem. The only problem is the lack of adoption.

Re:Spam

[Highrollr]

I'm not so sure the problem is simply one of adoption. I don't remember the exact statistics, but spammers need only a very small fraction of targets to buy their crap to make a profit. So think for a second about someone who actually thinks to themselves, "20% bigger? WHERE DO I SIGN UP?" Is this a person who has the motivation or knowledge to set up a filter? I doubt it. Note that I'm not saying technical solutions are completely ineffective. They work, but to really get to the core of the problem I believe social solutions are needed as well.

Re:Spam

[Martin Blank]

That's because of the difficulty of adopting many of the changes. Filtering at the SMTP server does nothing to save the bandwidth already used in the transmission of the e-mail messages in the first place. Blacklists and whitelists both have been shown to be problematic at best for most instances.

Spam filters are not the easiest thing in the world for most people to deal with. Sure, your average Slashdot junkie can install not only a Bayesian filter for his favorite e-mail client, but may well also have another filter sitting outside the e-mail client, and have his own configured on the server. But that's not even remotely common, and you have to factor in the fear of false positives. I've used a handful of solutions with varying success, from blacklists to Bayesian filters to peer-to-peer concepts like Cloudmark Spamnet. *I* can deal with the false positives, but non-techs I know get frustrated because the perceived promise is a complete removal of spam, which doesn't happen, with no false positives, which doesn't happen. It matters little at the moment whether or not they are told to expect a few things to slip in either direction. The simple fear of missing some critical e-mail is pretty hard to get past, and leaves most people grudgingly content with seeing 1000 spam messages rather than possibly having a critical message marked as spam. Is it logical? Not especially, but it's still often the truth.

Recent clients have taken to not loading images or code from websites without specific permission. I think this is a big step because it means that addresses are not so easily validated, but I wonder how long it will last before spammers simply send off even more messages to cover the discrepancy.

So what's the proper step? Most of the work lays with Microsoft. I think Microsoft is making an enormous leap with the new automatic firewall in XP SP2, as well as the semi-obnoxious messages about not having virus software installed. The two combined should help to decrease the number of systems constantly re-infected by the recent strains that look for existing infected systems to exploit, and by getting more people to use AV software. I think one other huge step could be taken by retrofitting the other supported e-mail clients (Outlook 2000 and XP, and Outlook Express 5.x and 6.x) with the download-prevention features in Outlook 2003. Even though I admit above that it might be a short-term solution, it's still workable for at least that time, and might whittle down the volume of addresses at least a little bit.

Re:Spam

[CBravo]

Incompetence is also a factor not to forget. The guys at my work hardly know how a webserver works and I quote (&translate) "If I can't click it together in five minutes then things aren't efficient". These guys service 500 users LOL.

They don't have time for linux because they have so much work to do, fixing their mailserver, terminal server, mail clients, etc etc. Fsckers.

Blacklists are just a hassle to these people. They could care less about the user. "Yes Sir, just delete those spam e-mails, then you are fine".

Re:Spam

[Minna Kirai]

Blacklists and whitelists both have been shown to be problematic at best for most instances.

Blacklists are fundamentally imperfect, but whitelists can work great with only some minor technical steps needed. The only additional requirement is some way for a non-whitelisted sender to get a message to you, by having additional transactional cost transfered onto her. Both micropaynments and computational time ("hashcash") have been proposed (by Bill Gates, amoung others), and either could work (with varying degrees of infrastructural prerequisites)

Someone might respond with "Well if whitelists are so great, then why aren't we happily using them already?" That's a variant of the "neophobic" fallacy. In this case, the response is simple: An effective spamfighting system hasn't been created yet because spam is not a big problem.

That last might shock internet activists, but its true. Spam is not bothersome enough to encourage average consumers to really demand solutions. Normal AOL users are inured to unsolicited commercials, and power-users are resigned to workarounds (such as fearfully protecting their email addresses from public view on web pages).

If there was a strong enough desire to solve the problem, it'd get solved.

Re:Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

As for anonymous domain names, I'm in favour of those so long as it doesn't stretch to tubgirl and goatse :)

Okay, now that's just a bad pun, and you know it!

Re:Spam

[JoeBaldwin]

Okay, now that's just a bad pun, and you know it!

Totally unintentional, I swear :)

Re:Spam

[FallLine]

Well, I can't agree there. First off, the less-bandwidth-utilizing solution is simply to do the filtering on the SMTP server end. A simple blacklist (perhaps one erring on the side of caution) would take care of the large majority of spam with practically no badwidth wasted.

However, even besides that, the solution can still be a technical one. All it takes is enough end-users blocking spam to start causing SPAM to be less profitable. Soon enough, the costs of bandwidth and pay checks are higher than the profits from idiots buying products through spam messages.

There are even more solutions I could go through. Blocking e-mails, based upon the lack of a key in the subject line, would also be very easy on bandwidth if done on the server end. (eg. before downloading the message)

My point being, there are lots of technical solutions to the spam problem. The only problem is the lack of adoption.

I disagree. While innovation can be made in the art and rate of SPAM blocking, the fundamental flaw is that the system admins of the world can NEVER keep pace with spammers. The spammers have a fundamentally easier job. They don't have to worry about false-positives, about the support issues, about keeping in-sync with other sites, and so on.

Your assertion that if enough users block SPAM that it will become unprofitable is theoretically possible, but highly improbable. First, empirically speaking, consider the examples of various huge ISPs that are, for the most part, blocking spam by default (e.g., AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc). The spammers are obviously still finding it profitable to send SPAM to them because they're clearly not stopping their barrages on such sites (consider that they must represent some 40% or more of their spam emails). Second, the costs of sending bulk email are phenominally LOW and the costs are only going to drop. It only takes a small percentage of people to respond to still make a viable business. Too many people can't afford to or won't risk the possibilties of false-positives (particularly without some system in place to double check--and then you still have users clicking those items that are tagged as spam). Third, these systems of trust can work to decrease the blocking of or promote non-spam from known-senders (even indirectly), but it seems to me that you're still ALWAYS going to run into the problem of allowing unknown senders in without an excessive amount of hassle. Trust can work in theory, like when you have a handful of parties (e.g., popular ISPs) that are well-known to each other, but the moment you allow hundreds, never mind thousands of individual servers into the equation the whole system (like what we have now) is pretty much shot.

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

• Soon enough, the costs of bandwidth and pay checks...

First, it takes very little bandwidth to be a huge f'ing spammer -- and bandwidth is extremely cheap these days. Second, there usually aren't any "pay checks" as there's just one idiot. Even the big "institutional" size spam outfits rarely consist of more than a dozen people.

There are a lot of stupid people in the world. Spammers will always be able to find them.

• Blocking e-mails, based upon the lack of a key in the subject line...

Too late. Once the (smtp) DATA phase is underway, as would be required to get the "Subject:" header, the server is commited to receiving the entire message. The POP protocol has no support for sending anything but the entire message. IMAP does, but there are very few ISPs that offer IMAP access to your email. (what is it with [censored] webmail these days!) You've saved nothing in bandwidth. If you terminate the smtp connection mid-stream, the sender will eventually try again. And there's no way to tell that same message is coming in. Blocking the entire server is generally a Bad Idea (tm) -- you may end up blocking the mailserver(s) for an entire ISP. (SORBS already has this problem with their "spamtrap senders" blocklist.)

You seem to be stuck thinking the only bandwidth of value is that into your mail client. That's nothing. The true problem with spam is the volume of internet traffic at large being wasted by junk. Some have estimated as much as 25% of ALL the traffic on the internet is junk mail. In my experience, it's much less, but I've never worked for AOL, Mindspring/Earthlink, or any of the dozens of cable ISPs. (But based only on number of emails vs. number blocked, 25% is a bit low.)

Re:Spam

[moquist]

In regard to the fear of false positives - I'm getting false positives from myself; I've missed several important emails because my inbox was so stuffed with trash I couldn't scan through it to see the stuff that was actually important. Just now, I almost trashed an important email about a bachelor party for a friend who's getting married, because it came from another of his friends (whom I barely know), and the subject just says "Bachelor Party".

If I can put into place an automated solution that helps me miss less email, that will be better than what I have now. (I know I can - I'll probably use a Bayesian filter. I just haven't done it yet.)

Re:Spam

[Luyseyal]

The problem with class action lawsuits is that the lawyers settle, collect millions of dollars, and the petitioners get coupons on future software purchases from the violator! Buncha jerks, I tell ya's...

-l

Re:Spam

[Martin Blank]

I've run into some cases where automated whitelists come into play with some friends that have changed ISPs, and really, I just didn't care to go through the hassle for it. In these cases, I had to go to some website, enter a code, wait for a confirmation e-mail, then respond, or something like that. I want to send an e-mail, not visit Fort Knox.

Re:Spam

[DunbarTheInept]

The reason there is a lack of adoption is that all the technical solutions I have seen ignore the very real problem of "how do you get there from here". There are a lot of good proposals out there that would work great if we didn't already have a worldwide e-mail system and were making a new one from scratch. But the problem of how to slowly bring in the new system, with all it's rejections and denials of improprer e-mails, at a time when not every e-mail server uses the new system yet, never seem to be properly addressed.

The solution always seems to be "Well, eventually when enough people use the new system there will be incentive for the people using the old one to change over because their e-mails are being rejected..." Nope. That won't work. What will happen is that people will perceive the new system as being "in error" when it is first introduced at a few small sites, and it won't get adopted enough to force the rest to comply.

Re:Spam

[DunbarTheInept]

Your response seems to assume the e-mail blocking occurs at the end-user's client machine (with your mention of IMAP and POP) - It could also occur at the e-mail server level (SMTP), and there you *could* close the port 25 TCP/IP socket the moment you read the subject line.

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

READ THE POST. Once the DATA phase has begun, the server is required to accept the entire message. The sender will not process a return code until after it completes delivery. If the connection is broken before then, IT WILL RETRY DELIVERY. The sender will not know the connection was intentionally broken.

(Of course, one could "tar pit" that connection and let sendmail (or whatever) shutdown it's end. But, that's a bit much.)

Re:Spam

[DunbarTheInept]

Backups don't last forever. New CD's and DVD's are made with a glue that can break down over time, making the thin filmy layer develop bubbles that act as lenses on the surface, and thus deflect the laser beam and make the disc unreadable. It's not always the owner's fault that he needs more than one backup.

Re:Spam

[DunbarTheInept]

Killing a socket always works, whatever the protocol may say about it. The sender can't retry the delivery on a closed socket.

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

It'll reconnect, dumbass.

Re:Spam

[pesc]

If you really are just using those DVDs for "personal use", then you have absolutely zero need to make more than one backup

I don't agree. I'd like to have one rip of my purchased DVD to the hard disk of my portable laptop (it has an external DVD to reduce the weight during traveling), and another low-quality rip to the flash on my pocket PC. And maybe yet another rip to the HD of my home cinema media jukebox so I don't have to fool around with plastic disks when browsing my purchased films.

And, so fuck the DMCA/DRM, I believe that this is fair use of the material that I purchased. I'm not giving those copies away.

Re:Spam

[Alsee]

Mike's response on DVD copying is definitely the truth. If you really are just using those DVDs for "personal use", then you have absolutely zero need to make more than one backup

Actually what he said was "I happen to believe that making copies of your own DVDs for your own personal use ought to be understood as legal." Note that there is no further qualification beyond "personal use". Making backups is personal use no matter how many you make. I don't need to justify to you or anyone else why ten consecutive copies got destroyed, I have just as much right to make that eleventh copy as I had to make the first copy. It is a perfectly legal and legitimate copy.

Publishers are attempting to claim that they incorporate fair use when they use DRM that lets you make a single backup or similar limited abilities. It is is a flat out lie. If the system blocks legal use then the system does NOT permit fair use.

In many cases the question of fair use turns purely on the intent in the mind of the user. Unless someone invents a telepathic mind-reading DRM system, the only DRM that actually permits fair use is no DRM at all.

-

Re:Spam

[dargaud]

let's face it, if you manage to destroy not one but TWO copies of the same DVD then you don't deserve legal rights to copy it again, you need a beating with a cluestick

Although I agree 99% with what you said, I beg to differ on that quote. I went throught 4 paid for originals of my prefered CD. One was scrapped beyond recognition from too much listening, the second had the surface peel off (bad manufacturing), the 3rd was stolen and the 4th burnt in my car. That was before mp3s were popular. I then downloaded it off Napster or somesuch. I don't have an original, what will I say when the MPAA comes barging into my home ?!?

Re:Spam

[Jardine]

let's face it, if you manage to destroy not one but TWO copies of the same DVD then you don't deserve legal rights to copy it again, you need a beating with a cluestick

Or kids live in your house.

Dammit Timmy! The VCR does not like grilled cheese sandwiches.

Re:Spam

[DunbarTheInept]

Once the server knows that that particular message is to be refused, it no longer needs to wait for the DATA section to detect that, for the next several seconds, subsequent sends of that same message should be refused. The remote IP address, the RCPT TO, and the MAIL FROM are sufficient information to identify that message as a resend attempt of the previously rejected message for the next few minutes. *

Please remove the foot from your mouth.

* - Yeah, there's a small but nonzero chance that a legitimate message comes from the same user within a few minutes after his computer was used to forward spam that looked like it was from him - but in that case I don't see rejecting his message as that much of a problem, since he's got a compramised computer that needs to be fixed.

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

You obviously don't know how email works... please do the world a favor and never seek employment from an ISP; with application of such blind logic, your customers will want to kill you.

Here is what actually happens:

• 220 mail.bar.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.11.7/8.11.7; Mon, 5 Apr 2004 20:07:33 -0400 (EDT)
  HELO baz.com
  250 mail.bar.com Hello localhost [127.0.0.1], pleased to meet you
  MAIL FROM: <foo@baz.com>
  250 2.1.0 <foo@baz.com>... Sender ok
  RCPT TO: <foo@bar.com>
  250 2.1.5 <foo@bar.com>... Recipient ok
  DATA
  354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
  message headers
  [blank line]
  message body
  .
  250 2.0.0 i3607vD03645 Message accepted for delivery
  QUIT
  221 2.0.0 mail.bar.com closing connection

You cannot base a rejection on the sender ("mail from") as spammers lie. They lie 100% of the time these days. The only thing you can trust is the IP of remote end of the connection. If you're accepting mail from dialup/dsl/cable modem IP ranges, then that's where you should be blocking... In the above quoted sequence, there are *6* points where the message can be properly refused... every response from the server from the initial connection banner to the "250 ... accepted".

The from:to pair may otherwise be valid. And in light of forged info, cannot safely be used to block messages. It's simply not enough information at hand without the text of the message. In order for your method of blocking to be effective, you'd have to block further email for at least a week. See, mail servers don't immediately attempt to re-deliver the message. (I don't know of any that would retry in less than 15min without explicit administrative changes.) And they will continue to retry until they have a valid status returned from the process -- "helo", "mail from", "rcpt to" can all be denied:

• 550 5.7.1 foo@bar.com... Relaying denied. Proper authentication required.

"data" can be immediately denied or it can be refused once it has received the entire message -- OR a set number of retries have been attempted (usually measured in time -- "will continue to retry for 4 days" -- instead of a hard "I tried 8 times")

All your scheme will accomplish is blacklisting an (ISP's) mail server(s) and/or blocking all communications between pairs of email addresses. How would you like it if your server(s) were blocked due to spammers forged headers? How would you like having your incoming emails dropped because the mail server saw a single message it didn't like even though it's from someone withwhom you regularly communicate? I didn't think so.

Better minds than ours (and certainly better than yours) have been pondering the problem of SPAM for years. If the solution were simple, we'd've done it by now. The current best solution is to eat the spam and process it as it goes into the inbox ("a client side filter"), but that does nothing to address all the (increasing) bandwidth wasted by spam -- which, btw, is the whole point of this little flamefest. There isn't a way to authoritatively decide "spam, not spam" without the contents of the entire message -- the various blacklists help, but they tend to create too many false positives. It may take only a small fragment of the text to reach a deciding point, but SMTP requires receipt of the entire message. Good luck getting that protocol changed and then implemented across the globe.

Re:Spam

[adamfranco]

Ah, but "they" want you to buy two, or even three copies of everything!

Its only fair of course since they are poor, starving, publishers who do nothing but support their artists. :-)

Re:Spam

[evilviper]

Filtering at the SMTP server does nothing to save the bandwidth already used in the transmission of the e-mail messages in the first place.

Well now, that's just completely wrong.

If the recieving SMTP server recieves the header (finds a blacklisted IP address) and returns an error message, neither side is going to waste any bandwidth on the rest of the message... It won't be sent at all.

Re:Spam

[evilviper]

consider the examples of various huge ISPs that are, for the most part, blocking spam by default (e.g., AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc). The spammers are obviously still finding it profitable to send SPAM to them because they're clearly not stopping their barrages on such sites

I'm afraid you've got some false logic going there.

First, these e-mail providers are all quite new to the spam-blocking game, so it's entirely possible that the SPAM will subside eventually. Perhaps it's just a matter that spam lists haven't been updated, or not everyone has gotten the news just yet.

Also, their attempts to block spam have been quite insuffecient at best. I know the yahoo mail spam handling system quite well, and it blocks perhaps 1/3rd of the spam I recieve. They need to do quite a bit better than that before they will make a decent example.

Second, the costs of sending bulk email are phenominally LOW and the costs are only going to drop.

Yes, costs are low, but not as nominal as people seem to think. Spammers are not going to do the job for minimum wage, so a rather large and steady salary is necessary. The products spamers are advertising are usually ~$20 items, so you need quite a large number of users to respond. It's a tiny percentage compared to the number of e-mails they send out, but it still takes a lot of people buying to make a profit.

Re:Spam

[evilviper]

(Of course, one could "tar pit" that connection and let sendmail (or whatever) shutdown it's end. But, that's a bit much.)

Actually, I think that would be the perfect solution. Once you've recieved the subject line, throttle down the TCP connection to around 1bps, and let the server take a week to send one message. You save your bandwith, and give spamers a seriously hard time in the process. After all, this is a thread about killing off spam all together, not just saving your own bandwidth.

Re:Spam

[DunbarTheInept]

The only thing you can trust is the IP of remote end

Next time you decide to belittle me, try actually reading what I posted first. I specified IP address as one of the things that should be looked for. Your entire ego-stroking rant is based on the premise I that I didn't include that.

Try arguing against what I actually wrote next time.

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

Nope. You're understanding is incorrect. The SMTP server has to receive the entire message in order to scan the headers and indicate to the sender the message was accepted or rejected. Simply dropping the connection as soon as spam is detected from the headers will not work... the sender will see that as incomplete and will reattempt delivery at a later time. The sender's IP address is the only thing that can be trusted (read: not forged by the spammer) prior to receiving the entire message. There's no bandwidth savings if the message gets transmitted.

[Note: The "headers" are not part of the SMTP protocol. They are part of the message.]

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

• Next time you decide to belittle me, try actually reading what I posted first...

Do you even know what you wrote?

There are even more solutions I could go through. Blocking e-mails, based upon the lack of a key in the subject line, would also be very easy on bandwidth if done on the server end. (eg. before downloading the message)

I guess not. You seem to have completely missed the point... the headers are part of the message; no bandwidth savings exist if the message has to be received to scan the headers; and yes, the entire message must be received to return a status code and thus prevent redelivery.

As Martin Blank posted:

Filtering at the SMTP server does nothing to save the bandwidth already used in the transmission of the e-mail messages in the first place. Blacklists and whitelists both have been shown to be problematic at best for most instances.

You just cannot get it into your fat head... the only way to reduce bandwidth wasted to spam is to never receive the message in the first place which can only be done at the SMTP protocol ("the server") level. At that level, the only viable information for making any decision is the sending machine's IP address (i.e. blacklists.) You cannot reject a message based on the "headers" without having those headers in hand which means you have the whole freakin' message, and thus have not saved any bandwidth at all. (That's technically client side filtering, btw.) Most people don't have any control over their mail server; what might work for one, single, person, will not scale to work for hundreds or thousands of people...

As evilviper points out, most (ISP) spam blocking systems have proven insufficient. I would label them as highly ineffective -- many spams necessarily make it through because one cannot block entire ISPs without interfering with a high percentage of valid email, and client side filtering is complex, cumbersome, and does nothing to stem the tide of useless junk flooding the internet. Add to the problem, ISPs are lothe to constrain port 25 traffic within their network(s) to their own farm of mail servers due to the costs and increased liabilities including legal liabilities.

Re:Spam

[FallLine]

First, these e-mail providers are all quite new to the spam-blocking game, so it's entirely possible that the SPAM will subside eventually. Perhaps it's just a matter that spam lists haven't been updated, or not everyone has gotten the news just yet.

Also, their attempts to block spam have been quite insuffecient at best. I know the yahoo mail spam handling system quite well, and it blocks perhaps 1/3rd of the spam I recieve. They need to do quite a bit better than that before they will make a decent example.

I disagree. I've been using Yahoo's mail for my personal email regularly and I've found the BULK mail filter blocks at least 95% of my SPAM (I get about .5 SPAMs a day in my actual inbox and at least 50 SPAMs in my BULK mail folder every day) and it has been this way for at least 6 months now. Maybe you have yet to train your filter properly. I can only assume that others have a similar experience. If the spammers are as cost sensitive as you imply (and they follow the pattern that I've observed), then you'd expect them to avoid Yahoo et.al because they generally know WHO responds to spam (most of their URLs have some kind of unique identifier in them to track the user). Anyways, give it some time if you don't believe me. I'm sure it'll be the same old problem. One major problem with these systems is that they depend on the user being able to review and open the suspected "SPAM" emails and I suspect that a good many users still click on products that appeal to them (it's not as if the user's don't know spam when they see it with their own eyes--with or without these systems in place).

Also, their attempts to block spam have been quite insuffecient at best. I know the yahoo mail spam handling system quite well, and it blocks perhaps 1/3rd of the spam I recieve. They need to do quite a bit better than that before they will make a decent example.

Yes, costs are low, but not as nominal as people seem to think. Spammers are not going to do the job for minimum wage, so a rather large and steady salary is necessary. The products spamers are advertising are usually ~$20 items, so you need quite a large number of users to respond. It's a tiny percentage compared to the number of e-mails they send out, but it still takes a lot of people buying to make a profit.

The Spammers' wage costs are really fixed costs, i.e., they correspond to the batch (e.g., finding relays/proxies, discovering new methods, crafting new websites, modify email bodies, and other occassional activities); they don't increase on a marginal basis with every additonal email. Once the spammers crafts the content the scripts handle the rest (e.g, check-sum busting programs). I've yet to see any SPAM blocking system that can be widely implimented that would change this that would fundamentally alter this equation for any substantial duration of time. Yes, individual admins might be able to hack their system to throw a spammer off for a short amount of time, but then they interfere with "compatibility" (so to speak) with other email providers. None of these technical solutions can withstand human ability to poke holes in the system.

This is kind of like the argument against, say, the missile defense program, i.e., SDI. Moderately wealthy rogue nations (spammers) can build and launch relatively cheap ICBMs against the US (ISPs) for a fraction of the cost that it costs the US to deploy the tracking system and launch the interceptor missiles. What's more, the costs rise nearly exponentially when it must defend agaisnt successive/simultaneous launches, whereas the costs remain largely linear for the attacker (the marginal cost of the missile and launch stations). It doens't take a genius to see that a moderately a wealthy nation can easily out launch us within their budget.

You forget that many of the items that the spammers "sell" have essentially zero cost (e.g., pirated software, fake pills, etc) so it'

Re:Spam

[evilviper]

You are making no sense at all. You certainly do NOT need to recieve the entire message to know what IP address is sending it, and I don't know how you can claim otherwise.

I never said to simply drop the connection.

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

• If the recieving SMTP server recieves the header (finds a blacklisted IP address...

The "headers" aren't part of the SMTP protocol, they are part of the message... 'helo', 'mail from', and 'rcpt to' are the only parts of the protocol invoked before the message begins -- and they are all useless as they can be forged (well, except rcpt to, that one's gotta be right or the message goes nowhere.)

As we are talking about reducing wasted bandwidth, parsing headers isn't going to do it. The only way to parse the headers is the receive the entire message at which point, the bandwidth has been burned.

However, you are correct in that the sender's IP is known "for free". The other end of the tcp connection is known before either side has sent anything. This is the basis for blacklists.

Please pick one side or the other... if you're scanning headers, then you have the entire message and nothing is saved. If you're blacklisting the sender based on ip address, then no protocol interaction is required and bandwidth can be saved. In your original post, you're talking about headers, but now you're pitching sender ip address.

Re:Spam

[evilviper]

The "headers" aren't part of the SMTP protocol, they are part of the message...

Yes, but why would you want to use SMTP headers when you are blocking based on IP address anyhow?

No, what you need are the TCP/IP headers .

Besides that, it is possible to recieve only the header, and then refuse to accept the rest of the message. TCP can take care of doing that.

Re:Spam

[Cramer]

• Besides that, it is possible to recieve only the header, and then refuse to accept the rest of the message. TCP can take care of doing that.

I'll assume you mean the IP ADDRESS (stop using the word "headers"... we aren't talking firewalls here; mail servers don't process raw ip packets, so they cannot see the "TCP/IP headers".) Yes, the SMTP server can refuse to speak with anyone it chooses. It doesn't have to respond with "2xx Howdy"; it can respond with "5xx Take off you spammin' hoser." and close the connection. (Note: it does have to respond or the sender will simply try again or hand the message to someone else to get it to the server.)

As you've indicated yourself ([here]), such means of blocking spam are insufficient. No matter how many hosts you block, you'll eventually have to accept email from someone that's going to present spam -- namely one or more of the worlds major ISPs... you cannot block all email from, say, AOL when there are people on AOL with whom you need to be able to send/receive email. The "obvious" answer to this is to create a "whitelist". Well, those don't work very well either as the "mail from" is easily forged and looking for a key or password within the message *ding* requires receipt of the entire message which defeats the purpose. (Earthlink does this... if someone is not in my addressbook, then the message is dropped in a "suspect" folder.)

SPF (Sender Permitted From) can go a long way to limiting the ammount of forged spams. But it's going to take years to see this put in place.

First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Wingchild]

After reading the responses to these questions, the thing that sticks with me is that there's a definite provision listed for libel and slander that allows someone to take offense to your otherwise Free Speech.

The First Amendment (for those who aren't familiar and insist on going with hearsay instead of knowing their history) reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Shortened, `Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.`

Here's a good site detailing how libel laws work. Two key provisions involved that you should keep in mind:

1) Libel requires that your statements be false. Be careful about carrying forth rumor and hearsay as truth, but know also that just because something is unverified doesn't make it untrue. If you're using that as your rallying cry, though, be prepared to offer up hard evidence for your statements; the burden of proof certainly won't lie with someone claiming defamation.

2) Libel requires that Fault be proved.
You must be intentionally malicious or negligent (the latter may be far easier to prove). If you're quoting a reputable source, they'd be guilty of libel - you may only be guilty of foolishness. However, if you're reposting unverified info via your "personal web site" that logs a few hundred thousand visitors each week, don't expect that provision to save you either.

The linked site actually has a good rundown on what constitutes a defense, and what's not a defense - it might help to familiarize yourself with the rules before you opt to post flamebait on your heavily trafficed website (as you are a de facto news source and publisher).

Here's another handy link for y'all - Computer Information Systems Law and System Operator Liability Revisited, dated Sept. 1994. It was written more for the forum/BBS era, but has some useful insights into legality.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[geoffspear]

Which part of "no law" don't you understand?

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[guacamolefoo]

You miss two major points. (People often do that when quoting T-shirt slogans)

First, the First Amendment applies to The US Congress and to states(through incorporation via the 14th Amendment). It does not apply as between private parties.

Second, no right is absolute. Shouting "fire!" in a theater, blah, blah, blah. Even significant rights may be impinged if there is a compelling state interest and the restriction used to accomplish that interest is the least restrictive means.

Third, the US Constitution did not serve to trump the common law rights of private parties. It codified the powers that were delegated to the Fed. Govt. by the people, and the First Amendment was a codification/restriction of the Fed's ability to act in certain spheres. Where that leaves us is that private actions for defamation (slander/libel) and to a lesser extent, other miscellaneous privacy torts, is untouched by the First Amendment. The First Amendment is essentially irrelevant to the law of slander/defamation, although there is some bleedover in media cases, such as NY Times v. Sullivan.

GF.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[guacamolefoo]

You miss two major points.

[snip]

Third,

But I can't count, so you shouldn't pay any attention to me anyhow.

GF.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[geoffspear]

Well that's all well and good, except that the Constitution does not allow for any exceptions, and in making those exceptions, Congress, the states, and the courts are essentially acting on authority that hasn't been delegated to them by the people. Laws like that are dangerous, not because of their direct effects (very few people outside the tabloid publishing industry would assert that people should have the right to blatantly lie about each other), but because they send the message that the Constitution is not, in fact, the supreme law of the land.

Of course, libel laws aren't even close to being the worst offenses in that manner. All the crap that Congress passes under the guise of "regulating interstate commerce" is ridiculous.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Minna Kirai]

It does not apply as between private parties.

An agreement between individuals is not a law, so that's irrelevant to "What part of no law..."

Even significant rights may be impinged if there is a compelling state interest and the restriction used to accomplish that interest is the least restrictive means.

Then the Constitution should've said so. "Compelling state interest to abridge rights" is a dangerous concept to let stand, because it can also be applied to speedy & fair trials, uncompensated seizure of property, and more...

As it stands, both the criminal libel code and campaign-finance regulations are both unconstitutional on their faces. (Blatant unconstitutionality is of course only a minor barrier to widespread enforcement of a USA law).

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[torokun]

Although that site is a decent summary, it misses a lot. One point in particular that I'd like to clarify from your post is the issue of truth.

Truth is a possible defense to defamation, meaning that the burden of proving truth is on the _publisher_ of the statements in question. This means that if you write something on slashdot defaming me, and I sue you, and I show that it's more likely than not defamatory (which is a big issue in itself), YOU must then prove what you said is true in order to get off.

So to say that "libel requires your statements to be false" is misleading... the better statement would be "if you can prove your statements are true, you will probably not be liable for libel/slander."

Now, the issues of defamation per se, per quod, issues of public officials / figures versus private parties and the actual malice or reckless indifference to truth distinctions are quite complicated... unfortunately more than I can explain here.

But one interesting case you might want to check out is Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997), in which an anonymous party posted offers to sell distasteful t-shirts about the Oklahoma bombing, giving Zeran's name. AOL failed to timely remove the posts after Zeran's repeated requests, and eventually got off (should they have?). But Zeran was seriously harmed and had no recourse against the poster due to his anonymity.

Here's a quote:

...Zeran was inundated with death threats and other violent calls... [Over 2 weeks later,] after an Oklahoma City newspaper published a story exposing the shirt advertisements as a hoax and after KRXO made an on-air apology, the number of calls to Zeran's residence finally subsided to fifteen per day...

These are the sorts of things that we don't usually have a problem with in the real world, because it's much harder to be anonymous. Think about whether you really want total anonymity for those who would harm you. I don't think I do.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Wateshay]

A third provision to keep in mind is that damage must be shown. If I say that you had sex with a petrified Natalie Portman, while pouring hot grits down your pants in a comment on Slashdot, you would have a hard time proving libel, because no reasonable Slashdot reader is going to actually believe the statement and so no harm was done to your reputation.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[nomadic]

Truth is a possible defense to defamation, meaning that the burden of proving truth is on the _publisher_ of the statements in question. This means that if you write something on slashdot defaming me, and I sue you, and I show that it's more likely than not defamatory (which is a big issue in itself), YOU must then prove what you said is true in order to get off.

In the US the burden of proving falsity is on the plaintiff, not the defendant.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Celandine]

You're still missing a couple of points. One is that the law of libel and slander is part of English Common Law; as such, it pre-dates the U.S. Constitution, never mind the First Amendment, and there's no sense in which subsequent acts of Congress governing it have *abridged* the right to free speech by making it less free. The second is that defamation is not a crime; you *do* have the right to libel or slander someone. But they have the right to sue you when you do.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[guacamolefoo]

Well that's all well and good, except that the Constitution does not allow for any exceptions,

Sure it does. The Constitution provides for judicial review...uh...let me find a cite in the text. Wait a minute...um...go ask Chief Justice Marshall. The Supreme Court certainly wouldn't make anything up, would it?

and in making those exceptions, Congress, the states, and the courts are essentially acting on authority that hasn't been delegated to them by the people.

The people delegated authority for judicial review. Errr...or at least CJ Marshall (and a majority of Supremes) thought so. In any case, a Constitution without judicial review is meaningless. Marshall had it right, or at least as right as it could be under the framework established by the Constitution. It has certainly worked reasonably well.

Laws like that are dangerous, not because of their direct effects (very few people outside the tabloid publishing industry would assert that people should have the right to blatantly lie about each other), but because they send the message that the Constitution is not, in fact, the supreme law of the land.

That is an overbroad reading of things. The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but it has its limitations as a "law of the land." It is an enabling (and limiting) document rather than a code, such as exists in some European countries. Enabling documents have to have some sort of limits, and a mechanism for adjudicating those limits. You touch on one of the problems with an enabling provision below (the Commerce Clause).

Besides, at its most naked, constitutional law is not about the original document or the intent of the framers. As Judge Woodside of Pennsylvania succintly put it, "a constitution is not what the words in it mean to a person reading it, nor what the framers intended, nor even what the courts have held, but what a majority of the current justices on the court of highest jurisdiction think it should mean." A Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court once stated at oral argument that, "[i]f we think it ought to be done, we'll find a way to do it." Woodside, Robert, Pennsylvania Constitutional Law at 608. Notably, Judge Woodside stated that as a fact, not as an endorsement.

While that is a frightening display of naked power, it is probably a realistic assessment. It also has worked, more or less, for over two hundred years. There have been terrible situations where the courts have failed us, such as in Plessy v. Ferguson and in the Dred Scott case. There have been cases where the courts have done the "right" thing without a sufficient basis in law (Brown v. Board of Education and Griswold v. Connecticut), but judicial review is really the last, best bulwark against tyranny by democracy. Getting rid of it would, IMHO, make things worse than they would be if judicial review did not exist and if it were up to Congress and the Executive to determine if things are constitutional.

Of course, libel laws aren't even close to being the worst offenses in that manner.

No argument there.

All the crap that Congress passes under the guise of "regulating interstate commerce" is ridiculous.

I agree. One of the most egregious cases was Wickard v. Filburn, which is still good law. A summary can be found here. I think it is ironic that the current Supremes are rolling back the power of Congress under the aegis of federalism (see US v. Lopez) while at the same time they are giving the states broader authority in the criminal realm (do we even have a 4th Amendment anymore?). The irony lies in the fact that the current majority of the Supremes (depicted as arch-conservatives) are probably doing more to limit federal power than any batch since the mid 1800s

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[guacamolefoo]

Then the Constitution should've said so. "Compelling state interest to abridge rights" is a dangerous concept to let stand, because it can also be applied to speedy & fair trials, uncompensated seizure of property, and more...

That battle has been fought and lost. See here for an example of where a "compelling state interest" permits a constitutionally suspect practice (racial discrimination) to be used by a public university.

As it stands, both the criminal libel code and campaign-finance regulations are both unconstitutional on their faces. (Blatant unconstitutionality is of course only a minor barrier to widespread enforcement of a USA law).

AFAIK, there is no "criminal libel code". Defamation is a civil tort. The US Govt. is not at all involved. The constitution protects individuals against only government action. Civil disputes are not regulated by it.

FWIW, I agree with you on campaign finance. I think it is clearly unconstitutional, but the Supremes disagree with the two of us. C'est la vie.

GF.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Dun Malg]

Well that's all well and good, except that the Constitution does not allow for any exceptions

I don't think they consider them "exceptions", but rather "natural limits". Rights are not absolute and all-encompassing. The basic philosophical rule for a right is that you may exercise your rights up to, but not beyond, the point where said exercise infringes upon the rights of another. The "shouting fire" limitation is a clear illustration of this. I believe the traditional saying in this regard is "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose". None of these are exceptions-- they have simply been determined to lie outside the scope of the associated right. Likewise, both Libel and Slander have been determined by the courts (and by society, historically) to be significant infringements upon the rights of another to not by covered by the right to speak freely.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[DunbarTheInept]

In the US the burden of proving falsity is on the plaintiff, not the defendant.

Not always. In this case, the plantiff starts by having to prove that:
1 - the defendant said the defamatory things.
2 - the things said were in fact dematory.

And that's enough right there for the plantiff's case. At that point the defendant can defend by saying:
1 - The defamatory things said were true.

It's like having an alabi - it's not necessary to have one to prove you're innocent, but having one can 'trump' any evidence against you.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[torokun]

Yes, this is correct. And I should clarify. I used the word 'publisher' above, but I should have just said defendant to avoid the complicated cases... ;)

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone please explain to me why we still have libel and slander laws at all (aside from legal/social momentum)? It seems to me that if we did not have such laws, people would simply have to exercise their own judgment about the truth or falsity of information they receive, something we generally already do.

For example, say someone claims that person X likes to kill puppies. Why would anyone believe this claim with no evidence whatsoever to back it up?

The idea that someone can do "unfair" damage to another's reputation seems to me to be unjustified, since reputations are a construct of personal opinion, which is not always based upon fact in the first place.

Furthermore, I would argue that in the absence of libel and slander laws, people would as a matter of necessity exercise more judgment about what information they take to be true. Personally, I don't give a damn about the opinions of anyone stupid enough to believe unsubstantiated rumors about me (or anyone else).

I do realize, though, that those engaged in commerce do not always have the luxury of having intelligent customers, and so real economic damage could occur if enough people were to believe such a rumor. But why should we care? In the absence of such laws, I think that what we would now term libel and slander would be fairly evenly spread out, and so would not have any net effect on business at all.

I think that if we were to repeal libel and slander laws, there would be a short-term spike in the occurrence of false rumors, but that would die down to a more reasonable level (somewhat above our current level, obviously) fairly soon as people began to get wise. The real and lasting effect, in my opinion, would be to free people from worrying about pissing off someone with enough money to hire lawyers while exercising their free speech rights.

Mike

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the third point was a minor point.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[nomadic]

And that's enough right there for the plantiff's case. At that point the defendant can defend by saying: 1 - The defamatory things said were true.

Not if the defendant is a media outlet, which the courts might consider slashdot to be. In that case the burden is on the plaintiff to show that the statements were untrue.

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Zalgon 26 McGee]

If anything, you'd rise in the estimation of some /. readers...

Re:First Amendment versus Libel laws

[Minna Kirai]

One is that the law of libel and slander is part of English Common Law; as such, it pre-dates the U.S. Constitution, never mind the First Amendment,

Why does a foreign code matter at all, just because it happens to be older? Hammurabi's Code predates both the Constitution and Common Law, so by your reasoning, I guess it's "still" in force.

there's no sense in which subsequent acts of Congress governing it have *abridged* the right to free speech by making it less free.

Of course there's no sense- nobody said something foolish like that. Obviously, North American free speech rights were *created* by Congress in proposing the Bill of Rights. They extended it well beyond traditional English law. Where did you get "abridged"?

The second is that defamation is not a crime; you *do* have the right to libel or slander someone. But they have the right to sue you when you do.

Are you claiming that libel is not a criminal offense? That's just wrong. It's on a state-by-state basis.

You may all ready know this...

[r.future]

... but just in case you did not I'll toss it up here.

Lawrence Lessing (another lawyer who has done lots of writing about the internet, and been talked about on Slashdot often) posts what IMO is some very insightful information on "cyberlaw" at his blog from time to time. If you enjoyed this interview, and have not cheked out Lessing's work.

Here are some of the groups that Lessing is working / has worked with...
creative commons
eff
puclib knowledge
fsf

Re:You may all ready know this...

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you manage to get his name right in the URLs but miss it everywhere else? That's impressive.

No, wait. Baffling. That's it.

There's always spin

[MisanthropicProgram]

I know an ex-journalist. She told me: "... there's always a spin on a story regardless of who's publishing it. ...everyone has a bias ..."
What I'm trying to say is, please keep posting your observations! I get into the trap of not questioning the sources of my informatin much too often!

Re:There's always spin

[ThePlague]

Being impartial in the reporting of a story is certainly possible; deciding what is a newsworthy story is where bias really shows.

Article Text in Case Of Slashdotting

[LordoftheFrings]

Just kidding. ;)

I Have More Rights in Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

..."the United States's greater degree of tolerance for defamatory speech."

Umm, sorry, no. Sure, in comparison to China, the US has a greater tolerance for "defamatory speech", but in comparison to Canada, Europe, and even Russia, the US is extremely suppressive. And "defamatory" all to often coincides with "free" when it comes to speech.

Go back to Russia - Barney Gumble

Re:I Have More Rights in Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

"but in comparison to Canada, Europe, and even Russia, the US is extremely suppressive."

Really? Write an article in France about the myth of the French Resistance in WWII. Or in Canada, write an article on how you think French Candians are a bunch of cowards.

Europe? Europe is a continent, not a country.

Re:I Have More Rights in Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada, you can't even give a state owned cow a name that might approximate a name given to a human for fear of offending the person(s) with that name.

In Germany, you can't teach your dog to do the 'Seig Heil' salute.

In France, you can't wear a religiously required garment to school.

In Russian, you can vote for anyone of the Presidential candidates that the President hasn't had locked up.

Re:I Have More Rights in Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

> In France, you can't wear a religiously required garment to school.

Yes you can. Read again the official texts and don't listen to some remote brainless journalist :)

M'enfin, bon, ce n'est pas comme si ce post allait changer quelque chose...

Re:I Have More Rights in Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

The original post never said Europe was a country. It merely inferred most European nations have more freedom (of speech) than the US. Germany might be an exception due to its history.

In Canada, you can write about French Canadians being cowards. You'll get lambasted for it, but free speech works both ways. What you don't see happening is people being hauled before the courts for badmouthing a company on an internet forum - something that's happened repeatedly in the US.

Parent post was correct - you have more rights in Russia these days when it comes to free speech.

The very same?

[The Desert Palooka]

Godwin's Law, Godwin the Lawyer?

Re:The very same?

[mooingyak]

Yes. He is that Godwin.

Re:The very same?

[ryants]

Yes

Re:The very same?

[Crash Culligan]

Godwin's Law, Godwin the Lawyer?

I believe they are one and the same. However, notice that in the text of the article, not once did he ever mention the N-

Hah! Close, but I didn't fall for it!

Re:The very same?

[Anonymous Coward]

You tried to trick us like those damn Nazis did!

eSpam versus snailSpam

[DavidStewartZink]

Also note that snailSpam is alleged the primary source of revenue to the USPS. So there's an economic incentive to NOT treat it like eSpam.

Re:eSpam versus snailSpam

[Anonymous Coward]

I get more actual snail mail than snail spam, I imagine it is this way for most people and businesses.

Besides, they get bulk rates; so they're paying less per letter than I pay for sending letters.

Re:eSpam versus snailSpam

[red floyd]

True, but snailSpam is also "sender pays", is easier to track back, and is subject to Mail Fraud laws. If $DUMBCORP snailSpams me for h3Rb41 V1@gr4!,

1. $DUMBCORP is paying for it

1. If I believe it's fraudulent, I can contact the USPS as a remedy

Those two features of snailSpam make it markedly different from eSpam.

Re:eSpam versus snailSpam

[pla]

Also note that snailSpam is alleged the primary source of revenue to the USPS. So there's an economic incentive to NOT treat it like eSpam.

You mean, the same USPS currently trying to get a government bailout on their $67 billion shortfall, resulting directly from their habit of giving business- and bulk-class mail huge discounts compared to actual individuals?

Sorry, but that nicely provides its own evidence that even snail-spam has a cost - $67 billion to the taxpayers, in fact. Now, I don't like getting (physical) junkmail, but I like having to pay to receive it a whole lot less.

"Sender pays" model? Yeah, right.

For those that don't know-

[baudilus]

IAAL = I Am A Lawyer.

Just in case you thought it mean "If Anyone Actually Listens"

Spammer don't pay for bandwith

[LordKazan]

most spammers don't pay for the bandwidth they use - they slave other peoples machines, feed them a list of emails (short) and make them generate the emails (long) - thereby stealing other peoples bandwidth

Amusing...

[bonch]

It amuses me that people here expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL but are freely willing to break the copyright of other companies' products simply because it's "easy" and "convenient." Amused me so much, I put it in my sig.

I also think it's funny that there is still somewhat of a stigma over pirating software--particularly games--simply because a lot of people here are programmers or look up to programming heroes like John Romero.

If Slashdot was made up mostly of musicians, their tune would change (pun intended).

Re:Amusing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, EVERYONE on slashdot expects companies to follow GPL and EVERYONE on slashdot are downloading copyrighted materials.

You brush is WAY to wide. Slashdot isn't one big collective. Get over it.

Re:Amusing...

[Peyna]

The post you replied to never said "everyone," and didn't seem to imply that either.

Re:Amusing...

[MisanthropicProgram]

You sir or madame, are one of the reasons that I still spend so much time on /.! This is way after the moderators have left. But, please take this as my high regard for your comment!

Re:Amusing...

[happyfrogcow]

I think the amount of people here in /. who support copyright infringement is very low. Most would argue to their death about Fair Use before supporting copyright infringement of any kind. You just don't see posts proclaiming "I don't support copyright infringement!" because there isn't really a need to until posts like yours show up.

number of copyright violations on my computer: Zero.

Re:Amusing...

[Anonymous Coward]

and some people believe that people are/should be motivated by bettering humankind and not by the almighty dollar.

i have more respect for the guy who works all day at mcdonalds, comes home tired and writes a song about it then i do lars from metallica owning another gold plated shark tank, that he doesnt need.

tell me again why corporations deserve to be paid billions to exploit my creativity?

Re:Amusing...

[mbbac]

You mean Carmack. Romero was a designer, not a programmer.

Re:Amusing...

[Minna Kirai]

The post you replied to never said "everyone," and didn't seem to imply that either.

Quiz time! Find the word "everyone" in this sentence:
"Everyone should respect the copyright of the GPL."

Re:Amusing...

[byrd77]

Entirely different situations. Breaking the GPL for commercial gain is exactly the type of violation the Copyright Act is intended to punish. Impairing technological advancement, blocking fair use, and using a sledgehammer to swat a teenage music fan - that's not even close to either the intent of the current law (exclud. DMCA, etc...) or the historical societal objectives and norms from which the laws are derived.

Re:Amusing...

[CustomDesigned]

I have no sympathy for music or video pirates. It is their lawlessness that restricts the freedom of law abiding people. I still do not have any DVDs. If I purchase one, I am not allowed to play it (unless I also purchase an authorized player and only use it, yada, yada). I won't pirate one because I believe in obeying the law as long as doing so is morally defensible. I will start buying DVDs as soon as I am allowed to play them with the equipment and software of my choice.

Currently, I am allowed to play DVDs that my Dad makes of our home movies (from the days of 8mm home movies). I wonder how long that will last. When I went to a studio to record some of my own music, the CD I received was copy protected. Fortunately, this was before DMCA, so I found some MAC software to copy it for me. (Of course, I now know more questions to ask of any studio before giving them any dough.)

Re:Amusing...

[codepunk]

No actually I think quite the opposite is true. I don't believe that ./ folks condone copyright theft at all. Personally I would dime out somebody to the BSA in a heartbeat if I thought they where illegally copying windows or any other commercial software. Copyright theft hurts both Open Source software adoption rates and it hurts corporate profits. If yo wish to run something other than open source software then I am cool with that but I insist that you purchase it at the full price.

Re:Amusing...

[James Lewis]

Wrong, Romero programmed, he just didn't write the engine.

Re:Amusing...

[negacao]

By the way, the RIAA is evil for going after infringers of copyright.

Would this be the same RIAA found guilty of price fixing? They aren't exactly taking the high moral ground....

Re:Amusing...

[Sloppy]

It amuses me that people here expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL but are freely willing to break the copyright of other companies' products

I suspect that there are very few people who actually hold that position. Can you find one?

Re:Amusing...

[David Hume]

I think the amount of people here in /. who support copyright infringement is very low. Most would argue to their death about Fair Use before supporting copyright infringement of any kind. You just don't see posts proclaiming "I don't support copyright infringement!" because there isn't really a need to until posts like yours show up.

I believe the amount of people here in /. who would admit they support copyright infringement is very low.

Hell, it may even be the case that the amount of people here in /. who believe they support copyright infringement is very low.

But my memory and perception of past /. discussions re: music downloading is that the majority of /.ers have adopted a theory of "fair use" -- i.e., including the "right" to "share" a song over the net with a complete stranger who didn't pay for the music and who is located 6000 miles away -- that would effectively eviscerate copyright. That is, of course, because the artists themselves don't receive the compensation anyway, music companies are evil, and all of the music they produce sucks (which is why we are entitled to it for free, though it doesn't explain why we would want it). After all, "sharing" is good.

Of course, I could be mistaken.

Re:Amusing...

[ottffssent]

You're confusing ideology (copyright==bad, or whatever) with practicality.

The practical matter is that most people are "honest" for some definition of honesty broadly defined in society. That means that, while the average person isn't terribly concerned with whether something's legal or not, they're generally beholden to their idea of propriety.

You're correct that violating the GPL to steal "our" stuff or violating copyright law to steal "their" stuff is legally equivalent. But the feeling is that "their" stuff is too expensive - that is, it provides too little value for its cost (not price). On the other hand, those of use who use the GPL in one form or other feel that it asks little enough in return for what it provides.

In other words, we react to renting and copying DVDs the same way we react to people walking their dogs in public parks (assuming they clean up after 'em). Similarly, we react to GPL violations the way we'd react to someone letting their dog shit in the neighborhood sandbox.

Re:Amusing...

[Cryogenes]

Everyone should respect the copyright of the GPL. By the way, the RIAA is evil for going after infringers of copyright.

There is no inconsistency because the GPL is, in fact, GNU's tool in the fight against copyright. It only uses copyright against itself.

In other words, we do not ask that you respect the "copyright of the GPL" but that you respect the freedom to distribute and modify our programs.

Re:Amusing...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that you people are nitpicking these fine details when there is a much bigger nit to pick:

a lot of people here are programmers or look up to programming heroes like John Romero

Who looks up to John Romero?

Re:Amusing...

[irix]

Do you ever get tired of setting up the same strawman (The Slashdotter: rabid pro-GPL Linux zealot who wants to free use of other copyrighted material) and then burning it down? Does it give you some sort of feeling of moral superiority?

There are hundreds of thousands of slashdot accounts. Probably tens of thousands who post in any given month. Why don't you reply to those handful handful who actually resemble that strawman, instead of tarring everyone with the same brush.

Re:Amusing...

[DunbarTheInept]

(about your sig you mentioned): People don't complain about RIAA going up against copyright infrigers. They complain about RIAA, in their attempt to go up against infringers, stepping on the rights of everybody else in the process too - using copyright infringement as a scapegoat to help them attain control of the whole vertical market.

THe hypocracy you allude to is a figment of your imagination.

Re:Amusing...

[bonch]

Why don't you reply to those handful handful who actually resemble that strawman, instead of tarring everyone with the same brush.

Handful? Handful?! The majority if Slashdot, as well as the editors of Slashdot. Like I said elsewhere, if my post doesn't apply to you, what do you care?

You'd have to be pretty naive to actually tell me the majority of Slashdot does not fit the situation I described. Everyone knows Slashdot has an anti-RIAA, pro-p2p agenda. I merely point out the double-standard in freaking out when someone violates the GPL yet freely encouraging pirating artists' music simply because you have some sort of baseless beef with a lobby group.

Re:Amusing...

[DunbarTheInept]

Of course, I could be mistaken.

You are. People here aren't mad at RIAA for going after copyright infringement. They're mad at RIAA for presuming guilt unfairly in copyright issues, and mad at the legal system for buying into thier story. Having the ability to copy files does not make you a pirate. Having the ability to copy a CD does not make you a pirate. Having the ability to transfer from CD to MP3 does not make you a pirate. According to the RIAA, it does and therefore the country needs DRM technology.

I'm almost as mad at the freeloaders as the RIAA. The RIAA is guilty of lying. The freeloaders gave them the scapegoat they needed to get to the REAL issue they were looking for - total control of the vertical market.

If I buy a copy of a song, what I do with that song for personal use is none of the RIAA's damn business, and they won't admit to that.

Re:Amusing...

[DunbarTheInept]

Nitpick point (but an important one): Playing a DVD on non-approved hardware is NOT piracy, no matter how much the MPAA repeats that lie. There is some illegal activity going on when you do that, but piracy isn't the kind of illegal activity that is occuring. It's a bit like calling it murder when someone steals a car. Both are illegal acts, but it's important to keep them seperate and not apply the penalties for one to the other. Furthermore, the legal 'lawbreaker' in the hypothetical case of you using nonapproved DVD playing software is the one who provided the software, not the one (you) who would be using it.

Provided the person providing the decryption software is outside the jursidiction of the DMCA, you are legally capable of using that software. You just aren't legally able to pass it on to anyone else after you get your copy of it - all the passing of the software has to originate outside the DMCA juristiction.

There is a legal way to play DVD's on non-approved hardware right now, but it depends on the fact that the DMCA doesn't have worldwide jurisdiction. If you still wish to boycott DVD's as a message to the MPAA over this, that's fine - but it's not true that there is "no" way to legally play DVD's with non-approved systems. The DMCA covers the dissemation of the tools that do so, not the use of them once you have them.

Re:Amusing...

[IceAgeComing]

All those raging Daikatana fans, and anyone who loves his thick, gorgeous locks.

Did I even spell Daikatana right? I kind of hope I messed it up.

Re:Amusing...

[EzInKy]

It amuses me that people here expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL but are freely willing to break the copyright of other companies' products simply because it's "easy" and "convenient."

What you are not understanding is that while the majority here support the idea of copyrights, they have a big problem with how they are implented today. Limiting the monopoly on works granted by Congress to fourteen years makes even more sense now than it did over two hundred years ago especially when you consider the sheer volume of material that is created every day.

The nearly eternal protection given today does nothing to promote the progress of the arts and sciences. At the rate things are going it will become virtually impossible to pen a new document that does not infringe another in some manner, and millions of works will be forever lost to history because the owners saw no profit in continuing to publish them.

Re:Amusing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you being a bit overly critical there, guy?

On Viruses (Virii?)

[Mikkeles]

'Similarly, computer viruses are a kind of noxious hazard that does not have a precise counterpart in the non-Internet world, so it seems appropriate to address virus-writing miscreants with computer-specific or Internet-specific laws.'

(ob IANAL)
Why would existing laws on vandalism not cover this?
On the physical level, the magnetic regions on one's fixed disc are altered in a manner not authorised by the owner and cause the system to not function correctly.
I don't see this as differing (w.r.t. vandalism) from dropping a wrench in an engine or maladjusting the control knobs.

Re:On Viruses (Virii?)

[roystgnr]

Why would existing laws on vandalism not cover this?
On the physical level, the magnetic regions on one's fixed disc are altered in a manner not authorised by the owner and cause the system to not function correctly.
I don't see this as differing (w.r.t. vandalism) from dropping a wrench in an engine or maladjusting the control knobs.

On the physical level, a computer virus author doesn't go anywhere near your hard disk. He just sends some signals to your computer, signals which if sent to perfectly-written software run by an informed user would do no damage whatsoever.

The reason the virus does damage is because there is no perfectly-written software and there are too few informed users; to stretch your analogy to its breaking point, it's as if in addition to owning my car's engine (the hard disk) I employed a mechanic (the operating system and networked software) to maintain it, and my mechanic was an idiot who could be convinced by an anonymous phone call to wreck the car.

Now, I'm sure there must be some law against tricking someone into destroying their own property, but I don't think vandalism will cover it.

Re:On Viruses (Virii?)

[Alsee]

a computer virus author doesn't go anywhere near your hard disk

Irrelevant. If you're in the penthouse of a hotel, and you figure out a way to press buttons to cause the elevator waaaay down in the lobby to blow up, you're still guilty of vandalism. And it wouldn't matter if you were pressing buttons in the next building or on the other side of the planet.

It doesn't matter that it's a dumb-ass elevator design, what matters is the intent to cause damage.

-

Spam

[JoeBaldwin]

I was the guy who posted the question about the DMCA, and firstly I'd like to thank Mike for answering not just my question, but everyone's questions with excellent clarity and quality, unlike some interviewees that have gone before. Cheers Mike!

Secondly, if I get what he's getting at with his reply to a question on Internet pollution, I totally agree with him. The changes have to come from the people changing (i.e Ralsky and his merry men being sent to-I hate to use these words-a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison), and not the technology (Penny Black seems to me to be something that will crash and burn like a plane made of pentane-coated magnesium bricks). We also have to do something about this bullshit idea of "freedom of commercial speech". As far as I'm concerned, telemarketers and spammers aren't exercising their rights to free speech, they're pissing me off royally. The same argument for people changes as opposed to technology changes also echoes in his reply to my question: rather than removing basic functions of computers and restricting users' freedoms through Palladium and the rest of that crap, we need to be looking at the way the RIAA do business, and possibly getting them to see P2P in a modern light.

I love the idea we could sue Gator if we didn't ask for their shit to be installed. Class action, anybody? :)

Mike's response on DVD copying is definitely the truth. If you really are just using those DVDs for "personal use", then you have absolutely zero need to make more than one backup (let's face it, if you manage to destroy not one but TWO copies of the same DVD then you don't deserve legal rights to copy it again, you need a beating with a cluestick).

As for anonymous domain names, I'm in favour of those so long as it doesn't stretch to tubgirl and goatse :)

Badly-Crafted Laws

[WCityMike]

The worst problem is when badly crafted laws, such as the DMCA, intersect with DRM to lead to results that effectively deprive people of rights they otherwise have under the Copyright Act, or under other laws.

Quite, just as the Third Reich began to effectively deprive people of rights they otherwise had under existing legislation of the time ...

[Reference, before someone without a sense of 'Net history mods me as a troll. ;-)]

Re:Badly-Crafted Laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite, just as the Third Reich began to effectively deprive people of rights they otherwise had under existing legislation of the time ...

What the hell you fucking jackass. Comparing the current administration to Adolf Hitler's murderous regime is downright you moran.

Re:Badly-Crafted Laws

[Alsee]

I hereby invoke the "intentional invocation" codicil and invalidate your entire post.

-

Re:Badly-Crafted Laws

[WCityMike]

I just knew that someone was going to do that. *sigh* Didn't follow the link, did you? Do it. All will be made clear.

(We really need a "-1, Clueless" moderation.)

Re:Badly-Crafted Laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, I'm sure he did actually know what you were saying. The ACs just like saying things like that.

Ed's too....

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

"..Note especially the bit about liability for what you post online. A *lot* of people who post on Slashdot ought to read that part..."

Including some of the editors ;-p

Oh, Yeah...

[MisanthropicProgram]

My post is freely availble to beat over the heads of people who say "if you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about ..."
AND remind them that all you have to do is go up to Lexis Nexis and you'll find enough to put them in jail ... one of the same sources that our(US) Government uses!

Vandalism

[baudilus]

While Merriam-Webster defines vandalism as the "willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property," this definition is insufficient to describe the inherent self-propagating nature of computer virii, therefore the definitions are not one and the same.

In order for the analogy to work, dropping the wrench into an engine would have to cause not only that engine to fail, but also have the same effect on any engines nearby and so on.

The only circumstance that comes close would have to be a real virus, created and spread intentionally by some malicious party. Then again, no one is expected to actually die from computer virii.

Re:Vandalism

[John Macdonald]

The anology works.

The wrench-dropping vandal is found responsible for more than just replacing the gear that was broken by the wrench, but also the consequent destruction of connected pieces of machinery, the material that is ruined because the machinery stops in the middle of an active step of the manufacturing cycle, the salaries of employees who are laid off during the repair, the salaries of repair people, lost profits for the company, etc. This might include such things as injury or manslaughter if the mechanical breakdown occurred in an unfortunate way.

The virus writer would similarly be responsible for consequent damage that came from his virus, even though they were far removed from the original act.

In either case, there is reasonable expectation of a range of damaging consequences resulting from the action, and thus responsibility attaches to taking that action.

A possible compromise

[Martin Blank]

How would you feel if accurate information were required solely for those entities using the domain to conduct commercial matters, primarily sales but also for tech support and other such uses? This way, you could have your personal site at myname.tld with hidden or false information, but you would have to have proper contact information in place for mysalessite.com.

Re:A possible compromise

[Allen Zadr]

Doesn't work because we all are affiliated with /something/. And any individual could use that affiliation to effect a commercial outcome.

If I Email a personal inviation to 7 or 8 million of my close "internet family" to try out C!@l!s, and point to someone else's domain - it's still my personal domain. It's still attached to the internet, and I can still SPAM.

Regardless, I should still be able to remain anonymous. Good thing I can register domains through South Africa where privacy still matters.

--
No, I really don't sell C!@l!s, nor do I know where you can get some.

Re:A possible compromise

[Martin Blank]

That's an absurd technicality, and you know it.

If the result of a publicity campaign results in an income for you, then that's commercial, and the courts can sort out the questionable cases. But no one -- absolutely no one -- has "7 or 8 million" friends or family members. That's spam (or perhaps the world's largest mailing list, which may well fall under commercial concerns if you're getting any money in the form of ads or donations to cover costs).

I think that I should be able to see the information pertaining to the people I'm buying from, comparing it to whatever information they provide, adding another layer of trust to the commercial model.

Re:A possible compromise

[Allen Zadr]

You actually get my point, but are finding the wrong conclusion.

At what point does my personal home page become a commercial concern? What's to stop me from opening an anonymous - personal - home page, with the intent of putting up a political speach web site and it will include a mailing list.

Maybe I get some popularity, and I set up a Google Ad-Words campaign, but have the proceeds directly routed to Ralph Nader's Presidential fund or Rush Limbaugh's legal defence fund. Should my anonymity be protected here? Hint: yes.

What if I do something nasty like sell my list addresses to Evil Empire Marketing. Clearly, at this point, I'm scum, and don't deserve to be protected.

But, you are right, the courts should be able to make that determination just the same - anonymous or not. Yet, I can get these protections by purchasing non-US controlled domain space. This is a good thing. Especially if I'm in China and want to protect my family for having to pay for the bullet the government uses to execute me.

My point here is that the very fine line that you say the courts should have to sort out, needs to start with anonymous access for everybody. On it's face, you can't automatically differentiate a hobby-site from a commercial endeavor, especially when there is no formal mandate on intent (like there is for an FCC television or radio broadcast license).

Re:A possible compromise

[gd2shoe]

Maybe I get some popularity, and I set up a Google Ad-Words campaign, but have the proceeds directly routed to Ralph Nader's Presidential fund or Rush Limbaugh's legal defence fund. Should my anonymity be protected here? Hint: yes.

Your intent here is obviously one of good faith based on political principals that most people could identify with. It becomes much harder to defend such a practice in real life. There is in fact a website with a .gov name that makes available contact information to anyone who has made a campaign contribution. There are 17 people in my zip code who have made campaign contributions, mostly to democrats. I could visit each of them at home, assuming they supplied valid contact information. The purpose of this, I suppose, is to prevent big business from slipping big kickbacks anonymously to politicians. Corporations still have control of government, and private individuals political preferences don't remain private. What else is new.

I don't disagree with you in concept, but campaign contributions are strictly regulated. I think Nader in your example would need to submit your real contact information in order to stay legal, thus defeating your example.

(of course, ianal)

Let me be the first to say....

[bfg9000]

He's a Nazi just like Hitler!

Re:Let me be the first to say....

[dwm]

It's humor. Laugh. It's funny.

Read about Godwin's Law.

Damn...

[MisanthropicProgram]

Now I can steal your identity and buy a pack of chewing gum!

Missing option.

[blair1q]

There are those of us who don't like having "the Government" controlling the way we run our lives.

Why isn't there an Open Source legal system like there's an Open Source Software system?

(Moderators: you probably think this song is about you, don't you, don't you...)

Re:Missing option.

[nomadic]

The legal system was open source a long time before programming. Courts, legislatures, and executives constantly adopt laws from other jurisdictions and modify them. Those modifications are themselves later adopted by other jurisdictions.

What about rights?

[stevens]

In commenting on legislation outlawing the use of general purpose computers to access digital, e.g., cable, content, he comments:

I don't think their concern should trump the general preference we have for convergence

I don't think laws should be weighing a "concern" versus a "preference" at all. I'm a little concerned that a lawyer isn't framing this as an issue of rights.

I bought my computer; I bought a cable feed. In my own home, I'm going to do what I like with them, "concerns" be damned. And this isn't just a "preference", it's a right!

Re:What about rights?

[Chambers81]

Remember that even if what you are discussing is a "right" you might forfeit it when your expression of your "right" interferes with the "rights" of another. also keep in mind that you are normally guaranteed protection against governmental interference without due process of law. Depending on the basis of review, this might mean that if the government has a legitimate or compelling state interest, they can frequently restrict your rights. Your home might be your castle, but when you use the internet, you are interacting with others outside your home, and your castle isn't going to be an ultimate protection against wrongdoing.

Re:What about rights?

[BillFarber]

it's a right!

Sorry, but it is not necessarily a right. If, when you sign up for the service from the cable company, you agree not to hook a computer to the cable feed, then it is not your right to do so.

Re:What about rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

You "bought" your cable feed, hm? You own the signal? You own the content of the signal?

In most cases, when you get cable, you don't even own the physical cable-wiring/cable-box/etc. The cable company rents/leases (IANAL, I don't know the difference) the equipment, and provides the signal/content as a service. You didn't BUY jack, buddy.

Not that I'm in favor of DRM and all, but it's good to get these things straight. There's no faster way to lose and argument than to over-state your side.

Re:What about rights?

[stevens]

If, when you sign up for the service from the cable company, you agree not to hook a computer to the cable feed, then it is not your right to do so.

True, but then there's no legislation required, just simple contract law. Some corporations are pushing for legislation because they do not like that it is expensive to enforce contracts with silly terms like the one you state. So they just want to outlaw it and have the state pay the price to enforce it.

Re:What about rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting it right...

<preach>
Rights are not at all like material things that can be owned.

They can't be whined into existence.

If you enjoy rights, it is only because others in your society
have GIVEN them to you!
</preach>

<flame>
Now I try to be giving, but I'll be damned if I'll give
the music company the right to restrict me from listening to
my music from a harddrive of my choosing. We must make it
clearer to them, they're not listening yet...
</flame>

The GPL Question

[Anonymous Coward]

"I then find out some established/incorporated company has modified the software without redistributing their modified version freely, that they are making a profit out of the modified undistributed version..."

This is a serious misunderstanding of the GPL. No one has to give their changes back to the community, and there is no limitation on making money via GPL'd software. If they distribute modified GPL software, then it all has to be GPL as well. That's it. If they don't distribute it, they can to anything they want with it.

Re:The GPL Question

[Chirs]

They *do* however have to 1) indicate that the resulting product is covered by the GPL, and 2) provide source code to anyone that obtains the resulting product.

Also, they may not restrict their own customers from further distributing the resulting product.

Re:The GPL Question

[CrosbieFitch]

I was going to post what you said (I reckon it would have been verbatim), so thanks for saving me the trouble. :)

Unfortunately, there seems to be a grey area around here. Some folk say that if you distribute it to anyone, that ipso facto any third party can demand a copy of the source.

I disgree with that clause, but it would be good to find out if it's really part of GPL or not.

The way I read it was that GPL only applied to the parties who legitimately received GPL binaries or source code thereof, i.e. if you neither have a legitimately obtained binary or the source code, you have no rights to either whatsoever.

For example, if I create a new version of Linux and circulate it (source/binary) among a dozen of my buddies, and it just so happens that my buddies and I see no need to share it any further, this still shouldn't require that any third party has a right to the source code. Of course, me and my buddies, still have the right to give out the source code, just not the obligation.

Re:The GPL Question

[yamla]

IINL. Any third party who obtains a copy of the binary has the right to the source with your changes. If they did not obtain a copy of the binary, there's no way they can legally demand a copy of the source code from you because there's no legal basis for them doing so. No part of the GPL allows for this and you have no legal obligation to a third party you have hitherto had no dealings with.

Re:The GPL Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, my understanding is that whomever gave the third party the binary would be responsible for providing source. However, I think that only applies to modified code. If I didn't change anything, I can distribute binaries without distributing source. Otherwise, it would be risky to even hand a friend a disk with a GPL'd binary on it. He may ask for source, after all, and I might not be able to get it when he does. I agree that is needs clarification though.

Re:The GPL Question

[DunbarTheInept]

Not if they don't actually distribute it, which was the point. You can do anything with GPL code and not violate the GPL if what you do stays inside your organization and never leaves it.

Favourite response

[the_twisted_pair]

...music sharing (and the sharing of other treasured creative works) is a basic feature of human culture. We want to share the songs we love, the books and movies we love, and so on. I think what we've got to aim for is a legal system that preserves the goals of the Copyright Act while accommodating, to the extent possible, the human impulse to share the cultural creations we love.

What the man said. It's no small relief to hear the bigger picture is in mind.

Re:Favourite response

[greggman]

Human impulse is also to steal, kill, make war, cheat, lie, and many other things. That does not make them things we should support.

Email "LNP"

[Cramer]

• I don't know for certain, but my instinct is to believe that email addresses are not going to be portable anytime soon in the way that (thanks to regulation and deregulation) cell phone numbers are, and landline phones may someday be.

First, "landlines" have had local number portability ("LNP") for about 5+ years now. Cell phone LNP was mandated last year (earlier this year?) and is still being rolled out. At this very moment, a landline can be re-ported anywhere within the PSTN (or the telcos involved can be fined.) This is not yet true for all cell sites -- it takes time to update switch software. (At a former employer, it took about a year to upgrade a dozen Lucent 5ESS switches. It's not a simple process by any means.)

As for email address "portability"... (I hate to sound like a lawyer here, because I'm not) that depends on how you read "in the [same] way". If you mean Telcordia maintains a database of email addresses and where they should go, then no, that'll never happen. There are just too many players in the market and none of them will pay the fees like telcordia changes for the LNP database. HOWEVER, e-mail has had the ability to "alias" and thus redirect an address almost from the very first day. The thing is, ISPs don't want to have to maintain a system (read: anything at all) for people who are no longer a paying customer; and those who inherit all these aliases certainly won't.

[Note: LNP is more like an IP routing database than a list of email aliases. The former holder of the number doesn't incure any load in handing the number to someone else... the calls aren't routed through their switch(es) as is the case with an email alias: foo@bar.com->foo@baz.com has to go to the bar.com server to be directed to baz.com.]

Re:Email "LNP"

[mnemonic]

I certainly agree that aliases have been useable since, well, forever. Almost all of my prior ISPs contain aliases that send email to my current account.

I took the portability question to be addressing something different, however -- the prospect of a Telcordia email-address database of the sort Cramer describes.

Thanks for the correction about "local number portability" -- for some reason I had the impression that it still had not been widely rolled out yet. (I apologize for my ignorance and offer only the defense that Internet law and telecom law are not quite the same thing just yet, so I'm sorry for not keeping up!) At least I did know there is no serious technical obstacle to local number portability, so maybe I can get a small amount of partial credit?

Best,

--Mike

Re:Email "LNP"

[Cramer]

I'll give you half credit. *grin* You had 'em backwards. And it's not something the phone companies what you know about. I think BellSouth is still claiming your number is only portable within the same CO (i.e. I can change my carrier and keep the number, but not if I move out of range of my current CO) -- this is, of course, BS. However, I've not asked lately.

(I guess your phone company isn't scam^Wcharging you for LNP. I've been charged $0.35 per month since 6/99 by BellSouth -- they are allowed to charge me for exactly five years [as per NC PUC ruling].)

Re:Email "LNP"

[fuzzybunny]

HOWEVER, e-mail has had the ability to "alias" and thus redirect an address almost from the very first day. The thing is, ISPs don't want to have to maintain a system (read: anything at all) for people who are no longer a paying customer; and those who inherit all these aliases certainly won't.

Err..your own domain costs about 10 bucks per year. Email forwarding services for a given domain about the same. Am I missing something here? I've had my address for about 8 years now, including moving between several services and servers.

If anything, keeping your email address should be the dirt simplest thing you can possibly think of, as you can have full control over DNS/MX records, the actual addresses, etc. (as opposed to a phone company controlling where your number goes to.) If you don't like your ISP, you simply go to your domain registrar and change the nameservers, what's so exotic there?

Re:Email "LNP"

[Cramer]

If you have your own domain, then you are essentially acting as a "telco" in this sense. Additionally, everyone cannot have their own domain -- in fact, most will not even understand what a "domain name" is (made worse by registrars calling them "web addresses".)

Re:Some lame responses

[Atzanteol]

The difference here is, that he says these things with 'authority' whereas most people with a 'casual interest in DRM' do not.

Laws to protect business models?

[Strange Ranger]

> I think [the DMCA]is primarily a tool of copyright-holding companies, who continue to be terrified (with justification) about the impact the digital world is going to have on their ways of doing business.

"justification".. "Preserve the goals of the Copyright Act".

This raises a big red flag for me. Like laws dealing with Guilds and Journeymen and apprentices, I think the goals of the Copyright Act MAY be totally obsolete. The same barrier of entry that no longer exists for the infringer no longer exists for the publisher either. Now anyone can be mass copyright infringers. Anyone can be a publisher.

Maybe we should be concerned with author's rights, rights that by nature remain with the author, and do away with copyright holders altogether. I highly suspect that 'Copyright Holder' is an obsolete concept.

hmmmm.

Re:Laws to protect business models?

[CrosbieFitch]

I completely agree with you.

Keep the right for an author to be correctly attributed as the creator of their work.

Ditch the whole concept of copy control (at least online, on computer networks intended for efficient content distribution and duplication).

_________________________________
Intellectual property is a figment of the imagination.

Re:Laws to protect business models?

[wrecked]

Under common-law systems, authors have interests in creative works called moral rights, which are separate from copyrights.

Your comment is interesting, but we still need to address whether an author's rights in his or her own works, whether moral rights or copyrights, are alienable property interests.

If we decide that these interests are alienable (ie can be bought or sold), then it doesn't matter, for the purposes of determining the limits of copyright entitlement, whether the holder of the interests is the author personally, or some third party that purchased the author's interests.

Re:Laws to protect business models?

[Luyseyal]

Hrm, so if I buy from you the moral right to claim authorship of your comment, would that mean I could make Taco change the comment to say it was from me? How about the copyright?

-l

p.s., I need an army of lawyers at my beck and call.

Re:Laws to protect business models?

[wrecked]

That's a good question. The law on moral rights differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In Canada, moral rights are an author's residual interest in a creative work even if the author sold the copyright.

However, moral rights are limited. They are restricted to the rights of the artistic integrity of the work, not to the copying and distribution of it.

There was a case in Canada about twenty years ago involving a sculptor that sold a work to the Eatons Centre in Toronto. The Eatons Centre then altered the sculpture, to the artist's disapproval. The artist sued the Eatons Centre over the violation of his moral rights, even though he no longer possessed copyright of the work. As best I recall, the court held that the contract of sale did not take away the artist's moral rights over the work.

Since that case, contracts for the sale of artistic works routinely include a clause restricting the artist from exercising any claim for moral rights. I'm not an IP lawyer, so I don't know what the limits are on these types of clauses.

Re:Laws to protect business models?

[Luyseyal]

Right, it's that way here in the States, too. I was more interested in whether CmdrTaco would have to alter the database to comply with the sale of a comment and a cease-and-desist, though. :)

-l

Re:Laws to protect business models?

[Strange Ranger]

For the sake of argument, get rid of the word Copyrights and teleport to this new reality: An author has commercial rights. S/He has the rights to make money off the work. Nobody else has that right. But EVERYBODY has the right to make non-commercial copies of it as much as they want as long as they don't make any money from it. Human art and culture is now available to all humans.

Now if somebody wants to package it and add value, and sell it like a publisher of books or music, then the author can grant commercial rights to the publisher to do that. The author cannot relinquish those rights though, only share them.

What you get is a world where only popular works are worth packaging and reselling. Who would pay money for a commercial copy of a book if it wasn't worthy of owning a nice dead-tree copy? If musicians want to make it big then they'll need to produce music that people seek out rather than what gets shoved down their throats by the RIAA and ClearChannel. They'll have to perform, etc. No more "cutting an album" in a studio and sitting back while the marketing machine makes them millions. Instead we get 2 dollar CD's at the exit points of concerts (which we paid to attend), commercial download fees that reflect the cost of the providing the download service (NOT the music) etc. etc. etc.

We also get a population that thinks having 1200 different songs on their [tech of choice] is no big deal, at free or 12 cents a piece. So they're spending the same amount, but now it's spread across scores of musicians, rather than a smattering of top 5 Billboard/ClearChannel flavors of the week.

We ALSO get the billion dollar recording and publishing industries to go find something else to do that actually PROVIDES VALUE.

I'm dreaming obviously.

As opposed to...

[Allen Zadr]

Knock, Knock, Neo
As opposed to your cyber-name.

Yeah, my name is Allen, really.

The correct acronym

[hey!]

IAALBNISSBCALA

I Am A Lawyer, But Nothing I Say Should Be Construed As Legal Advice.

WARNING: Dumbass with mod points on the loose!

[SoTuA]

To whomever moderated this as "troll": Mike Godwin is the guy who came up with what is known as Godwin's Law that involves Hitler. In short terms, it says that long discussions often degenerate into flamewars and whomever calls the other "Hitler" or "Nazi" loses the discussion.

Get it, you idiot?

Re:WARNING: Dumbass with mod points on the loose!

[red floyd]

Of course, deliberatly mentioning Hitler and the Nazis to invoke Godwin's Law doesn't work either... So now what do we do with the OP?

BTW, I got the joke immediately. Otherwise I wouldn't be providing this commentary to your explanation (and no, I wasn't the humorless idiot who modded "troll -- I have no mod points right now).

Re:WARNING: Dumbass with mod points on the loose!

[KarmaOverDogma]

I'm not sure if your comment was directed at me, since I modded the parent down at "-1, flaimbait," but I would imagine that your strong language was intended nonetheless.

Your choice use of words ("Dumbass" and "Idioit") really annoyed me, so I modded you down as well as "flaimbait."

Then a cooler side of me prevailed, and I posted a reply to you here to cancel out my improper modding down your and his comment because while your language was offensive, you did have a valid point. It was an honest mistake (to err is human and IMO it was an honest error), and no, I wasn't familiar with Godwin's Law, until now.

It's probably worth noting that, in my opinion, you could have said the same thing without the unnecessary language.

Again, sorry about the error.

.

Re:WARNING: Dumbass with mod points on the loose!

[SoTuA]

It's ok. My posting was quite harsh too, I was still fuming about some unfair mods I got earlier (I mean, "redundant" when I'm the first poster to mention something? WTF?)

And yes, I could and should have said it in a civilized manner. My bad, please accept my apologies as well.

Now, on to the end of the world. Civility in slashdot! OMG! :D

Re:WARNING: Dumbass with mod points on the loose!

[IceAgeComing]

It would have been so much funnier if you'd ended with "Get it, you Nazi pig?"

Argh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Replying to a .sig is bad form.

(Of course, I'm guilty here as well...Replying to a reply to a .sig is worse.)

This says it all:

[Afty0r]

When a qualified lawyer in a specialist field cannot give a yes/no answer to a very VERY simple question, it goes a long way to explaining why we have so many problems with laws like the DMCA etc...

The question?

Is it legal to make and edit copies of commercial DVDs for personal use? What about loaning out the edited copies to friends?

Godwin:

Personally, I happen to believe that making copies of your own DVDs for your own personal use ought to be understood as legal. Ditto for edited copies, to a limited extent.

Our qualified lawyer has to use the following words:
Personally
Believe
Ought
Understood
In order to distance himself from giving an actual answer.

So what is it? How the HELL do I as a consumer know if I am legally allowed to backup the film I just bought?
IMO, the studios appear to be well on the road to winning.

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

If you want a simple, one-word answer, then the answer is "No." The guy can't really be much of a lawyer if he can't answer that very simple question.

Reasons: 1) when you make a copy, you break CSS, a violation of the DMCA; 2) when you edit a copy, you make a derivative work, a violation of 17 USC 106.

Re:This says it all:

[axis-techno-geek]

If I am "not allowed" to backup my movies that I purchased then I think the studios should have to offer lifetime replacement warranties if my disc ever becomes damaged.

Re:This says it all:

[wrecked]

In Godwin's defence, I think that he is hedging precisely because he cannot give a certain answer.

Here in Canada, it is perfectly legal to backup a DVD that you own. The recent Supreme Court of Canada case, CCH v. Law Society of Upper Canada, although dealing with print media, suggests that private personal copying would fall under 'fair dealing' (we don't have 'fair use' in Canada). Note: this reasoning was applied in the subsequent Federal Court case regarding P2P downloading.

In the U.S., no one can precisely know unless they challenge the DMCA on the issue of fair use. However, the previous unsuccessful deCSS cases predict that although backing up a DVD may be fair use, circumventing CSS is still illegal.

This is precisely the concern expressed by Godwin: that ancillary legislation, ostensibly crafted to address technological concerns, are simply pretexts to erode rights Americans have enjoyed until now under existing copyright regimes.

Re:This says it all:

[Svencer]

Could this be pursued under the 5th Amendment's Takings Clause? The biggest obstacle seems to be that the government only regulates one possible use for the DVD as opposed to limiting all possible uses.

See Takings Clause analysis and flowchart at http://faculty.lls.edu/~manheimk/cl2/takings4.htm

Re:This says it all:

[DunbarTheInept]

Actually, the law only comes into effect when you transfer that copy to someone else. So long as you just use it yourself, the law is irrelevant. Breaking CSS is not a violation of the DMCA. TELLING people how to break CSS is, and transferring software that does so is. (Effectively making it impossible to make a legal open source DVD player in US jursidiction.), but the USE of that software isn't what the DMCA actually covers - it's the dissemation of it.)

Re:This says it all:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the DMCA covers possesion as well as dissemination. The difference between possesion and use is negligble for these intents and purposes.

Re:This says it all:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you have never asked a lawyer a question before. It is de rigueur for a laywer to qualify *ANY* answer with weasel words. It is called CYA because a lawyer can (theoretically, good luck on that unless you are another lawyer) be held accountable for giving legal advice, so they NEVER give an absolute answer, it paints them into a corner should an unforseen (or in this case, an easily forseen) action be blamed on their advice. CYA is one of the first things you learn in law school.

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

Technically speaking, the copyright code does distinguish between distribution and copying. But both are illegal. Therefore, making a copy of anything copyrighted is against the law unless otherwise permitted (software and certain audio home recordings). You can make an argument that a copy personal use falls under fair use, but there is no guarantee that a court would agree.

Re:This says it all:

[Alsee]

Breaking CSS is not a violation of the DMCA... the USE of that software isn't what the DMCA actually covers

Incorrect.

US CODE TITLE 17 CHAPTER 12 Sec. 1201.
Circumvention of copyright protection systems
(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures. -
(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The act of circumventing is a crime. Note that it is possible to circumvent the scrambling on a DRM'd e-book and illegally access the content to read that book by sitting motionless and THINKING. Pure thought-crime. Totally absurd.

TELLING people how to break CSS is, and transferring software that does so is.

That is 1201 (b), and is also criminalized. A pure speech crime, unconstitutional. Congress can only pass a law against against an act of speech when it is done with intent to cause an actual non-speech crime or when aiding someone with actual knowledge that they intend to commit a non-speech crime. Speech itself cannot be criminalized in the absence of an underlying crime occurring.

The DMCA should have been declared unconstitutional years ago. The only reason it's still on the books is becuase no one has actually been imprisioned under it, thus no court has really had a chance to rule on its constitutionality.

-

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

Why do you deserve a replacement? You know that they are breakable. Isn't it your fault if it becomes damaged? Do you expect a replacement warranty for every item you purchase? Should you get a free magazine if you drop your copy in a puddle of water? Should you get a free book if your 2 year old marks up page 23 of your book? Do you expect a free replacement car if your car breaks down outside of warranty?

Re:This says it all:

[Alsee]

1) when you make a copy, you break CSS, a violation of the DMCA;

Yes, it's a violation *if* you circumvent the CSS.

You do not need to break CSS to make a copy. You can just copy the entire disk, encryption and all. The only catch is that you need a DVD(A) drive and DVD(A) disks. That makes a fully functional copy. The problem is that the industry foisted crippled products on the public. Most drives and disks are DVD(G) - those disks have a destroyed key area.

It is not illegal to make as many backup copies or other fair use copies as you like by using DVD(A). The DMCA doesn't get involved at all. The DMCA does not target or prevent copying/infringement at all. It only targets descrambling.

2) when you edit a copy, you make a derivative work, a violation of 17 USC 106

Derivative works are not a violation of 106 when they are fair use. Creating a backup is fair use, thus a derivative copy backup is not a violation of the derivative right.

However you're not really able to make a derivative copy without first breaking CSS which is prohibited by the DMCA.

I explained in another post the DMCA will most likely be struck down as unconstitutional once a conviction actually hits the courts. The %$!# law can't be overturned because it's never been enforced against anyone.

-

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

It is not illegal to make as many backup copies or other fair use copies as you like by using DVD(A).

AFAIK, no US court has ever said a backup copy is fair use. (If I'm wrong, please cit the case. And no, Sony didn't say that. It said time-shifting was OK. The issue of librarying (i.e., backups) was not before the court). Backups may be fair use. Or it may not be fair use. No court has ever ruled on it and no one is likely to ever be pursued for it. Therefore, I think it's wrong for people to just assume that a backup is fair use.

Re:This says it all:

[DunbarTheInept]

You aren't circumventing anything if you already own the copy and the right to view it. Until you use the technology to circumvent copyright, that clause doesn't take effect.

Re:This says it all:

[DunbarTheInept]

When I read a story, I'm making a copy of it in my mind. This is not illegal. When I read it aloud, I am making a copy of it in audio form. This is not illegal.

Re:This says it all:

[10101001 10101001]

You can make a backup of a magazine, book, etc. You can make a backup of a car manual. The car itself isn't an IP good. If you can't make a backup, you're offering the consumer no means of backing up a work which they have a right to.

Basically, when you buy a copy of a work, you have an infinite time based right to access the work. If there's laws that prevent it, those laws should be deemed unconstitutional. Once a work goes into the public domain, for example, making as many copies as you want so you can be sure you never lose a copy of a work is possible. If laws that prevent such copying of a copyrighted work are upheld, it only makes sense that the copyright owner should be held responsible for either a) continuous distribution so you can buy another copy of the work at any time or b) replacement for the normal wear/tear that occurs on all physically objects.

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

Technically speaking, no you can't make a backup copy of a magazine, book, or car manual. Those are all copyrighted materials.

But that wasn't my point. OP said he deserves a free replacement in case it breaks, with no reference as to he deserves it because it is IP. Why does he deserve a free replacement? If my toaster breaks, I buy a new one. If my shirt breaks, I buy a new one. If my DVD breaks . . .?

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

When you make a copy, you are circumventing copyright.

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

When I read a story, I'm making a copy of it in my mind.

No you're not. 17 U.S.C. 101 defines copies thusly,

''Copies'' are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term ''copies'' includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed.

When you read silently, it is not fixed in a tangible medium.

When I read it aloud, I am making a copy of it in audio form. This is not illegal.

Actually, you're performing the work. If done in public, it is illegal.

Re:This says it all:

[10101001 10101001]

Technically speaking, you can make a backup copy of a magazine, book, etc. Whether the courts consider it fair use or part of archival is a second issue. However, since copyright allows archival for at least libraries and the dmca blocks that, either the dmca has to go, copyright has to be rewritten to overcome this contradiction, or there has to be some means of achieving the ends provided for by the law. Of course, the third still needs the law to be rewritten to get rid of the contradiction (at some point).

I'm not sure why you keep acting like a toaster and a dvd are the same. I'm allowed to make a copy of a toaster. It keeps occuring that the law says I'm not allowed to make a copy of a dvd, except under strict limitations. If I wasn't allowed to make my own toaster or modify it, don't you think I'd want some sort of law providing something in return for that advantage given to toaster makers?

Re:This says it all:

[Anonymous Coward]

Reasons: 1) when you make a copy, you break CSS, a violation of the DMCA;

According to the court in 2600 v Universal, it is perfectly legitimate to circumvent CSS entirely by yourself (including figuring out how to do it yourself) for the purpose of exercising your fair-use rights. Since you still have that right, the court ruled, the DMCA does not violate the constitution.

2) when you edit a copy, you make a derivative work, a violation of 17 USC 106.

That is not a derivative work. Derivative works are where you take part of someone else's work and incorporate it into your's. For example, if I were to write a book starring Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and a big furry Wookie, my book would be a derivative work of Star Wars.

When you make a copy, you make a copy, a violation of 17 USC 106-1. However, the law makes exceptions to an author's exclusive rights. Whether or not a copy violates those rights depends on the circumstances.

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

It keeps occuring that the law says I'm not allowed to make a copy of a dvd, except under strict limitations. If I wasn't allowed to make my own toaster or modify it, don't you think I'd want some sort of law providing something in return for that advantage given to toaster makers?

And you can turn that argument around. You are allowed to make a copy of a toaster. But it is too difficult for the average person to do so, which is a natural obstacle. The typical person would rather just spend $20-40 on a new toaster instead of building his own new toaster. Thus, there is an incentive for toaster manufacturers to keep on making toasters.

OTOH, making a copy of a DVD is trivially easy. Shouldn't the manufacturers of DVDs be given an incentive to make DVDs that would otherwise be mass produced and sold from the trunk of a car?

PS. The reason toaster came to my head is because it is a consumer device that can be had for about $20.

PPS. I'm only stating one possible (strict) interpretation of what the law currently is. Not what the law should be.

Re:This says it all:

[10101001 10101001]

And you can turn that argument around. You are allowed to make a copy of a toaster. But it is too difficult for the average person to do so, which is a natural obstacle. The typical person would rather just spend $20-40 on a new toaster instead of building his own new toaster. Thus, there is an incentive for toaster manufacturers to keep on making toasters.

OTOH, making a copy of a DVD is trivially easy. Shouldn't the manufacturers of DVDs be given an incentive to make DVDs that would otherwise be mass produced and sold from the trunk of a car?

Are you talking about the manufacturers of DVDs or the authors of the content? As far as the actual manufacturers of the physical DVD, I say fuck them. They're in the same area as the toaster. It's only because it's intrinsically hard to make a toaster that toaster makers stay in business. There's no reason to protect the DVD manufacturers.

Now, as for the content, I'd say there's an understandable want to give the author some protection. However, the fact is the law is already *written* to provide some exclusionary rules to this protection (like the archival copy, which seems aimed at libraries). Beyond this is the precedent of First Sale Doctrine which says you have an intrinsic right to use the stuff you buy (in a way, it's sad that it took a court case for IP owners to realize that them selling something then *not* giving you access is paramount to not giving you anything, which obviously goes against the point of copyright (to promote the arts and sciences)). Anyways, back to the issue..

When you do buy a copy of a book, you're not just buying a physical copy of a book, or you'd be allowed to make and sell as many copies as you were physically capable of. More and more, it's the publishers who keep pushing towards the idea of buying the medium in such a way that the copyrighted work is somehow intertwined with it which doesn't work very well since there's no medium that exists that can't have exactly equally meaning in another medium (ie, text on a book or in a computer is the same, music on a cd or in a computer is the same, etc). So, every time it becomes a question of siding with the manufacturer/publisher, I keep asking "how does this benefit this author, and does it make sense". Things like the DMCA only further artificially bind the work and the medium which benefits the publisher the most.

Does buying two copies of a book promote the arts and sciences twice as much? How about if it's given to two people? What if one's just a backup to the other? I just can't see how we can justify giving the author twice as much money because he or his publisher decided to use crapy paper. If I decide to buy the book again because it's easier than bothering with a backup, so be it. But with DVDs and CDs, it's trivial to backup, so there's a real threat to not getting another resale. That's life. If they don't like it, the publisher shouldn't be allowed to rely on law-based artificial restrictions to push more merchandise. And maybe that means more things will be published on hard-to-copy, biodegradable media, but at least then it'll be out in the open and the public can easily boycott it instead of being pressed under government restrictions to comply.

Re:This says it all:

[Alsee]

AFAIK, no US court has ever said a backup copy is fair use.

It's the canonical example always given for fair use. I'm sure there must be a case mentioning it somewhere. It's generally the more controvercial and borderline cases that get attention, and thus the cases I've been reading.

I can cite Title 17 section 117 which specificly states that it is not infringment to make backups of software, and section 108 which specificly states that libraries can make a copy of anything.

By any sane reading of section 107 Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use an ordinary home backup is obviously fair use. (1) The purpose and character of use is private and non-commercial, (4) it does not compete with the commercial market for the work. Point (3), amount used, is generally used to diminish the effect of profit/competition factors. Point (2), nature of the work, is usually used to account for different natures of different markets and wouldn't have any obvious implications in general personal backup use.

Personally I wish we could just toss the fair use clause and return to good old copyright law where copyright was never expected to apply to individuals in non-commercial activities at all. The entire copyright "crisis" is purely the result of attempting to force copyright law into areas it was never supposed to apply. It is absurd to try to apply copyright in the privacy of the home. The authors of the constitution would have been appaled at the very idea.

-

Re:This says it all:

[DunbarTheInept]

it is not fixed in a tangible medium.

How do chemical configurations in my brain differ from, say, electronic ones on a disk, for the sake of this definition?

Re:This says it all:

[DunbarTheInept]

Only if you do so in a way that copies ownership or viewership to a second person (Borrow someone else's book and make a copy for yourself, or make a copy of your own book and give it to someone else.)

Re:This says it all:

[Alsee]

The act of circumventing triggers the law whether infringment occurs or not. They explicitly wrote as as "access control", and any refference to "copy control" was striken from the draft bill.

If you're still not convinced, just look at every excemption to that clause granted by the Library of Congress. Not a single one involves copyright infringment. And why on eart would congress ever instruct the Library of Congress to grant exemptions to that clause for any act involving copyright infringment? By your logic the clause would never apply without infringment, and no exemptions would ever be needed.

And even if you were right, the law still makes it impossible to (legally) do so. Anyone who enables you to to do so gets imprisioned for five years for trafficing in a prohibited "circumvention tool".

-

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

By any sane reading of section 107 Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use an ordinary home backup is obviously fair use. (1) The purpose and character of use is private and non-commercial, (4) it does not compete with the commercial market for the work.

To play Devil's advocate: (4) it certainly does compete with the market for the work. Instead of buying two DVDs, you only buy one. This leads to (1) the purpose of the use is commercial.

Admittedly a strained reading of fair use, but certainly one that Hollywood would make.

The entire copyright "crisis" is purely the result of attempting to force copyright law into areas it was never supposed to apply.

Some would say the problem is that we are applying old law to new technologies. When the law was drafted in the 70s, copying movies was relatively difficult: the VCR wasn't in widespread use. Copying music was not difficult, but it was time consuming. Now, you can copy music and movies with the click of a button.

Re:This says it all:

[angle_slam]

No. Copying and distributing are separate acts. The mere act of making a copy is a violation of a copyright. Distributing it is another violation. The mere act of copying may be fair use, however.

Re:This says it all:

[Alsee]

Devil's advocate... Instead of buying two DVDs, you only buy one

Yes, certainly an argument I'd expect the RIAA/MPAA to genuinely advocate LOL. But even I'm not cynical enough to think any court would buy that in any reasonabe context :)

When the law was drafted in the 70s

1770's

Oh, or were you reffering to the 1976 overhaul of copyright law? :)

Almost everything I said goes back to original copyright law. The main changes were expansion to new media like music and photos way-back-when, the automatic copyright granted to everything in 1976 without need for copyright notice, and just recently DMCA-paracopyright plus oppressive application and enforcement.

Some would say the problem is that we are applying old law to new technologies.

I'd say the main problem is the creation of new law and forgetting/ignoring the purpose of existing law :)

Good old copyright law is a lot more sucessful than they want to admit. We could drop the DMCA and drop the criminal provisions and return to commercial-use infringment only and drop the duration to 10 years and drop laws mandating crippled hardware and authors will still write and make money doing so and musicians will still make music and make money doing so. Even in the face of perfectly legal P2P.

It would be the RIAA's worst nightmare, it would certainly put a substantial bite on publisher profits and it could squeeze creator profits, but it would not be the end of the world.

*If* we then find a substantial and undesirable drop in creation then there ARE other ways to provide them an incentive to create (generally though cash). Publishing and distribution can be done for free through P2P and we don't need to pay the publishig industry at all. We just need to get money to creators. The worst case is that we'd need to pay them out of levies/fees/taxes. Something like $4 per person per year is enough to fund all musicians at current levels. Once you cut publishers and physical products out of the loop the actual dollar amounts to fund artists is almost trivial. Let the RIAA die.

It doesn't matter how technology changes so long as you remember the purpose is to benefit the public by encouraging creation and getting that creation into the public domain. From that vaild basis you can come up with appropriate plans and compromises.

Copyright isn't about copying. It's about stimulating creation for the pubic. OLD and simple copyright law still accomplishes that, and we can always supplement it if it is inadaquate.

-

Re:Nazi freedom...de-kludge the law

[Anonymous Coward]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Subject: Re: Nazi freedom...de-kludge the law

De-kludge the law: what a wonderful idea!
But how are you going do exactly that?
Make an Open Law project?
And where would you start?

-Zarutian
http:\\zarutian.cjb.net\
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (MingW32)

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MODS: got it wrong(again),gparent=ok, prent=troll

[Anonymous Coward]

(cat got my tounge, sorry Mr. Taco)
U.S. libel law are much less "supressive" than other countries.

Re:Can he answer by what law America does this?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh heh heh. I'll tell you one thing: the atrocites done to POW's sure will make those knuckle heads think twice before they go blowing people into itsy-bitsy pieces again.

How to end a conversation with Mike Godwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler.

There, it's done.

Re:How to end a conversation with Mike Godwin

[erice]

No, no. no. Simply mentioned Hitler is not enough. You have to compare someone with Hitler or the Nazis. Like this:

"Mike Godwin is a Nazi"

Re:Some lame responses

[angle_slam]

Agreed. Those responses were incredibly lame. And in his advice to future lawyers, he should have at least mentioned that fact that there are certain requirements that need to be met to even be eligible to take the patent bar exam. (e.g., hold a bachelor's degree in a specified science or engineering field).

Shouldn't even be a problem, but is

[phorm]

If registrars had any brains, they would realize that it really should be difficult to make a DNS record in two sections:

a) Section a: public. Info for people that need/want to contact you about your site to file bug/complaint/etc reports. Should be optional - at least as far as personal info goes.
b) Section b: private. Info needed for renewal requests, legal issues, emergency contact etc. Not optional, but not visible to the general public.

WHY: Email addresses that are publicly available tend to end up getting spammed, and personal addresses can make you a victim of a stalker etc if they don't like your site.
And how about things like the DROX (Domain Registry of X). I get lots of letters from these morons wanting me to switch to their domain handling services... and I know they're getting my info from the WHOIS record.

Personally, I'd love to see whomever decided to *ensure that all DNS registration information is correct* etc etc get sued big-time the next time somebody gets a stalker visit because the registrar required personal information and then put it on the WHOIS.

Is there any reason they COULDN'T do this? This way, you net the 99% that use domains legitimately, and the 2-5% that don't you either get their proper info on private record or slam their site shut for abuse.

Even though the moderators are long gone..

[MisanthropicProgram]

you sir are Indian or appear to be. You have a lot to hide it the US!

Backups

[RAMMS EIN]

``let's face it, if you manage to destroy not one but TWO copies of the same DVD then you don't deserve legal rights to copy it again, you need a beating with a cluestick''

There is no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to make as many backups as you please, and valid reasons for doing so. I think you should also be allowed to lend things to others, or even sell them (I think the RIAA at some point tried to collect royalties on second-hand sales), or give them away.

It gets messy only when you increase the number of people who have access to something, e.g. lend your original CD to a friend, but use your "backup" to play the music at home. Then, you effectively distribute the work, and the coyright holders have every right to claim loss of sales and demand compensation and even punishment.

Re:Can he answer by what law America does this?!

[Le Marteau]

Amen, brother! How DARE they! Barbarians! They should just limit themselves to civilized conduct, like propelling pieces of lead at high speed through people's bodies with the hope of causing a massive loss of blood and ultimate death.

The very same?-Punishing online.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you violate his law? Will he come after you?

Happy Birthday to you!

[D.A. Zollinger]

I think what we've got to aim for is a legal system that preserves the goals of the Copyright Act while accommodating, to the extent possible, the human impulse to share the cultural creations we love.

How many times have you sung, "Happy Birthday" to a friend or family member? Did you know that even though the person who wrote that song is long dead and gone and will never write another song, his estate is still collecting royalties on that song for every public performance? That is the reason why popular television shows, movies, even restaurants sing something other than "Happy Birthday" to celebrate someone's birthday. Even though the song has permiated every level of our culture, we are denied its ubiquitous use in our culture. The idea of copyright was to encourage the original author to create. If they are dead, how can they create? This is why I believe our copyright system is so messed up.

I ought to copy Disney's "Snow White" onto DVD and sell it to the public. And when I have my day in court, tell the judge that I would be happy to pay any royalties to Walt Disney, if he would come to court to accept them.

Referring to Slashdot editors and majority

[bonch]

I never get it when people post to say, "You're painting with too wide a brush!"

Obviously I'm referring to the position of the Slashdot editors and the majority of Slashdotters, according to those posts that are always modded up +5 and so forth.

If your opinion isn't touched on by my opinion, what's the problem?

Re:Happy Birthday to you!

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, "Happy Birthday' was written by two women.

Nice assumption you made.

Get Lessig's New Book for Free

[Landaras]

Dr. Lessig has put his new book Free Culture under a noncommercially freely redistributable Creative Commons License.

It's a great book, very insightful and interesting. I read it in two days.

Read it in PDF format here, or buy it (with referrer commission going to Creative Commons) here.

- Neil Wehneman

It's lawyerspeak for:

[Kjella]

I have no idea, but here's my professional guesstimate, don't use it as your legal defense. In short, it's muddy waters. There's many, in part contradictory and fringe laws and not much clear precedent to go on. He may be a lawyer, but he is not the law. He can not preside over what the courts will find, should it end up there.

Here in Norway they spent about three years with their head up their asses, before they even settled on what law to prosecute DVD-Jon after. While it was so "out there" (essentially claiming you had illegally broken into your own property) that they suffered nothing but losses, I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the lawyer giving the advice "DeCSS is OK." before the trial.

Even if this was a specific case where he could give you direct legal advice, it would still only be legal advice. The courts might still reach a different conclusion. In the end, that's where it has to be ultimately settled. Any unclarity should work to the defendent's advantage though, so work under the assumption that anything not explicitly made illegal is legal. It's the only way it can work.

Kjella

Sue Me

[ReciprocityProject]

First of all, make no mistake -- you can be held legally responsible even for things you say [on slashdot]!

Folks, I can't help myself. Please don't try this at home.

• CmdrTaco has aids.
• For years, Hemos has been planting subliminal messages in the /. QOTDs. These messages compel us to wire small sums of money to his bank account every day.
• You should sell your OSDN stock, as that company will announce its bankruptcy tomorrow.
• CowboyNeal selected the slashdot-green color precisely because that frequency of light was known to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
• michael is a known V1@G.R@ spammer.

Thank you.

Re:Can he answer by what law America does this?!

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare you call yourselves the land of the free and the defenders of civilization.

Who was saying that? Some guy in a pick up truck, with an American flag sticker? That guy is not exactly William F. Buckley, if you know what I mean.

George W? Well, you'd probably be the first to point out that he an idiot.

No, you will not see truly discerning Americans saying such an idiotic thing. The only people who say that are fools and polititians. The rest of us, who know how the world works, are keeping our mouths shut lest we get audited, or thrown in jail on some kind of faked posession charge.

So, in sum, STFU, and stop quoting jackasses and prostitutes as if their opinions mattered to anyone who has any cognizence (sp?) of world affairs.

Slashdotters are Musicians

[solprovider]

It amuses me that people here expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL but are freely willing to break the copyright of other companies' products simply because it's "easy" and "convenient." Amused me so much, I put it in my sig:
Everyone should respect the copyright of the GPL. By the way, the RIAA is evil for going after infringers of copyright.

The Slashdot collective expects companies to follow the law. If they do not want to accept the GPL, then fine. The material reverts to standard copyright. Using it is copyright infringement/plaguarism/stealing, and punishable by law. The GPL allows an exception if certain terms are met.

If Slashdot was made up mostly of musicians, their tune would change (pun intended).

Musicians want their music to spread. That relates to Godwin's point:
music sharing (and the sharing of other treasured creative works) is a basic feature of human culture. We want to share the songs we love, the books and movies we love, and so on. I think what we've got to aim for is a legal system that preserves the goals of the Copyright Act while accommodating, to the extent possible, the human impulse to share the cultural creations we love.

It is even more personal because the material is the musician's creation. Except for a few popular artists (who are usually involved in music publishing), musicians want their music to be distributed by any and every means possible. That is why they are willing to give away their interest in the profits from the music for the chance to be popular. The companies that buy those interests are the ones threatened now that the cost of distribution has been eliminated, and they are the ones creating laws to support their obsolete business model.

I am a musician. A significant portion of Slashdotters are too, although less than "mostly". Musical ability and good computer programming often arise from the same talents/personalities. I chose computers over music because the cost associated with being successful was better with computers. I also wanted to avoid the music industry, because I did not want to give up my rights to my music for the chance to become popular. I will be posting my music with a free-for-noncommercial-use license as soon as I have time for recording.

understanding!

[kompiluj]

Applying existing law to Internet requires understanding of the technology that underlies Internet. And this might not be common among lawyers. So they try to find someone to help them with technology issues. And because they know no alternative to Windows, they think Microsoft is OK. And thus they accept laws designed by companies.

Re:MODS: got it wrong(again),gparent=ok, prent=tro

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? The US is the primary source for corporations trying to get the names of posters on message boards in order to muzzle them. And have we already forgotten HardOCP and Infinium Labs? And dozens of other cases like that?

Re:Some lame responses

[mnemonic]

You're right, of course, that I could have mentioned that anyone who wants to be a *patent* lawyer has to have hold an undergraduate degree in one of the approved science or engineering fields.

I took the question to be a more general one by someone who might want to practice the varieties of law I practice. For that, no science/technology degree is required, although it certainly doesn't hurt to have one.

With regard to the lameness of my answers, well, I did have some pretty interesting answers stored up, but I couldn't quite make them fit the questions I got asked!

Best regards,

--Mike

"Needs clarification"

[fizbin]

Why don't you actually go read the GPL?

It's not that long, or hard to understand, and while I can conceive of some obscure edge-case scenarios that a simple reading of the license wouldn't be sufficient to explain, this isn't one of them.

As for the scenario presented, here's what the GPL says:
When distributing something GPLed that you've modified, you must other provide the source at the same time, or provide a written offer to provide the source to any third party. (When I ordered Debian disks from LSL years ago, they printed their GPL compliance written offer in small print on the front of the CD) Note that this isn't "any third party who somehow gets a copy of the binary" or "any third party to whom I sold a copy of the binary". (sect. 3a and 3b)
When redistributing binaries of something you haven't modified, you need to do the same - also provide the source too, or a written offer. There is a very narrow exception for noncommercial distribution in this case: you may pass along a written offer from someone else instead of extending your own offer, so long as you didn't modify the source. However, once you're making money selling the binary, you can't pass someone else's offer along. (sect. 3a, 3b, and 3c - see also this explanation of the "written offer valid for any third party" bit)

Note that because of the annoyance factor present in maintaining written offers, especially since now people will almost always make their GPL-licensed source available over the internet, many people will license their code under a variation of the GPL, which is still GPL-compatible: "GPL with unmodified binary distribution allowed". Basically, this means that anyone is allowed to dispense with the written offer stuff if they only distribute the same binary as the original author does.

Re:Some lame responses

[mnemonic]

"Am I to take it that Mr. Godwin is too busy to answer with some detail or that the detail doesn't exist?"

Well, I'm following new cases that come up, and it doesn't seem to me that they're cruising in under the radar the way they used to. Thanks to Slashdot and other venues, important cases tend to get publicized pretty quickly nowadays.

Obviously, there may be important cases that I don't know about, but, by definition, I can't answer any questions about them!

Best,

--Mike

Get'em for Fraud

[RedHat Rocky]

Why is it that there "have to be" laws specific to the internet? If a spammer sends an e-mail using forged headers, why doesn't the law go after him (or her) with good old-fashioned anti-fraud laws? Does the main failing of these kinds of old laws lie in ingorance that makes law enforcement unable or unwilling to enforce the laws without further clarification, or is something else going on here?

Godwin's answer here indicates to me he doesn't understand the implication of email headers that are truthful. If I know whom an email is from, I can easily choose to no longer receive email from said source. The reason SPAM is such a serious problem today it that it is nearly impossible to do that same thing due to falsified headers. It is certainly within the technical realm to address the problem of false headers, the only thing holding us back is agreeing how it should be done.

In the meantime, the powers that be should be using fraud as the tool to prosecute spammers, instead of waiting for new laws.

Re:Get'em for Fraud

[mnemonic]

I disagree that I don't understand the significance of requiring that email headers be truthful. (I take this to be what Rocky is getting at.) I think I'm responsive to this issue in other answers, where I talk about our culture's tolerance for (and even need for) the ability to be anonymous.

Certainly, a legal requirement that email headers be truthful would create a way to get at spammers, but it would do so at the price of anonymous online speech -- I'm not sure we're at the point yet of having to make that choice.

"Fraud" generally requires a more complete transaction than normally occurs when one receives unsolicited commercial email.

Or at least that's my take on it.

Best regards,

--Mike

Re:Get'em for Fraud

[RedHat Rocky]

"Certainly, a legal requirement that email headers be truthful would create a way to get at spammers, but it would do so at the price of anonymous online speech -- I'm not sure we're at the point yet of having to make that choice."

Having truthful headers doesn't mean throwing out anonymous email speech (online speech is broader than just email). One would have to use a service that offered to send email on a persons behalf. The key difference than the situation today is that I as a recipient would be free to block such email easily. Making the source of an email trustworthy would go a long way towards being able to do that; remember how successful black lists USED to be. I think that it is within the technical realm to accomplish this, I don't feel that legislation is required (or would even work).

The issue with spammers isn't getting them or putting them in jail, the issue is enabling the recipient to easily "throw away" junk in the snail mail tradition, though with email it's "Do not accept from X". I'm not interested in making it more expensive for spammers, I'm interested in being able to process my Inbox and be able to say "Email from spammer@acme.com is not acceptable, do not accept connections from them".

Does postal fraud require a "more complete transaction"? Not that that applies outside the US.

Re:Get'em for Fraud

[Teancum]

There are two issues to deal with in regards to e-mail headers:

1) Technical verification of headers: If somebody sends e-mail, an IP verification process can become part of the specification for the e-mail routing codes. This already happens to a small extent, and some changes to SMTP are already being proposed to deal with this. Anonymous transactions can still take place, but this would be a functionally equivalent to a Caller ID on your phone of "Unknown Caller" (which some phone companies give you the ability to block on your home telephone). The point is, when you use TCP services, you _*MUST*_ know the IP address of the machine who has contacted you (if for no other reason than to send a reply IP packet to verify that the message has been received). This is simply a definition of TCP/IP. Good mail servers will do this anyway.

Lousy mail servers that accept fradulant headers can be filtered out. Of course, this is what lead to the "blackout" lists that cause all kinds of legal headaches, but at least is a realistic technical solution. If a mail server wants to permit relays of e-mail that anonymizes the originator, it is still possible, but at least you know who is doing it. The anonymizer service then has to stay vigillant at keeping spamers off of its service if they don't want to get blocked. Possible, but not often easy to do.

2) Legal requirements to require truthful headers. This is often done with some state-level anti-spam laws. If you show up at somebody's house acting as a Kirby salesman (or worse yet, as a Police Officer), and you are not, certain laws apply to your actions you do after that.

E-mail that claims to have come from whitehouse.gov could in a similar fashion be subject to laws of impersonating official communications of the government, and potentially trying to represent in an official capacity a government official.

If you claim to be from some other company, and you are not, similar false representation should occur. A forged header claiming to be from ibm.com could result in a libel claim by IBM against the spammer.

Anonymizer services could still work, they would just have to be exactly who they claim they are, and clearly stamp their e-mail with some unique signature that makes it clear that the e-mail has been through an anonymization process. As long as that service hasn't kept any permanent copy of the e-mail from the originator, it would be impossible to tract back to the originator. The originator of the anonymous e-mail would then have to evaluate the trustworthiness of the anonymizer service as to if they keep copies of the e-mail or not.

The problem I see here is that many commercial ISP's don't really care who is using their service, and in some ways actively recruit spammers. The trick is to try and make strong disincentives for those sort of businesses from even getting associated with spammers.

Question about Stock Market Comments/Blogs

[artlu]

My question has to deal with personal blogs in which one comments about the stock market. I think it is okay if i say something like "based on this person leaving the company I think the stock will go down." However, I think it would be illegal to say something like, "you should all go by stock XXX because this person left the company."

Is this a true conclusion?
Aj

Wrong idea.

[gd2shoe]

Sorry, but this isn't talking about how your phone number is listed in the phone book or other public phone database, but it's talking about the contact information that must be submitted in order to register a DNS. This data then becomes public. The question is whether people should be allowed to mark this information as private (like you would an unlisted number) within this database. Law enforcement could then use it when necessary, but you wouldn't be harassed if someone took offense to something posted on your website (for example).

COMCAST and SSN requirement

[Anonymous Coward]

For years now Comcast has been requiring your SSN before they hook up service. I wonder what the legality of this is? I always thought that some law prohibited this, or at least made large restrictions on it. Does anybody know?

Re:COMCAST and SSN requirement

[zogger]

--legally, you don't even need one. You will need a government issued taxpayer ID though, in most instances. Private companies that are issuing credit to you (starting your utilities, etc) can require a number and refuse service if you won't give it. It's not impossible to get rid of your SSN and still deal with modern reality, but it IS difficult, requires some legal BS, and beyond the scope of even a long forum post. There are numerous places to google for and investigate this matter.

With that said, and because it's the truth, I've had good luck NOT providing my number by relating a story of identity theft that occurred to me, and offering to pay a deposit up front. someone apparently got my number from some place where I worked, turned utilities on at some place I never lived, then when they moved they left the bills outstanding. I really tried to clear it up, but one utility in particular just slap refused to admit they were wrong, and I was forced to pay them to avoid having my service at my lawful residence turned off. 90 clams, I'm still hot over it sometimes. the rest I got straightened out satisfactorily. Just a few months ago I got a cell phone this way, I gave a cliff notes version of my story, asked politely if I could just get the service, offered to show proof of "me" and where I lived, etc. the manager gave in and gave me the cell service. No idea what he inputed into his forms.

It's a real crapshoot, some companies will let ya skate and give you the service, others are dinks abut it. My current ISP and my last ISP were both good about it, I was able to get netservice without providing anything but cash and a name.

I think the crisis with outsourcing and cross linked data bases is going to result in an explosion of identity theft and fraud sometime soon. I'm a curmedgeon, I try to use cash as much as possible, and I live cheaply, simply, frugally and within the law, but I have stopped thinking that this brave new world corporate/government sharing and mining data stuff is going to really help things, it won't, just make privacy evaporate. IMO anyway. It certainly won't do zip-squat to stop any "terrorism", that's for sure.

Good luck! For broadband, I just might offer my #, I admit to a certain lust there, I get a decent 28.8 connection and that's it for what you can get where I live and I'm greatful for that. Wireless broadband whenever it comes might be it for me to enter the 21st century. I put up with the tradeoffs, it's more important for me to live rural than it is to have broadband. To each their own.

Re:Happy Birthday to you!

[briansmith]

So, if I were to write a book, and die the day it was published, the work should immediately pass into the public domain?

Your argument seems to be "when the one person that creates a work dies, then the work should be put in the public domain." But, it often takes a whole team to create a work. For example, hundreds of people take part in the creation/distribution of a Walt Disney movie. You could say that the copyright should expire when the last person involved in the production dies, but it could be almost impossible to identify everybody involved, and whether they were _really_ involved in that project or merely in another, related project.

No, copyright protects authors primarily

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maybe we should be concerned with author's rights, rights that by nature remain with the author, and do away with copyright holders altogether."

This statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the intentions and workings of copyright. The author of a work IS the copyright holder, unless the rights are assigned by contract to an agent (eg publisher, record company, film distributor); or, to put it diferently, the author's rights are protected by copyright, but any author has the option of licencing copyright to another entity IF THEY SO CHOOSE. Artists are under no obligation to assign copyright to anyone else, but choose to do so for commercial reasons.

I provide a real world example: I played in a band by the name of Trout Fishing in Quebec (perhaps an odd name for an Australian band, but we're big on irony here; google for it). We recorded our first album before signing a record contract (the company, rooArt was sold to BMG), which stated that the rights to the recording reverted to us after 15 years. This means that, come 2007, BMG has no rights to distribute that recording, and can be sued by the band if they do. The reasons we assigned the rights to a record company were many, but essentially we lacked the expertise to promote and distribute an album effectively (this is the early '90's, the internet was not a viable business model by any stretch of the imagination). However, the fact remains that until the contract was signed, we held exclusive copyright to the recordings, and the rights to those recordings will be ours again when the contract's term expires.

Okay, so having explained that the copyright act does actually protect the author's rights (except where the author is dumb enough to assign those rights to someone else in perpetuity), how do you protect those rights without intoducing some similar law? Rely on people's honesty? The chorus here on /. who said "Don't sue the ISPs, sue the sharers" then changed their tune to "don't sue the sharers, change the laws"; its clear from these shifting standards and flexible morals that the goal is to get something for nothing, pure and simple*, using whatever justification suits the developing situation. I don't see being ripped off by individuals, whether or not the claim to be fans, is any better than being ripped off by the major labels; the net result for the artist is the same. There is as yet no clear, unequivocal proof that filesharing is a better promotional tool than radio or television (which do pay artists for the use of material, BTW; and, yes, I did see that article a while back. I remain unconvinced, since the study took into account only those who did buy after downloading, not those who didn't).

Does this attitude make me a tool of evil, or does it just mean that I live in the real world and have bills to pay like everyone else? Sure, I'm not guaranteed an income from music; but by the same token, you are not guaranteed entertainment supplied to you for free (radio is not free, it is subsidised by advertising). If you are opposed to the RIAA and its affiliates, support independent artists by paying them for their work, which subsidises them producing more. If you are opposed to copyright, then propose an alternative that rewards people for their work. But there is nothing about filesharing** that removes the moral obligation to pay someone for their services if they are asking for payment; nor does copyright does not deny you the option of going elsewhere, or providing your own entertainment.

Tim Newsom,
Bass player.
(I may be an "anonymous coward", but at least I have the guts to identify myself publicly, rather than use a pseudonym. How many of you have enough strength in your convictions to do that? Not many, even if you live in fear of being modded down. Who are the real cowards?)

*Yes, some people actually do download files to see if they like a band. However, I suspect these are a minority on P2P networks (and I am no stranger to Napster, Kaaza, Hotline, Carracho, KD

Re:No, copyright protects authors primarily

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post shows a fundamental misunderstanding of my post. To see the point I was trying to make look at my other post lower in the thread than the first.

Also:
The "broken model" argument is about as valid as all the "Apple is doomed" statements; a business model that is still profitable is not broken, by definition.

A cartel that depends on a business model that is artificially propped up by legislation enabling it to maintain a stranglehold on the industry =Broken, very very broken. Do you feel the free market is operating as it should in your industry? Visit furthurnet.org, see a different way. I pay for every performance I see. For musicians it doesn't have to be "Since I can't beat them I 'll join them, and call it the living in the real world." Unless (and I have no idea here) your music is nothing special. Then you DO need the Britney Spears model.

Another point you should consider, in the current paradigm writers of music should be able to sell copies of the music they wrote. Performers of music should be able to sell..wait for it... performances, not some [audio only, not the same, requires a $6K sound sytem just to come anywhere near the real thing] recording. How many magicians do you see selling videos of their performance? .. And that's because the entertainment experience doesn't come anywhere close to being there. That's why they go out and perform it again!

Idiot? Not nazi? (n/t)

[Anonymous Coward]

no text

Censoring free speech

[Banjonardo]

Censoring free speech, even if in the mass media (i.e., newspaper libel) is very hard on purpose. Not only do the damaged party have to prove that they were damaged, (not too easy) they have to prove that they defamators were MALICIOUS. That means they were mean on purpose! Just bad stuff isn't enough- it's VERY hard to prove against a cautious reporter that they wanted to ruin your company, even if they lied baldly to do so.

EU copyright law; copyright vs. sedition

[tepples]

Europe? Europe is a continent, not a country.

Given the copyright harmonisation directives, one could defend a claim that the European Union is in effect a country for copyright law purposes. Your example of France, on the other hand, belongs to sedition law, and I'm not aware of any EU harmonisation efforts in that area.

net of a _million_ lies

[patbob]

the Internet may well be what Vernor Vinge memorably termed "the Net of a Thousand Lies."

Just to set the record straight, I believe Vinge's quote is "Net of a million lies", not merely a thousand.

That said, yes, I think a thousand does fit the non-interplanetory, single-species Internet of today. Which probably explains why I've been calling the 'net the "net of a thousand lies" ever since reading his book.

For those interested, it is from Vinge's book "A Fire Upon the Deep", one of my favorite (well written, interesting story, unique aliens, not too overdone on the tech, ...). Over the years since I read this book, I've been constantly amazed at how much of the backdrop of the story is coming true. The "hexopodia" sub-sub-thread in the book has always been my personal favorite and suprisingly, is particularily relevant given the recent interest in hooking up automatic translators to instant messaging services.

Re:net of a _million_ lies

[mnemonic]

Thanks for the correction regarding Vinge! I should add that anyone who likes "A Fire Upon the Deep" may also enjoy "A Deepness in the Sky," which is a kind of sequel (really a prequel) to "Fire.'

--Mike

Re:net of a _million_ lies

[patbob]

Thanks.. I've added that one to my list of books to read :-) -- patbob

what does 'distribute' mean?

[Captain Entendre]

If you distribute it within your organization, does that constitute "distribution" in a sense that requires you to share any changes you might have made?

Re:what does 'distribute' mean?

[DunbarTheInept]

Depends - if you did the work for a corporation, such that a corporation owns your IP, then anywhere inside that corporation counts as the same "person" as far as the law cares.

If you did the work for yourself and then distributed it in a corporation, then it would be a case of crossing the boundry where the GPL is activated.

Your on!

[bsDaemon]

William Dean Freeman
PO Box 931
Gloucester, VA, 23061
21 June, 1984
(I do not believe in Socail Security)
Straight
Laura Haase
Constitution Party of VA
(804)815-6114

No where do you have a constitutional right to privacy. While it is implied by the 9th and 10th amendments, it is not the same as "being secure in your person and property." People should stand up and take responsibility for themselves.
Do I have things to hide? Yes. Is who I am one of them? No. We have freedom of speach so that we don't have to hide who we are when speaking out.