Imagine if every slashdot reader contributed $100? Or even $50? And
I'm sure that our interest group could get some external support.
Imagine if every slashdot reader contributed $5 a month for
a subscription to Slashdot. How well is that working out? (Ok, ok,
I know the reply, that's not worth anything, they should pay us, etc.:-) )
Let me know what external support funds you. I could use
a few million dollars myself,
for my anticensorware
related
legal risks. Heck, I'd settle for a few
hundred thousand dollars.
"Underwriting the defense of the hacker- oriented magazine has put a
strain on the foundation's finances. That is one reason Martin Garbus,
the First Amendment lawyer who handled the earlier stages of the case,
will no longer represent the magazine. Foundation officials said that
even at a discounted rate, Mr. Garbus's bills came to about $1.5
million in 2000, nearly doubling the annual expenditure of the group,
which gets about three-quarters of its financing from individual donors."
The magazine's new lead lawyer is Kathleen Sullivan, the dean of
Stanford Law School, who volunteered to handle the appeal free.
"It's not a slam on the Garbus firm," said Cindy Cohn, the foundation's
legal director. "We just couldn't sustain that kind of an outlay."
Don't take it amiss that
your story got rejected. As I mentioned
earlier, I couldn't even get support for my
Slashdot article code proposal for publishing anti-censorware
code (repeat, I don't say Slashdot had to help me out, I'm just
pointing out the connections to the issue). This is a very hard
and risky area.
n. a lawsuit brought by parties pretending to be adversaries in order
to obtain by subterfuge an advisory opinion or precedent-setting
decision from the court. If a judge determines the action does not
involve a true controversy he/she will dismiss it.
Nete, the DMCA Slashdot incident,
Microsoft Asks Slashdot To Remove Readers' Posts, was exactly one of the
DMCA incidents in mind as a factor when I made my
Slashdot article code proposal in order to get some support
for publishing anti-censorware code. Too bad nothing came of it (I don't
say Slashdot had to help me out, I'm just pointing out the connections).
But the DMCA chilling effect on me for anticensorware work is very real,
and well-ground in DMCA court cases.
`
In the May 2002 judgement of the SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department, Monsterhut were found to be
spammers who where spamming.
If you live in one of the many US states that allow action against spammers and
were spammed by Monsterhut (aka Beaverhome, aka Furniture4free) here is a
perfect way to "remedy" the situation. Although they may try, it is unlikely
Monsterhut could convince anyone that they are not spammers in light of the
judgement. File a claim in your own jurisdiction citing your laws and the
state of
New York court judgement that defines what they do.
In Canada (Monsterhut aka Beaverhome, aka Furniture4free other home), the
nation's new privacy laws may enable citizens to file claims. Be sure
to mention
their 1999 loss in Canadian court (1267623 Ontario Inc. v. Nexx Online Inc.)
where the Ontario Superior Court of Justice denied their motion, ruling that
"Sending unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail is in breach of the emerging
principles of Netiquette..."
Biometric-ID is a pork-barrel boondoggle
on
National Biometric IDs
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
In my view, the biometrics-mania is a pure boondoogle,
created and driven by the
companies which want to sell their particular gizmos as a
national standard. Consider, biometrics? You mean such identity
information as eye color, gender, weight? But that information can be
encoded simply, by any vendor, nothing fancy. Aha, but if we
use retinal patterns which require RetinaCorp's patented
RetinEncoder, to be read by their RetinReader... the money rolls in.
The problem is not that people "don't read" the licenses. It's that
they don't have any way of objecting to the license itself. Take a
look at the site
Badsoftware, e.g.
http://www.badsoftware.com/uccindex.htm
Backers of UCITA insist that it leaves consumers and small businesses
with our existing rights, and gives us new ones. But it
doesn't. That's why every consumer advocate we know (including
Consumers Union and Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology) has
called for termination of the UCITA project. A July 9, 1999 analysis
by the Federal Trade Commission points out that UCITA allows software
companies to place "restrictions on a consumer's right to sue for a
product defect, to use the product, or even to publicly discuss or
criticize the product." The analysis concludes, "we question whether
it is appropriate to depart from these consumer protection and
competition policy principles in a state commercial law statute."
It doesn't matter if the software has a license which said
"One line license: We own you!".
That would be simple to understand,
but the problem is ruling it legal.
One analyst was a bit surprised to hear that DeWitt is departing
before Sun launched its Linux products. The company has only said it
will roll out the servers later this year.
"I suspect it had something to do with unhappiness with the overall
product organization," said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata,
which is based in Nashua, New Hampshire. "I assume there was
unhappiness, some disagreement or something there."
18. Streambox also argues that the VCR does not violate the DMCA
because the Copy Switch that avoids does not "effectively protect"
against the unauthorized copying of 12 copyrighted works as
required by S 1201(a)(3)(B). Streambox claims this "effective
protection is lacking because an enterprising end-user could
potentially use other means to record streaming audio content as
it is played by the end-user's computer speakers. This argument
fails because the Copy Switch, in the ordinary course of its
operation when it is on, restricts and limits the ability of
people to make perfect digital copies of a copyrighted work. The
Copy Switch therefore constitutes a technological measure that
effectively protects a copyright owner's rights under section
1201(a)(3)(B).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I do, however, know the DMCA very
well, since I've been worried for many years about
being sued under the
DMCA
for my anticensorware work
It helped that Softman hadn't even had to click a clickwrap
An interesting aspect is that the defendants never ran
the software. So this doesn't involve the copyright issues.
It may happen that the whole licensed-not-sold idea gets thrown out,
eventually.
I'd be in favor of it. But the situation is just not as trivial as
the poster of the EULAcide program would have it.
This is the problem. If you don't own the copy, but
only the disk, then it seems that section 117 has been
legal-hacked. It's obvious that it would make sense that you
own the copy of the program. But then, the whole system seems to be
built on the idea that you don't own a copy of the program,
merely "license" the right to run the program. If you can get away
with ignoring the EULA because you're too small-fry, then the
strip-EULA program is irrelevant anyway.
But I've seen enough legal debate over whether you actually do own the
copy, that I think the poster is treading onto very dangerous ground
if he or she believes he's unarguably correct.
Huh? What law is that? You are the owner of the copy. Not the owner of the copy\right, but the owner of the copy.
That's where things get very weird, with the
MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer decision. The whole
part of the DMCA (Title III) was to overturn that law, but only
in the context of hardware maintenance. But it shows that there
is law considering that running a program without
licence is considered copyright infringement.
The poster has the idea "I own this copy. Therefore, I can
run the program, except the EULA takes away my rights in it.
So ha-ha-ha, hack-out the EULA, and I keep all my rights". The flaw in
this may be that the very understandable chain of reasoning, is wrong.
That is, the situation may be that you own the disk, but not the
right to run the program, unless you agree to the EULA.
I don't like this. But ignoring it won't make it go away.
Without the EULA, I am free to use my software
within the bounds of copyright law.
This is very dangerous and misleading! There's much law which says
you are NOT THE OWNER of the copy, and so you are not reading
section 117
correctly. I know, it sounds wrong. I know, it sounds
illogical. But that's the law. There's no gimmick, no magic.
See, for example, the comments about the MAI Systems decsion
in this paper:
Title III was proposed in response to the decision in MAI Systems
Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc.53 MAI involved the limitation on the
exclusive rights in computer programs contained in 17 U.S.C. 117,
which allows the "owner" of a program to load the program into the
machine's random access memory, or "RAM." In MAI, an independent
service organization (ISO) serviced a computer which used software
licensed to, but not owned by, the customer. The court held that the
ISO infringed the copyright in the program by loading the copyrighted
software into the RAM of the customer's computer, thereby making a
"reproduction" of the copy under 17 U.S.C. - 106. The MAI court ruled
that Section 117 only exempted "owners" of software and not
"licensees." Title III amends Section 117 to effectively overrule MAI
by allowing the owner or lessee of a machine to make or authorize the
making of a copy of a computer program under certain conditions for
the purpose of repair or maintenance of the computer hardware.
Specifically, the making of the copy is allowed (1) if the copy is
made "solely by virtue of the activation of a machine that lawfully
contains an authorized copy of the computer program, for purposes only
of maintenance or repair of that machine," (2) if the new copy is used
for no other purpose and is destroyed upon completion of the
maintenance or repair, and (3) if "any computer program... that is
not necessary for that machine to be activated... is not accessed or
used other than to make such new copy by virtue of the activation of
the machine." Significantly, the exception applies only to RAM copies
made during the course of hardware maintenance, not software
maintenance.
Perhaps the most troubling application of the DMCA is the recent
criminal prosecution of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. Sklyarov's
employer, a Russian software company known as Elcomsoft, produced and
distributed software that can be used to convert digital books from
Adobe's eBook format into Adobe's PDF format. In the course of the
format conversion, the use restrictions imposed by the eBook format
are stripped away. It is undisputed that the Elcomsoft software can be
used to facilitate noninfringing uses of eBooks (e.g., fair use
excerpting, or to facilitate automated translation into Braille for
blind readers). Sklyarov himself was never accused of infringing a
copyright, or assisting in the infringing activities of any third
party. Nevertheless, for his part in developing the software,
U.S. officials arrested him and held him in custody for 3 weeks.[17]
He and Elcomsoft were recently indicted by a grand jury in San Jose,
California. Based on the indictment, Sklyarov faces a maximum of 25
years in prison and a fine that could exceed $2 million.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I do, however, know the DMCA very
well, since I've been worried for many years about
being sued under the DMCA
for my anticensorware work
(I should further note that I have talked much more with EFF these days
about my particular legal problems, but I shouldn't talk about that
here. Do Join EFF!)
The DMCA grants limited permission to circumvent copyright protection
in order to make braille copies of eBooks for use by the blind, for
example, but the EUCD makes such exceptions optional for member
states, so they need not be implemented.
This is WRONG. There is no such permission in
the DMCA. The writer has apparently confused it with a
copyright limitation:
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an
infringement of copyright for an authorized entity to
reproduce or to distribute copies or phonorecords of a previously
published, nondramatic literary work if such
copies or phonorecords are reproduced or distributed in specialized
formats exclusively for use by blind or
other persons with disabilities.
People signing up for newsletters and mailing lists
that they never subscribed to has been a major
source of frustration for both users and the list
owners.
If Klez happens to send an e-mail "from" a user to
an e-mail list's automatic subscribe address, the
list software assumes the e-mail is a valid
subscription request and begins sending mail to
the user.
This is another reason why all lists should
confirm
subscriptions. I'm seeing the Klem-virus beating on my own mailing
list, and I'm very glad I spent the time to get the software to do
confirmations of subscriptions.
That said, the Web and its component parts are dynamic. Web documents
undergo two kinds of change. The first type, the type addressed in
this paper, is "persistence" or the existence or disappearance of Web
pages and sites, or in a word the lifecycle of Web
documents. "Intermittence" is a variant of persistence, and is defined
as the disappearance but reappearance of Web documents. At any given
time, about five percent of Web pages are intermittent, which is to
say they are gone but will return. Over time a Web collection
erodes. Based on a 120-week longitudinal study of a sample of Web
documents, it appears that the half-life of a Web page is somewhat
less than two years and the half-life of a Web site is somewhat more
than two years. That is to say, an unweeded Web document collection
created two years ago would contain the same number of URLs, but only
half of those URLs point to content. The second type of change Web
documents experience is change in Web page or Web site content. Again
based on the Web document samples, very nearly all Web pages and sites
undergo some form of content within the period of a year. Some change
content very rapidly while others do so infrequently (Koehler,
1999a). This paper examines how Web documents can be efficiently and
effectively incorporated into library collections. This paper focuses
on Web document lifecycles: persistence, attrition, and intermittence.
As harried parents scrambled in the weeks before Christmas to get
their hands on these homely, high-tech cyberpets that
supposedly repeat what they hear, the supersecret spy agency put
out a "Furby Alert" on its internal intranet in early
December and banned the Furby from Fort Meade.
"Personally owned photographic, video and audio recording
equipment are prohibited items. This includes toys, such as
'Furbys,' with built-in recorders that repeat the audio with
synthesized sound to mimic the original signal," the Furby Alert
warned NSA workers. "We are prohibited from introducing these
items into NSA spaces. Those who have should contact
their Staff Security Officer for guidance."
The Iowa Electronic Markets are
real-money futures markets in which
contract payoffs depend on economic and
political events such as elections. These
markets are operated by faculty at the
University of Iowa Tippie College of
Business as part of our research and
teaching mission. We invite you to join us
in this mission.
But would it be OK to call them "those who, for apparent compensation of
fiscal cash contributions, perform in return a service, said service
being analogized to that of a sexual nature, due to the presumed
pleasure obtained by the servicee, and also in part due to
the negative, dominance, connotation of the sale of the service"?
I once was chastized using a phrase involving pimping for censorware.
The objection was that this terminology was unfair to pimps:-).
The view is that the DMCA is considered OK, because that's a restriction
on comsumer's rights for the benefit of businesses. But S.2048 is a
restriction on some businesses for the benefit of other
businesses. That's another matter entirely.
In his testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, Intel Executive
Vice President Leslie Vadasz courageously spoke out against the
Hollywood moguls who are asking Congress make copy controls mandatory
in all new technologies. Vadasz expressed skepticism of the demands of
copyright industries, which he said "historically feared technology --
from the advent of sound recording, to the development of the VCR, the
DVD, the PC, and other digital devices". He explained that innovation
must not be sacrificed in an impossible quest to lock down every tool
that might be used for infringement.
[Note this is a restriction on some businesses for the benefit of
OTHER BUSINESSES. The businesses who would be subject to this
restriction obviously don't like that]
By contrast, a March 19 joint statement by Intel Corporation and AOL
Time Warner suggests a disappointing change of heart by Intel. The
"AOL Time Warner -- Intel Joint Statement of Principles" envisions a
world in which corporate negotiations decide consumers' rights, and
government outlaws devices falling outside a "consensus" imposed by
Hollywood at lawyer-point. According to the joint statement, "The goal
of these efforts is to create an overall architecture for protecting
digital content throughout its distribution life so that it does not
'leak' out in an unprotected manner" -- with the result that copyright
holders shape the digital architecture of the future, retaining the
power to control your use of the movies, music and books you buy.
[Note this is a restriction on consumer's right for the benefit of
businesses. The businesses love that.]
Slashdot Mirror
Let me know what external support funds you. I could use a few million dollars myself, for my anticensorware related legal risks. Heck, I'd settle for a few hundred thousand dollars.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Money makes the world go round ... or lawyers on the tables pound ...
DVD Copyright Case Grinds Through Courts
Don't take it amiss that your story got rejected. As I mentioned earlier, I couldn't even get support for my Slashdot article code proposal for publishing anti-censorware code (repeat, I don't say Slashdot had to help me out, I'm just pointing out the connections to the issue). This is a very hard and risky area.Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/legal/20020503_dmc a_consequences.html
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Nete, the DMCA Slashdot incident, Microsoft Asks Slashdot To Remove Readers' Posts, was exactly one of the DMCA incidents in mind as a factor when I made my Slashdot article code proposal in order to get some support for publishing anti-censorware code. Too bad nothing came of it (I don't say Slashdot had to help me out, I'm just pointing out the connections). But the DMCA chilling effect on me for anticensorware work is very real, and well-ground in DMCA court cases. `
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
In particular, look at the Advice for those they spam
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
http://www.badsoftware.com/uccindex.htm It doesn't matter if the software has a license which said "One line license: We own you!". That would be simple to understand, but the problem is ruling it legal.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Key Sun Linux executive departs as drain continues
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Realnetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I do, however, know the DMCA very well, since I've been worried for many years about being sued under the DMCA for my anticensorware workSig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
It may happen that the whole licensed-not-sold idea gets thrown out, eventually. I'd be in favor of it. But the situation is just not as trivial as the poster of the EULAcide program would have it.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
But I've seen enough legal debate over whether you actually do own the copy, that I think the poster is treading onto very dangerous ground if he or she believes he's unarguably correct.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
The poster has the idea "I own this copy. Therefore, I can run the program, except the EULA takes away my rights in it. So ha-ha-ha, hack-out the EULA, and I keep all my rights". The flaw in this may be that the very understandable chain of reasoning, is wrong. That is, the situation may be that you own the disk, but not the right to run the program, unless you agree to the EULA.
I don't like this. But ignoring it won't make it go away.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
See, for example, the comments about the MAI Systems decsion in this paper:
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Digital libraries and World Wide Web sites and page persistence
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Overall, they're cheaper than bn.com (I have no association with either, but I've found good deals on these book resellers).
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nyt / 0020424/tc_nyt/fears_about_microsoft_return__in_me xico&printer=1
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
But would it be OK to call them "those who, for apparent compensation of fiscal cash contributions, perform in return a service, said service being analogized to that of a sexual nature, due to the presumed pleasure obtained by the servicee, and also in part due to the negative, dominance, connotation of the sale of the service"?
I once was chastized using a phrase involving pimping for censorware. The objection was that this terminology was unfair to pimps :-).
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Take a look at:o l-intel_critique.html
http://www.eff.org/IP/SSSCA_CBDTPA/20020322_eff_a
[my comments in brackets]
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)