Slashdot Mirror
EFF Has Outlived Its Usefulness?
An anonymous reader writes "An inflammatory article runs today on The Register, with the title EFF Volunteers to Lose Sony Rootkit Suit. The article argues that the EFF's track record in court is detrimental to everyone with an interest in digital and privacy rights." From the article: "This is a very good cause. Sony installed stealth spyware on many thousands of Windows computers (although calling it a rootkit is an exaggeration), and it's crucial that the company get its bottom spanked quite painfully as a deterrent to its sister cartels in the entertainment racket. This is, in fact, such an important matter that the worst possible development would be to find the EFF arguing the case. That's because EFF will do what it always does: lose, and set a legal precedent beneficial to the entertainment pigopolists. By the time these pale vegetarians get finished, spreading musical malware will be considered a spiritual work of mercy." What do you think? Isn't it better to fight the good fight?
After reading this 'article' (and I use the term loosely), one is left wondering if this "Bonhomie Snoutintroff" has an axe to grind against EFF specifically, or if EFF was simply unfortunate enough to present an accessable target for one of "Bonhomie's" mindless rants.
One thing is for sure...even if "Bonhomie" went by a less ludicrous pen name (honestly..."Bonhomie Snoutintroff"???), and refrained from such pejorative terms as 'pigopolists' and 'pale vegetarians', he still couldn't be taken seriously, due to his gross misrepresentation of the facts. Bonhomie cited six losses by the EFF...visit the EFF's legal victories page, and you'll see several wins that Bonhomie conveniently failed to mention.
This kind of vapid tripe is pathetic even for the Register's admittedly lax standards. In case there remains any doubt, I leave you with the short bio of "Bonhomie Snoutintroff", which was appended to the 'article' in question:
Why the hell isn't this in the 'humor' section....of either site?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
As the article clearly states, the question is not whether to "fight the good fight", but rather, who should fight the good fight. The article isn't inflammatory. It asks the legitimate question of whether the EFF should handle the Sony DRM case.
Fight dirty and fight to win. You use any and every method at your disposal to put the other guy down and make sure he doesn't get back up. There is no honour in fighting, there is no glory. There is no good fight.
Deleted
A friend, with my cajoling, [The 'Cream Gang'] recently wrote an article similar to this recently, regarding attending an abortive and mostly useless launch of the UK's EFF equivalent, the Open Rights Group.
Our findings, here:
Open Rights Group Launch
Open Rights Shites
This evening, Coxall, Levine and I attended an open meeting of the Open Rights Group, a new UK organisation set in the mould of the EFF. I wasn't expecting the earth to move for me: we've attended too many of these little geek/numeeja run yack-shacks to hope for anything particularly productive to emerge. This evening did its least to confound me.
It was held in a basement in Soho named Zero-One. I say basement, but, naturally, one is encouraged to term it a "creative space". Said "creative space" was filled with geeks and numeedjas, as well as a scattering of lawyer-types and Earnest Young Men. Overwhelmingly men, of course, the few women who were there either freaks, sociologists or serving the free cheese and wine. Hey - don't shoot the messenger. A few chairs encircled the basement, but the main floor was bare, to encourage crouching and cross-legged encampment. Oh dear. This was all going to be "inclusive and discursive", wasn't it?
Oh dear, indeed: the manageress of the "creative space" started proceedings. Her introduction was little more than an ad for her basement. She then brought on an ex hack, who spouted some trivial nonsense or other, and was excited by the prospect of setting up ever more "wikis" and "blogs". She, in turn, brought on a jargon-clappy professional "meeting facilitator/consultant". This was going to be "fun".
The evening was to commence with a little talk from some Oxford chap or other, followed by a free-fall clustered discussion, in which each cluster was to be provided with its own sticky wall-covering on which to paste their mindstormingly written postcards.
The Oxford nonentity informed us that the Internet was somewhat marvellous, and, gosh, lots of interesting things might become of it soon, what ho, and it's not just paedophilia and terrorists. The poor fellow seemed trapped in 1994.
The Management Consultant Facilitator then spouted some jargon, and asked the floor for ideas for the discussion clusters. The Earnest Young Men pontificated their banalities. The geeks obsessed about some yawnful minutia. And Coxall suggested we discuss how to win over the "unhosed stupid masses". Yes, that is the phrase he used and, yes, the reaction from this righton bunch of whitebread nonces was predictable. "Maybe if you stopped patronising them like that..." was the immediate response from one of the Earnest Young Men on the floor.
Thence began the multiple clustering. Levine, Coxall and I have attended so many of these nascent talking shops now that we decided to skip with the usual niceties and begin some good old Trotskyite agitation. We argued that trying to interest people in the potential problems of overreaching anti-privacy legislation, or draconian Intellectual Property laws and the restrictive technologies therefor, was a lost cause. The "unhosed masses" wouldn't care about these philosophical crampings until they felt the constrictive banding themselves, in their every day lives. We argued for the inculcation of popular anger: to that end, a little DRM here, a little copyright overextension there wasn't enough. We decided that, rather than allow creative society to die the death by a thousand cuts that is its inevitable fate in a world dominated by multi-billion dollar "content" oligarchies, we should use these monoliths' huge power and budgets to subvert themselves from within, to the point where their overreaching hubris could lead to genuine polltax-riot intensity anger, and Berlin-wall-sized dismantlement.
Rather than fiddle with legislation to make it slightly less bad, then, or to try to temper corporate excesses with the few thrown crumbs of compromise, a smartly utilitarian organisati
I have been saying this for years, and each time I am flamed to a crisp for even daring to question the EEF. They are a very well-meaning group, and I commend their attempts to take on big corporations and touchy suits... but the fact remains that if precedents are being set here and against us due to young/inexperienced lawyers we are just shooting ourselves in the foot.
I think an organization LIKE the EEF is a good thing but needs to be structured in a different way, with more specialized and successful lawyers backing it.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
But then I noticed it was in The Register! Haw! You guys got me good!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I have it on good authority that EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow hunts elk with a obsidian spear, and eats the livers of his prey while still warm and dripping in blood.
Cory Doctorow is said to stalk, kill, and eat emus during his frequent, clandestine trips to Australia.
The only vegetables served in the cafeterias of the EFF Tower -- formerly the Transamerica Pyramid -- are potatoes and a bit of parsely, and only to accompany great the rare steaks favored by the employees.
"Pale vegetarians?" Fah!
I've worked with EFF's legal folks and they are very, very good.
And when we went to court, we won.
Cultures not dominated by humorless prigs and literalists don't require flags to signal humor.
This particular form is called satire and is widely used to call attention to self-importance or arrogance.
illegitimii non ingravare
See the EFF's legal victories page.
There are some fairly important legal victories on that page. It is simply a case, it seems, of harping on the EFF for their failures without recognizing that they're human, and they lose cases. They also win cases.
Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
...but the fact remains that if precedents are being set here...
You mean Precidents like These? Or lobbying efforts like getting rid of the broadcast flag?
Should any organization be required to win 100% of its legal battles (on behalf of the public I might add) in order to gain support? I don't think setting an impossible standard is a helpful guide for deciding what organizations to support.
The EFF has been fairly effective in legal matters, and even more effective in educational areas like lobbying. AS that is the key to a better future (better to never have a bad law passed than to fight it latre through the courts) it is important to support the EFF as they are pretty much the ONLY group that understands the deep technological chasms laws can veer into. Are you honestly going to trust the ACLU to handle stuff like P2P?
For those who see the value in having an organization fighting for technical rights, you can donate to the EFF here. I donate every year and really all of us in the technical field should feel ashamed if we are not supporting the people that brought down things like the broadcast flag.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is it better just to fight the good fight? Not if you are a poor fighter. In the legal arena, these rulings stick and we get the precedents in favor of RIAA/MPAA/Sony/etc. If the EFF has such a poor track record, maybe they should stick to lobbying and let the ACLU or state governments (like Texas and others) do the suing. It doesn't do us a whole lot of good if our battles are lost because the representation is poor, but it can do us harm.
I won't try to argue here, but I will suggest, in the interest of balance, that you check out EFF's list of legal victories.
The "article" cited by the paranoiac submitter is an opinion piece, and it is rife with humor, starting with the author's name. The submitter (and a lot of readers here) are taking this opinion piece way too seriously.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
...maybe we should all actually do something to help. There are lots of ways to help. Groklaw is a pretty good model for how to get the word out in a clear way and really motivate people.
It wouldn't hurt to help the EFF out with a donation in this holiday giving season. If the EFF is losing cases that it ought to be winning, I don't imagine that it's for lack of a clue. It's probably just outgunned by the huge, deep-pocketted corporations and industry associations that it takes on. EFF and ACLU seem like the two best organized outfits that are standing up for our rights, so search your sofa for loose change and help 'em both out.
And although it sounds tired, it never hurts to let your elected representatives know what you think. If they hear from enough of us, they really will do something about it.
well meaning idealism doesn't work in the real world
pragmatism does, and you don't have to sacrifice any of your ideals to be pragmatic about how to work them. in other words, you don't sacrifice your principles by playing them correctly, it's an unfounded fear that by playing it any other way except straight you are somehow sacrificing your ideals. this is not a cynical observation, it's a tactical one
the ivory tower approach to life may well make you feel smug and superior in life, but it doesn't help with a messy struggle in the mud. you don't lose when you go the idealistic route, you just wind up not playing the game, and becoming irrelevant to the causes you care about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
First, EFF doesn't always lose. That's a gross mischaracterization of their efforts.
Second, sometimes losing is the only way to cast in stark relief deep efforts by companies to hide what they're doing. This will (eventually) produce a change only if citizens want their rights back and elect folks who campaign (however cynically) on that matter. It's not important to constituents on the whole yet. Hollywood's contributions are laughably small in the scale of things.
Third, the Newmark v. lawsuit that I was part of to preserve consumer rights in the ReplayTV lawsuit, established a precedent even though we didn't "win." The suit was eventually settled by ReplayTV's buyer (the company that bought the product line out of bankruptcy of the parent firm), but the judge in the case allowed us as consumers to join a lawsuit in which consumer rights were threatened. Thank you, EFF.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
For the most part, the EFF argues policy when they go before the judge. It is very difficult to take the stance that EFF does and say, to this effect: "Even though Eric Corley/Grokster/etc violated the statute, it does not stand to reason that this party should be at fault because the very nature of the statute is wrong." Or something to that effect.
The EFF takes the most difficult side and tries to prevail. Even if they are not successful in the courts, they are certainly successful at raising awareness. Furthermore, there is no "public defender" for copyright cases. If you violate someone's copyright, you are paying for your own lawyer. The ACLU is not going to jump in, so your only chance at a defense is to spend out-of-pocket, or get an organization like the EFF to back you up. Even if you do pay money for a lawyer, much of his work has been done by the EFF, which results in lower fees for the client
I do not think the EFF has outlived its usefulness.
In Vino Veritas
I read the SCOTUS opinion. The EFF might have argued for the losing side, but SCOTUS did let the Betamax precident stand, and even declined to further limit it. Please take what I write with a bit of salt, for IANAL.
What SCOTUS said was that Betamax (AKA Sony) was not a carte blanche to facilitate copyright infringement, and that actions taken outside the realm of actual.technology are legitimate targets. In other words, technology per se is off the table provided that it satisfies Sony (the precident, not the company). However, if I sell photocopiers and say "Buy my photocopiers! They are great to copy books with," then I may have stepped over the line.
In many very important ways, the technology community won a number of important victories in the Grokster case, and the media companies were given an arguably fair system, and this is likely to help forestall the next wave of media-bought acts (for example, keeping the INDUCE act from being reintroduced).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Congratulations. You've just given us a graphic demonstration of why Trotskites suck.
Promote more of the very thing you hate in order to make the people hurt enough to drive them into revolt? Look at what happened with your own example, prohibition.
The temperance movement got a ban on liquor - a recreational drug with significant downsides. Net effect was to make it more popular and fund the development of organized crime, the BATF, and self-defense bans in the US.
After a decade of horrendous body counts and far larger counts of people injured by adulterated product and gang violence, public pressure finally got the law repealed. But the dead were still dead, the crippled were still crippled, and organized crime is still with us - along with the out of control bureaucracies, which were converted to drug (starting with marijuana) and firearms law enforcement rather than disbanded.
The harm continues, and escalates, to this day, with urban drug gangs and violence, RICOing of drug users' assets, and such debacles as Waco and Ruby Ridge.
All this over the freedom to have a little drink when you party.
Yet you advocate repeating this DELIBERATELY as your solution to restrictions on information technology? A decade of war - or more, since that technology is the main tool of resistance?
Then there's the other thing such groups do: Disrupt any tyranny-resistance organization that isn't doing things THEIR way, in order to take it over if it can be, destroy it if not. Here we have the first meeting of such an organization, and (as is usual for first meetings) it has a lot of disorganization and a heavy sprinkling of well-meaning flakes among the activists. These things generally get sorted out quickly, if proceedings aren't disrupted. So what do you do? When they don't instantly do things your way, you disrupt them.
Congratulations. Maybe you killed it. Maybe you just made it less responsive to popular input. But you certainly aren't getting the problem solved.
Unless the problem is Trotskyites - and other, similar, communist/socialist factions.
That problem you're putting right in people's faces, so they can see what you are.
Back in the '60s we had a saying: "Trots are a case of the slow runs." Thanks for showing us it's true in the naughties as well.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Remember who controls the media and manufactures consent thereby. This is the same media that managed to make Kerry the decorated war vet look like a pansy compared to a guy who skipped out on his skipping out of Vietnam.