As much as I support the proposed anti-video surveillance law as it applies to surveilence on public property, I can't find fault with the Borders arrangement. If they feel it will reduce instances of shoplifting, more power to them, although I'd like to see if they can get any shoplifter they catch, to pose for a picture (unless they have been arrested and charged). If borders expects to hold shoplifters they catch, expressly for the purpose of taking their photo for addition to their system, that will prove legally problematic for them.
The public has a right to be angered by public surveilence as was done at the Super Bowl but if you don't like being surveiled on provate property, don't enter that private property. It's as simple as that.
The University of Wisconsin provides us with a good example of how the Bayh-Dole Act is implemented. Early work by Dr. Thomson on non-human primates, such as Rhesus monkeys, was federally funded and therefore, the patent obtained on stem cells arising from this work is governed by this Act. In accordance with the law, the invention was disclosed to the NIH, a patent application was filed by the University, through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), and WARF licensed the technology to a small company (Geron). Because federal funds were used for this non-human primate work, the government has a non-exclusive, royalty-free right to use the patented cells by or on behalf of the government. This would allow the government laboratories and contractors the right to use the patented cells for further research. In addition, in handling this invention the University must ensure that the goals of the Bayh-Dole Act -- utilization, commercialization, and public availability -- are implemented.
Based on this, I'd have to say that Bush purpetrated a fraud against the American People, since it was known that this patent would get in the way of research on any existing (and potentially future) stem cell lines. Unfortunately this doesn't matter, with respext to the existing lines because it appears they may be tainted, as the article suggest may have occurred.
With a new judge assigned, the penalty phase will be drawn out as arguments are re-presented to a far greater degree than if Jackson were still presiding over the case, since he has gained a familiarity with it over the past 2 years. This, it seems will be sufficient to allow Microsoft at least the time needed to release Windows XP and perhaps cause even more damage to the computer industry.
It was ruled that the original judge (Thomas Penfield Jackson) would not preside over the penalty phase of the trial since it was determined (fairly or not...) that he was biased against Microsoft, based on statements he made durring the trial. The DOJ denied these charges presumably because they wantedan advantage durring the penalty phase.
This new article identifies Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly as the presiding judge for the penalty phase.
Yes and I've come to depend on my spill chucker far too much. Such are the evils of the technological age. Unfortunately, there are many out there like me, who can't spell worth a damn, so with this in mind it would be great if CmdrTaco could put hooks in to 'aspell' os a similar mechanism into/code so we don't end up publicizing our inability to spell worth a damn.
I'm glad to see this issue finally coming to the fore. The legal prescidents mentioned in the article have pretty much set the foundation on this issue already. I have somewhat mixed feelings on this issue, for example, the online availability of detailed public records (including personally identifiable contact information, etc.) has made things like geneology MUCH easier, but the convenient availability of this information to a worldwide audience has a tremendous potential for abuse. In the more specific case, I've never felt my political affiliations should be public record at all (as, they reflect on my political beliefs, which are private) but since they are public record, there is no basis to prevent their distribution as far as I can see.
Let's assume for the moment that in fact something should be done to limit online access to what have always been public records. There are two possible approaches. Each typee of record could be examined and re-evaluated as to what portion of the record whould be made public (ie: remove the addresses of indeviduals from X record before it is made public) or the laws regarding the disclosure of public records could be ammended to prevent certain types of distribution of the media (ie: no electronic distribution permitted). The first solution, although more precise, would be almost impossible to achieve and would reduce the value of the record as a whole. The second is far more easily achievable, but may be over-reaching in the case of certain completely inocuous record types.
Peraps the latter alternative could be used where there shall be no electronic distribution of records to those who do not reside in a municipality local to the storage of the records (such thet they could have physical access to the records anyway, without inconvenience), but anyone who requested the records on paper or electronic media, could recieve them for private use - with the afore mentioned provision still in force). This solution has it's own problems, such as it would just server to create an industry that would employ indeviduals local to areas housing highly valued public records, to re-distribute them for a fee in some non-elecronic form, rather than such application fees as the government would otherwise collect.
--CTH
Re:Paying for the right to pirate... via contract
on
RIAA To Target CD-R
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· Score: 2
No, but to further your example, paying for health insurance means that when the doctor send me a bill for a visit, I let the insurance I've been paying premuims on for so long, cover the cost. Similarly, when I copy music, I should be able to count on the premium I've been aying for the media, to cover the revenue loss, therefor the RIAA would have no claim against me because they have already been reinbursed through the 'tax'.
Not to beat your exampleto death, but the point of paying insurance premiums is so that you don't have to pay the huge medical bills you incur should you have a major injury. Under this theory, and consistant with your example, copying music is like filing an insurance claim. Based on the premuims you've previously paid, you are in essance collecting goods (in this case) rather than the services - such as medical care - that you would collect under a medical insurance plan. It's like having an insurance company pay for a product like a bandage or a cast.
This is the theory under which the fees would be collected, so you're not committing any sort of fraud. It is the expectation that some will chose to collect, but the majority don't - resulting in profit for the insurance company - which makes this system work, but you're right, the circumstances under which those customers who choose to collect (ie, copy music) do so, are completely arbitrary, which is what would make this sort of 'tax' or payment of a premium, an unworkable system, and why it's such a profoundly bad idea.
This was an issue circa 1996 when ISPs were wrestling with weather or not they are responsible for the actions of their users ans as such should attempt to keep track of activities on their network. I though the general concensus was that ISPs were not liable for the infringing activities of their users, unless they state that they will attempt to prevent such activity in socuments such as 'Acceptable Use Policies'. It sounds like Excite@Home screwed up their acceptable use policy and some content provider threatened to force them to make good on their statements that they would monitor the network for 'unacceptable uses'. Reharding the acceptable use policy, they say:
A spokesperson from Excite@Home said, "we are not watching every bit and byte, but we would randomly check from time to time."
The US AUP for their service describes illegal acticity but doesn't seem to describe how it will be observed. I was unable to locate the Austrelian policy. Presumably is't different in this regard. Also this statement, supports my theiry that some content provider called them on a badly written AUP that they have to make good on:
"I wouldn't call it policing, we're just trying to comply with the law and by highlighting the issue to customers, its putting us in a better position as acting as a responsible Netizen on the Internet," the spokesperson said.
I've written a couple AUPs in my day and one has to be vary careful about what one says will be done to keep track of user behavior, because any knowlege of illegal activity must be acted upon, whereas simply providing bandwidth does not usually create so many legal obsticles, no matter how many threatening letters you may get from the RIAA and other such organizations.
--CTH
Paying for the right to pirate... via contract law
on
RIAA To Target CD-R
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· Score: 4, Insightful
If I am going to pay a 'tax' to the RIAA, because it is assumed that I am copying music music, (and this is in fact the justification for the 'tax') then is copying (pirating) music something I can still be sued for? I'm paying for the privlage to act in this fashion, so how could I then be sued for it?
Granted if the RIAA suddenly has this new revenue stream, then a reasonable observer might comment that they'll stop threatening to destroy people who copy music, but given their past history, who really thinks they'll actually refrain from attempting to sue people for this?
The RIAA would do well to consider the potential impact of attempting to tack a surcharge onto recordable media, because the mechanism they use to justify the surcharge will simply be used to define what rights they are granting the customer who pays the surcharge. Essentially a good defense atourney could argue that payment of the surcharge is de-facto entry into a contract with the RIAA, in which the customer is paying for the privlage of recording music.
This is a common legal strategy. It's no different that it's a.com that's being sued (because it really isn't. It's Vivendi Universal). The won't set any prescident here because Vivendi Universal's team of flesh-eating lawyers will chew them up and spit them out. This won't be setteled. It will go to court, and it will get thrown out.
You can't blame the artists. They're just doing what their lawyers advised them to do and sueing the nearest deep pocket they can find; after all, what kind of settlement could they get from Napster. It's already been bled dry in legal fees (almost).
Readers of/. yesterday, will recall Caldera's announcement regarding releasing pieces of the Original UNUX codebase to OSS. That announcement along with today's announcement from HP that they're gettinng into the Linux distro business signals a major shift in the market perception of the value of Open Source.
I agree, somewhat. I'm not sure that GNU is becoming irrelevent more than it's evolving. Every movement evolves over time into something more (and different) than it originally was. the GPL had the explicit and stated purpose of damaging the commercial software market back when it was first written, but it has served a greater purpose. It has given rise to a whole sociological structure which has grown out from - and perhaps beyond - it, prompting others to follow the path laid out by RMS, but aparently, given his recent comments, not to the degree he'd like. I wouldn't presume to suggest that the Open Source movement has outgrown it's original leadership - on the contrary, it's important to have many voices promoting various degrees of orthodoxy in any movement, but companies who has previously subscribed to a software product model are beginning to see value in Open Source (as opposed to those founded specifically to make use of Open Source) and allowing these companies to adopt aspects of the value structure of the Open SOurce movement without having questions of orthodoxy thrown at them from all sides is critical to that adoption.
"Our intention is to steer the middle course in the public debate -- it's not a case of free or Open Source versus proprietary, but both, as the situation warrants. We believe the industry is evolving to a model where source code is freely available, innovation is nurtured at the grass roots, and businesses, such as Caldera, can add value as both product and service companies."
Open Source moderates like Ransom Love are important to the movement and while I applaud Caldera's decision, I don't believe it will signal the decent of GNU (software or philosophy) into irrelevence, but rather it signals the evolution of Open Source.
From the article, it doesn't sound like this is what they're considering, but a while back a federal program was being considered to assign each social security number would have an email address associated with it and government documents, such as ta forms, legal notices, etc. would be delivered via email. The idea was scrapped for technical, security, and privacy issues.
The question is, does Houston expect to do something similar with their system or are their goals more limited.
This excerpt pretty much sums up the state of this vapor(hard)ware:
Problems arise when it comes to reading the information back. Any interactions with the environment -- including trying to read the information stored -- affect the qubits so that they change from a pure quantum state to a mixed state. This is known as decoherence and any reading taken from this state will be wrong.
Bill Gates: "Yes! This computer works perfectly. You just don't have the technology to read the result without currupting the data, but for $5 per compute cycle, Microsoft will be happy to license our proprietary qbit data reading technology to you."
So, how should it work. Should there be an established jurisdiction in which trademark disputes related to domain names should be examined? Since when did trademarks become relevent to namespacs independant of usage? The one universally accepted principle of trademark law is that they cover a namespace with respect to a particular usage meaning the name McDonalds in conjunction with resteraunts and McDonalds in conjunction with a farm would never come into conflict and whoever registered McDonalds.com for his particular purpose, so long as that purpose was not to trade on the percieved value of the name in it's alternate context, would be perfectly within his rights to do so. As I said, this principle is common to all implementation of copyright law, so how is this even an issue?
The problem isn't weather or not there's an international organization for settling trademark disputes, it who defines the venue for the dispute settlement, and who is actually arbitrating. The argument is that the arbitration that is being done isn't fair, but this is only because the person doing the research doesn't feel that it's fair, since 'fair' is an entirely subjective thing in this case.
You're preaching to the choir here. The thing to recognize is this argument won't be won by geeks. It'll be won by lawyers, lobyists and political action committees. Such is the state of politics in this country today.
You suggest that there are no avenues left, well I maintain that the constifutional argument is still winable in the United States, but what of other countries here such strictly defined rights language doesn't exist (not to say those rights don't exist, but just that they don't make up the basis for government in other countries, nessecerily)? This is a big problem. In the United States over-reaching laws can be enacted because we are confident in the carved-in-stone nature of the rights afforded to us in the constitution will counter-balance and eventually win out over any ill advised legislation. In other countries this protection may exist is a somewhat weaker form, or not at all. This is extremely disturbing not because those rights may not be so vigorously protected, but because those countries look to the United States for models of legislation and will probably (in this case anyway) follow closely in the footsteps of the US legislation, which without having been fully constitutionally tested - when introduced to countries without such vigorously enforced rights language - creates the risk of becoming a trap door (read: function). A step from which we may not be able to recover. At that stage, the DMCA may be ruled unconstitutional in the US, but in these other countries, there will be lesser or no grounds to repeal the laws enacted under the WIPO and FTAA treaties.
As for what we can do, well, as I said, this battle will be fought and won by lawyers and lobyists, not by us. For that reason, we need to turn it over to lawyers and lobyists (however distasteful that may initially sound) and follow their recommendations with respect to our responses to developments in these issues. With respect to supporting your local LUGs, this is admirable, but your money would be beter spent supporting organizations such as the EFF. I've commented before on their unfortunately poor fund-raising mechanism. While it's admirable that they spent most of their time fighting our battles in the arenas not open to all of us (court rooms, state capitals, and Washington), it is to their detrement that they don't spend more time and effort fund-raising. I maintain they could learn a thing or two from the NRA in that regard, but in the meantime, we need to support the EFF and others who have stepped up to the plate to fight our battles for us.
As time passes, it becomes more and more difficult to retain focus in addressing the Freedom of Speech and Privacy rights infringement of the DMCA, the WIPOtreaties (which are an expansion of the Berne Convention Treaty) and now the potential for indevidual national legislation in each of the countries of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This newest development makes a consolidated stand against such over reaching legislation, substancially more difficult, and all but garentees the passage if DMCA-like legislation in countries other than the United States.
It looks like a strategy of divide and conquer will work for content providers in their quest to get this sort of legislation passed in countries throughout the world. The already fragmented opposition to this legislation stands to be further fragmented by the requirement that their efforts be divided accross (in the case of the FTAA) the countries of the Americas in order that there be no discrepency between countries' approaches to Intellectual Property.
I made this same argument with respect to the Open Source Community response to Craig Mundie and Microsoft with respect to the legitimacy of the GPL. There must be a focused response. The EFF has provided good leadership thus far, but in order to be an effective leader you must have followers. This is antithetical to the OSS mentality of independant developers (who seem to be the only ones focusing in this issue in any depth at the moment). This tendency, as evidenced by the response by some members of the community to the EFF request to discontinue protests in the Skylarov case durring negotiations with Adobe - where some members of the community basically told the EFF to stuff it and "You Can't Control Me". As a community, we need to realize that we need to follow leaders - not any leader, but those who have proven themselves - for our mutual benefit.
Additionally, I think it's worth spending a moment considering why the issues around the DMCA and similar legislation have recieved so little coverage in the popular media. I know it sounds paranoid, but since the deregulation of the communications industry, (we all know) conglomorates have been allowed to emerge which represent both the news media and content owners. I would not presume to make accusations that the popular news media has interests other than informing the public, but it's disappointing that we havnen't seen these issues addressed in the popular media. Their lack of coverage, leaves us with the responsibility of making others aware of Intellectual Property issues. IP is a complex subject, even explaining limited aspects of it in a comprehensive way is difficult, but we must begin focusing our efforts in this area as well.
DSL is not a cost effective technology. It was antiquated the day the first installation was performed, and the hardware requirements together with the service and support costs make it an unatractive business proposition. The only reason the phone companies are in it is because federal regulations require that they provide broadband where possible. I'm certain that if DSL technology hadn't been developed, we'd have fiber to our houses right now.
DSL was developed in the days when it was thought that it would be impossible to lay fiber throughout the country in any short period of time. Ir REQUIRES copper between the CO and the customer, which means that anyone living in a development between 5 and 10 years old who has a couple T1s terminated at an older DSLaM outside their community is out of luck and will have to settle for the nightmare that is Cable Modem Service. This severely limits that market for DSL, which makes it all the more difficult to amortize the exhorbinent equipment costs. These issues combine to deter telcos from rapidly deploying DSL. Rather they choose to deploy it at the slowest rate possible under federal legulations, because once it is deployed, they will have incurred sunk costs which won't be recoverable for at least a decade, which means all those clamoring for fiber to their houses will have to wait until the telcos decide they've recovered their investment in DSL. All in all, it's vary disappointing.
The previous poster (the AC) makes a vary good point. At what level should a computer be considered protected? IS a computer considered protected if there is simply the capability to set a password but none is set, or does there have to be an overt act by the administrator to attempt to protect a computer (like set a password, or read the manual or something).
Along the same lines, could weather or not a computer is protected be established by how difficult it was to gain access? Perhaps the computer could be said to be not ptotected because the guy didn't have to take any special measures to gain access (except click the 'edit' button in FrontPage. This is a legal question and not one I have the answer to.
At least they're honest about it. It's not like thay're pushing the schedule back a couple days, on a weekly basis or something. You have to admit that's a point in their favor. It's hard to find companies with this level of integrity.
One item not mentioned in the article is the details of Title 18 Section 1030 which pertains to 'Fraud and related activity in connection with computers'. Under this statute, mere access to protected computers owned by the federal government is a criminal offense, and access with intent to cause damage or defraud are offenses, but this cuy hasn't commited any of these offenses. The only offense he might have committed it is detailed in subsection A, Paragraph 2C, which states "[Whoever accesses] information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication;" such action would be considered an offense under this statute.
The problem with prosecuting under this theory is that as far as I can tell (and the article doesn't really say either way) accessing the computer hosting the newspaper website was not done across state lines (thus affecting interstate commerce - which is why this clause can exist in the US COde at all). Does anyone know weather access to the newspaper website was done across state lines? It doesn't look like it to me.
Memory has been comoditized for over a decade. The only way for memory producers to make money is to produce faster memory, by either developing or adopting new standards. Having said this, why does Intel care? Do they have an equity stake in Rambus? Do they have agreement that require exclusive use of Rambus technologies?
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RAND.org, a public policy group, has a number of interesting papers on the legal, ethical and sociological implications ob Biometrics and specifically Facial Recognition as used at the Super Bowl this year.
-CTH
As much as I support the proposed anti-video surveillance law as it applies to surveilence on public property, I can't find fault with the Borders arrangement. If they feel it will reduce instances of shoplifting, more power to them, although I'd like to see if they can get any shoplifter they catch, to pose for a picture (unless they have been arrested and charged). If borders expects to hold shoplifters they catch, expressly for the purpose of taking their photo for addition to their system, that will prove legally problematic for them.
The public has a right to be angered by public surveilence as was done at the Super Bowl but if you don't like being surveiled on provate property, don't enter that private property. It's as simple as that.
--CTH
--CTH
With a new judge assigned, the penalty phase will be drawn out as arguments are re-presented to a far greater degree than if Jackson were still presiding over the case, since he has gained a familiarity with it over the past 2 years. This, it seems will be sufficient to allow Microsoft at least the time needed to release Windows XP and perhaps cause even more damage to the computer industry.
--CTH
oops. redundant, (although hopefully useful).
It was ruled that the original judge (Thomas Penfield Jackson) would not preside over the penalty phase of the trial since it was determined (fairly or not...) that he was biased against Microsoft, based on statements he made durring the trial. The DOJ denied these charges presumably because they wantedan advantage durring the penalty phase.
This new article identifies Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly as the presiding judge for the penalty phase.
--CTH
Yes and I've come to depend on my spill chucker far too much. Such are the evils of the technological age. Unfortunately, there are many out there like me, who can't spell worth a damn, so with this in mind it would be great if CmdrTaco could put hooks in to 'aspell' os a similar mechanism into /code so we don't end up publicizing our inability to spell worth a damn.
I'm glad to see this issue finally coming to the fore. The legal prescidents mentioned in the article have pretty much set the foundation on this issue already. I have somewhat mixed feelings on this issue, for example, the online availability of detailed public records (including personally identifiable contact information, etc.) has made things like geneology MUCH easier, but the convenient availability of this information to a worldwide audience has a tremendous potential for abuse. In the more specific case, I've never felt my political affiliations should be public record at all (as, they reflect on my political beliefs, which are private) but since they are public record, there is no basis to prevent their distribution as far as I can see.
Let's assume for the moment that in fact something should be done to limit online access to what have always been public records. There are two possible approaches. Each typee of record could be examined and re-evaluated as to what portion of the record whould be made public (ie: remove the addresses of indeviduals from X record before it is made public) or the laws regarding the disclosure of public records could be ammended to prevent certain types of distribution of the media (ie: no electronic distribution permitted). The first solution, although more precise, would be almost impossible to achieve and would reduce the value of the record as a whole. The second is far more easily achievable, but may be over-reaching in the case of certain completely inocuous record types.
Peraps the latter alternative could be used where there shall be no electronic distribution of records to those who do not reside in a municipality local to the storage of the records (such thet they could have physical access to the records anyway, without inconvenience), but anyone who requested the records on paper or electronic media, could recieve them for private use - with the afore mentioned provision still in force). This solution has it's own problems, such as it would just server to create an industry that would employ indeviduals local to areas housing highly valued public records, to re-distribute them for a fee in some non-elecronic form, rather than such application fees as the government would otherwise collect.
--CTH
No, but to further your example, paying for health insurance means that when the doctor send me a bill for a visit, I let the insurance I've been paying premuims on for so long, cover the cost. Similarly, when I copy music, I should be able to count on the premium I've been aying for the media, to cover the revenue loss, therefor the RIAA would have no claim against me because they have already been reinbursed through the 'tax'.
Not to beat your exampleto death, but the point of paying insurance premiums is so that you don't have to pay the huge medical bills you incur should you have a major injury. Under this theory, and consistant with your example, copying music is like filing an insurance claim. Based on the premuims you've previously paid, you are in essance collecting goods (in this case) rather than the services - such as medical care - that you would collect under a medical insurance plan. It's like having an insurance company pay for a product like a bandage or a cast.
This is the theory under which the fees would be collected, so you're not committing any sort of fraud. It is the expectation that some will chose to collect, but the majority don't - resulting in profit for the insurance company - which makes this system work, but you're right, the circumstances under which those customers who choose to collect (ie, copy music) do so, are completely arbitrary, which is what would make this sort of 'tax' or payment of a premium, an unworkable system, and why it's such a profoundly bad idea.
--CTH
--CTH
If I am going to pay a 'tax' to the RIAA, because it is assumed that I am copying music music, (and this is in fact the justification for the 'tax') then is copying (pirating) music something I can still be sued for? I'm paying for the privlage to act in this fashion, so how could I then be sued for it?
Granted if the RIAA suddenly has this new revenue stream, then a reasonable observer might comment that they'll stop threatening to destroy people who copy music, but given their past history, who really thinks they'll actually refrain from attempting to sue people for this?
The RIAA would do well to consider the potential impact of attempting to tack a surcharge onto recordable media, because the mechanism they use to justify the surcharge will simply be used to define what rights they are granting the customer who pays the surcharge. Essentially a good defense atourney could argue that payment of the surcharge is de-facto entry into a contract with the RIAA, in which the customer is paying for the privlage of recording music.
-- CTH
This is a common legal strategy. It's no different that it's a .com that's being sued (because it really isn't. It's Vivendi Universal). The won't set any prescident here because Vivendi Universal's team of flesh-eating lawyers will chew them up and spit them out. This won't be setteled. It will go to court, and it will get thrown out.
You can't blame the artists. They're just doing what their lawyers advised them to do and sueing the nearest deep pocket they can find; after all, what kind of settlement could they get from Napster. It's already been bled dry in legal fees (almost).
--CTH
Readers of /. yesterday, will recall Caldera's announcement regarding releasing pieces of the Original UNUX codebase to OSS. That announcement along with today's announcement from HP that they're gettinng into the Linux distro business signals a major shift in the market perception of the value of Open Source.
--CTH
--CTH
From the article, it doesn't sound like this is what they're considering, but a while back a federal program was being considered to assign each social security number would have an email address associated with it and government documents, such as ta forms, legal notices, etc. would be delivered via email. The idea was scrapped for technical, security, and privacy issues.
The question is, does Houston expect to do something similar with their system or are their goals more limited.
--CTH
No, It's not news. It's entertainment. What can we do but be entertained by occasional bouts of profound incompetence...
--CTH
So, how should it work. Should there be an established jurisdiction in which trademark disputes related to domain names should be examined? Since when did trademarks become relevent to namespacs independant of usage? The one universally accepted principle of trademark law is that they cover a namespace with respect to a particular usage meaning the name McDonalds in conjunction with resteraunts and McDonalds in conjunction with a farm would never come into conflict and whoever registered McDonalds.com for his particular purpose, so long as that purpose was not to trade on the percieved value of the name in it's alternate context, would be perfectly within his rights to do so. As I said, this principle is common to all implementation of copyright law, so how is this even an issue?
The problem isn't weather or not there's an international organization for settling trademark disputes, it who defines the venue for the dispute settlement, and who is actually arbitrating. The argument is that the arbitration that is being done isn't fair, but this is only because the person doing the research doesn't feel that it's fair, since 'fair' is an entirely subjective thing in this case.
--CTH
You're preaching to the choir here. The thing to recognize is this argument won't be won by geeks. It'll be won by lawyers, lobyists and political action committees. Such is the state of politics in this country today.
You suggest that there are no avenues left, well I maintain that the constifutional argument is still winable in the United States, but what of other countries here such strictly defined rights language doesn't exist (not to say those rights don't exist, but just that they don't make up the basis for government in other countries, nessecerily)? This is a big problem. In the United States over-reaching laws can be enacted because we are confident in the carved-in-stone nature of the rights afforded to us in the constitution will counter-balance and eventually win out over any ill advised legislation. In other countries this protection may exist is a somewhat weaker form, or not at all. This is extremely disturbing not because those rights may not be so vigorously protected, but because those countries look to the United States for models of legislation and will probably (in this case anyway) follow closely in the footsteps of the US legislation, which without having been fully constitutionally tested - when introduced to countries without such vigorously enforced rights language - creates the risk of becoming a trap door (read: function). A step from which we may not be able to recover. At that stage, the DMCA may be ruled unconstitutional in the US, but in these other countries, there will be lesser or no grounds to repeal the laws enacted under the WIPO and FTAA treaties.
As for what we can do, well, as I said, this battle will be fought and won by lawyers and lobyists, not by us. For that reason, we need to turn it over to lawyers and lobyists (however distasteful that may initially sound) and follow their recommendations with respect to our responses to developments in these issues. With respect to supporting your local LUGs, this is admirable, but your money would be beter spent supporting organizations such as the EFF. I've commented before on their unfortunately poor fund-raising mechanism. While it's admirable that they spent most of their time fighting our battles in the arenas not open to all of us (court rooms, state capitals, and Washington), it is to their detrement that they don't spend more time and effort fund-raising. I maintain they could learn a thing or two from the NRA in that regard, but in the meantime, we need to support the EFF and others who have stepped up to the plate to fight our battles for us.
--CTH
As time passes, it becomes more and more difficult to retain focus in addressing the Freedom of Speech and Privacy rights infringement of the DMCA, the WIPO treaties (which are an expansion of the Berne Convention Treaty) and now the potential for indevidual national legislation in each of the countries of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This newest development makes a consolidated stand against such over reaching legislation, substancially more difficult, and all but garentees the passage if DMCA-like legislation in countries other than the United States.
It looks like a strategy of divide and conquer will work for content providers in their quest to get this sort of legislation passed in countries throughout the world. The already fragmented opposition to this legislation stands to be further fragmented by the requirement that their efforts be divided accross (in the case of the FTAA) the countries of the Americas in order that there be no discrepency between countries' approaches to Intellectual Property.
I made this same argument with respect to the Open Source Community response to Craig Mundie and Microsoft with respect to the legitimacy of the GPL. There must be a focused response. The EFF has provided good leadership thus far, but in order to be an effective leader you must have followers. This is antithetical to the OSS mentality of independant developers (who seem to be the only ones focusing in this issue in any depth at the moment). This tendency, as evidenced by the response by some members of the community to the EFF request to discontinue protests in the Skylarov case durring negotiations with Adobe - where some members of the community basically told the EFF to stuff it and "You Can't Control Me". As a community, we need to realize that we need to follow leaders - not any leader, but those who have proven themselves - for our mutual benefit.
Additionally, I think it's worth spending a moment considering why the issues around the DMCA and similar legislation have recieved so little coverage in the popular media. I know it sounds paranoid, but since the deregulation of the communications industry, (we all know) conglomorates have been allowed to emerge which represent both the news media and content owners. I would not presume to make accusations that the popular news media has interests other than informing the public, but it's disappointing that we havnen't seen these issues addressed in the popular media. Their lack of coverage, leaves us with the responsibility of making others aware of Intellectual Property issues. IP is a complex subject, even explaining limited aspects of it in a comprehensive way is difficult, but we must begin focusing our efforts in this area as well.
--CTH
DSL is not a cost effective technology. It was antiquated the day the first installation was performed, and the hardware requirements together with the service and support costs make it an unatractive business proposition. The only reason the phone companies are in it is because federal regulations require that they provide broadband where possible. I'm certain that if DSL technology hadn't been developed, we'd have fiber to our houses right now.
DSL was developed in the days when it was thought that it would be impossible to lay fiber throughout the country in any short period of time. Ir REQUIRES copper between the CO and the customer, which means that anyone living in a development between 5 and 10 years old who has a couple T1s terminated at an older DSLaM outside their community is out of luck and will have to settle for the nightmare that is Cable Modem Service. This severely limits that market for DSL, which makes it all the more difficult to amortize the exhorbinent equipment costs. These issues combine to deter telcos from rapidly deploying DSL. Rather they choose to deploy it at the slowest rate possible under federal legulations, because once it is deployed, they will have incurred sunk costs which won't be recoverable for at least a decade, which means all those clamoring for fiber to their houses will have to wait until the telcos decide they've recovered their investment in DSL. All in all, it's vary disappointing.
--CTH
The previous poster (the AC) makes a vary good point. At what level should a computer be considered protected? IS a computer considered protected if there is simply the capability to set a password but none is set, or does there have to be an overt act by the administrator to attempt to protect a computer (like set a password, or read the manual or something).
Along the same lines, could weather or not a computer is protected be established by how difficult it was to gain access? Perhaps the computer could be said to be not ptotected because the guy didn't have to take any special measures to gain access (except click the 'edit' button in FrontPage. This is a legal question and not one I have the answer to.
--CTH
At least they're honest about it. It's not like thay're pushing the schedule back a couple days, on a weekly basis or something. You have to admit that's a point in their favor. It's hard to find companies with this level of integrity.
One item not mentioned in the article is the details of Title 18 Section 1030 which pertains to 'Fraud and related activity in connection with computers'. Under this statute, mere access to protected computers owned by the federal government is a criminal offense, and access with intent to cause damage or defraud are offenses, but this cuy hasn't commited any of these offenses. The only offense he might have committed it is detailed in subsection A, Paragraph 2C, which states "[Whoever accesses] information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication;" such action would be considered an offense under this statute.
The problem with prosecuting under this theory is that as far as I can tell (and the article doesn't really say either way) accessing the computer hosting the newspaper website was not done across state lines (thus affecting interstate commerce - which is why this clause can exist in the US COde at all). Does anyone know weather access to the newspaper website was done across state lines? It doesn't look like it to me.
--CTH
Memory has been comoditized for over a decade. The only way for memory producers to make money is to produce faster memory, by either developing or adopting new standards. Having said this, why does Intel care? Do they have an equity stake in Rambus? Do they have agreement that require exclusive use of Rambus technologies?