Reading a Death Warrant in Tehran
In late 2004, I blogged about a case in which an Iranian human-rights activist, Shirin Ebadi, faced a Treasury Department ban on the American publication of her memoir. Although I never followed up, the ban was eventually lifted, and her memoir will finally be published next month by Random House.
The NY Times Magazine has a chilling excerpt, in which Ebadi finds a surprising name on a death warrant.
(I wonder whether this entry will spark another incoherent rant from the same anonymous commenter who trolled here previously.)
Permalink | |
Double standard?
Let's see whether I have this straight. Makers of P2P software are responsible for illegal or harmful uses of their products; gunmakers are not. Property rights outstrip the right to life, unless, of course, you're a fetus.Permalink | |
MTA jackassery
This is ridiculous: The MTA is suing a Brooklyn bagel shop, claiming it is violating the MTA's trademarks. The shop, F Line Bagels in Carroll Garden, has a subway theme, based on the nearby F train.
Now, the original point of trademark law was to protect consumers, and by extension trademark holders, by avoiding marketplace confusion. If you're Milton Hershey, marketing your new chocolate bar, you don't want some fraudster to copy your name and package design to sell inferior chocolate. And if you're a consumer who happens to enjoy Mr. Hershey's product, you'd like to know that you're buying the real thing, not some cheap knockoff.
So, tell me MTA: How is a subway rider likely to confuse F Line Bagels with the nearby Smith-9th St. subway station? Especially since F Line Bagels appears to be much prettier and cleaner than any Brooklyn stop along the F line?
Copyright office seeks to save the orphans
I haven't followed copyright and intellectual property here as closely as I used to, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the U.S. Copyright Office has requested public comment about using orphan works. Simply put, orphan works are copyrighted creative works for which the rights holder is hard to find. For example, perhaps your grandfather published a collection of poetry through a small publisher in 1947, having sold to that publisher his interest in the poems. You would like to republish the collection, but the original publishing house is now out of business. Who owns the copyright? Or say your parents are celebrating a wedding anniversary. You are throwing a party for their dearest friends, and as party decorations, you want to enlarge and display some of your parents' wedding photos. You take the originals to a nearby lab, but the lab owner refuses to reproduce the photos, saying the original photographer owns the rights. The copyright office is seeking to clarify issues surrounding these orphan works. If this problem affects you, please consider telling the office.Permalink | |
Sony admits screw-up
I've blogged before about the war within Sony between its consumer-electronics division and its entertainment unit. In a nutshell, electronics wanted to bring an iPod-like media player to market; entertainment whined, "But people will steal our movies and muuuuuuuuuuusic." Boing Boing points to a piece from the AP, in which a ranking Sony exec admits his company made a mistake. Huh. Guess what, Sony. The market's now three years ahead of you.Permalink | |
Baptist pastor denounces Religious Right
I Am A Conservative Christian, And The Religious Right Scares Me, Too "[N]o longer does the Religious Right represent conservative, Christian values....Are we heading for a modern day religious inquisition, this one led not by the Catholic Church but by the Religious Right? Are we witnessing the type of marriage between Church and State that America's founders originally feared?"Permalink | |
Bush meets with anti-gay censor
Guardian Unlimited | Arts features | 'We have to protect people'What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple? "Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." Don't laugh. Gerald Allen's book-burying opinions are not a joke.
Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifth meeting with Mr Bush."
So this is how Mr. Bush is exercising his "clear mandate" from the American people. Fuck you, America.Books are bad, says Alabama lawmaker
Gay book ban goal of state lawmaker [via Bookslut blog]MONTGOMERY - An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries. [Emphasis added.]
A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."
...
The bill also would ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama. Allen said that meant books with heterosexual couples committing those acts likely would be banned, too.
From Alabama's statutes regarding sexual misconduct:A person commits the crime of sexual misconduct if...[h]e or she engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another person under circumstances other than those covered by sections 13A-6-63 and 13A-6-64. Consent is no defense to a prosecution under this subdivision. [Emphasis added; source.]
Deviate sexual intercourse: "Any act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another." [source]
But forget the focus on specific sex acts. I bring that up only to show that Allen would also ban books featuring or even implying sexual relations between unmarried heterosexuals. What's important is how broadly this law might be applied. Would Allen's law prevent Alabama's public universities from offering books discussing the sexuality of Alexander the Great? Would it prevent college teachers from distributing syllabi in which "deviant" conduct is mentioned? (From the article: "His bill also would prohibit a teacher from handing out materials or bringing in a classroom speaker who suggested homosexuality was OK, he said.") Searching the University of Alabama website turns up a broad set of courses in Human Sexuality, but if "handing out materials" is banned, how can an instructor create a syllabus or place articles on reserve in the university's library? Also, how would such a law affect medical education? Oops! I'm sorry. AIDS and other STDs are now officially off the curriculum. I can't imagine this will pass. The universities will lobby hard against it. Even interpreted narrowly, it will interfere with the ability of the state's colleges from educating its citizens. Moreover, Alabama's universities will become less competitive at attracting out-of-state students. Good work, Mr. Allen. You've demonstrated a tremendous disrespect for Alabama's entire system of education.Iranian sues U.S. for rights to publish memoir
Human-rights activist Shirin Ebadi (شیرین عبادی), a 2003 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is suing the U.S. government. Ebadi argues in her lawsuit that Treasury Department restrictions will prevent her from publishing her memoir in the United States. Treasury forbids American companies from publishing the works of authors in Iran, Cuba, or Sudan unless those works were written without American involvement.
Ebadi wishes to publish her book here in the U.S. because, in her home country, it would be subject to state approval--but ironically, it's subject to state approval in the land of the "free" as well.
[more, via Blog of a Bookslut]
Wired remix
Here's coolness: The Creative Commons--in cooperation with Negativland, Wired magazine, and a group of 16 bands (including My Morning Jacket, Beastie Boys, and Chuck D)--has put together a remixable CD. You read that right. This CD comes with sampling and remix rights. Strip off beats, vocals, instrumentals, whatever, and use them in your own projects. Now, I ain't a sampler or musician, so the rights issues don't really affect me, but I think it's damn cool.Permalink | |
Boing Boing's new linking policy
Boing Boing has unveiled its new linking policy.Permalink | |
Hypocritical linking policy
Fodors.com, which now has a travel blog, wants to prohibit anyone from deep-linking into its content ("'deep linking' past the FODORS.COM homepage is strictly prohibited"). So even though the Fodors bloggers deep-link into other sites, Fodors' lawyers want to prevent you from doing the same thing. Someone at Fodors doesn't get the Web at all.Constitution eBook
Via Lessig, an electronic version (in Microsoft Reader format) of the Constitution of the United States. Note the following technological or legal restrictions: You can't view it on a Mac and you can't print it. If you purchase the Adobe Reader version instead, you can view it on a Mac, and you can print it, but only twice a year. Here's a better idea. Google it and do whatever the hell you want to with it.Permalink | |
Speaking of forced worship...
Justices Keep 'Under God' in Pledge (washingtonpost.com): The Court threw out the case not on the merits of its arguments but because the justices concluded that the plaintiff had no legal right to sue on his daughter's behalf. However, the three justices who did comment "supported some version" of the White House's Humpty Dumpty claim that "under God" does not actually refer to God Himself but to a historical idea of God. The White House is basically saying here that the phrase "under God" means that the U.S. is not one nation currently under God but is instead one nation founded under God a long time ago. From Wordspy:Humpty Dumpty language noun. An idiosyncratic or eccentric use of language in which the meaning of particular words is determined by the speaker.
Permalink | |
British require worship in schools?
Am I reading this correctly? Does the British government require daily worship in schools? Noncompliance of the law aside, even the idea of forcing children to pray and worship daily seems to fly in the face of what a modern democracy should stand for. Update: I've done a little more research. This Guardian piece publishes the text of a speech by David Bell, chief inspector of schools, on the 60th anniversary of an education bill known as the Butler Act. A portion of Bell's speech indicates that these are state schools in question, not church schools:But we are still left with some weighty questions. What, as a society, do we think about collective worship in non-denominational state schools? Arguably, the 1988 Education Reform Act added a further layer of complexity when it added the requirement that collective worship should be wholly, or mainly, of a broadly Christian character.
Ironically, or not, the United States has a famous "Butler Act" of its own: namely, the 1925 Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.Sony and the innovator's dilemma
Cory Doctorow writes that Sony's electronics division is being pummelled by its entertainment holdings. (Wired did a good article on this last year.) What strikes me from Doctorow's piece is how closely Sony Electronics is beginning to resemble the companies that Christensen discusses in Innovator's Dilemma. From Doctorow:Sony, who invented the walkman and made billions off of it, has now become an irrelevant player in the personal stereo market, with a market share that's barely a blip on the chart.
If I were still in school, this might make an interesting case study.Permalink | |
Self-censorship has unlikely results
The Times reports that many broadcasters are practicing extreme self-censorship to avoid FCC sanction. Among the programs censored? Masterpiece Theater and the Rush Limbaugh radio show.Permalink | |
Smoking
Having won the wars on terror, drugs, poverty, childhood obesity, AIDS, cancer, mad cow disease, and SARS, Congress turns its eye to our nation's most troubling epidemic: smoking in films."Pop culture is our landscape"
"Our surroundings are so thoroughly saturated with images and logos, both still and moving, that forbidding artists to use them in their work is like barring 19th-century landscape painters from depicting trees on their canvases." -- Roberta Smith, writing in the _New York Times_.Permalink | |
Justice Dept. drops request for medical records
The government withdrew a subpoena for abortion records yesterday, Newsday reports. The government is defending itself against suits that challenge the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions and requested medical records of women who've sought abortions in New York hospitals. A district court judge ordered the hospitals to comply, but New York Weill Cornell Medical Center refused, and the judge held the hospital in contempt. Last week, an appeals court blocked the contempt charge and agreed to resolve the issue. The government now has withdrawn the request in hopes of circumventing a drawn-out appeals process.Permalink | |
Sharing the love
Via BoingBoing comes this Business 2.0 introduction to Creative Commons licenses. These licenses allow writers, artists, musicians and other creatives to choose how their creatures can be copied and distributed, under terms less onerous than what copyright offers.Permalink | |
Copyright: The Killing Fields of Culture
Via Copyfight, this J. D. Lasica profile of Jed Horowitz. Horowitz is a former video distributor who got in hot water with Disney over his promotional tactics: He created two-minute trailers and posted them online as a sales tool. Disney sued, claiming Horowitz violated its trademarks. He's now released a new documentary, Willful Infringement, in which he profiles other artists who've got to the mat over copyright infringement.Permalink | |
Campbell's sells Warhol cans
I've never known whether Warhol's paintings of Campbell's soup cans violated Campbell's trademarks in any way, but in an era where big corporations will chase after any parody or satire of their IP, in spite of fair-use protections, it's nice to see Campbell's actually honoring Warhol's art--even if it is 40 years later.
[via BoingBoing]
Permalink | |
CFP 2004
CFP 2004--the annual conference on computers, freedom, and privacy--starts today in Berkeley, California. Once again, I'm not there (2005, I swear!), and if you're also not there, you can follow the action via CFP's blogs. (Many talks, last year, were posted to the web in MP3 format. I hope they do that again this year.) In honor of CFP, I'll feature at least one post a day this week on intellectual freedom or privacy issues.Permalink | |
CIPA, filtering, and public libraries
Via librarian.net, this First Monday article discusses libraries policies related to filtering Internet content. I've read only the first few pages so far, but it seems to cover the issues thoroughly and well.Permalink | |
Ashcroft still targets porn
The Baltimore Sun reports on the Justice Department's latest crusade against pornography. This will make for an interesting war. Many of the largest media companies in the United States distribute and market pornography via cable outlets. Those companies have deep pockets and many ties to the Bush Administration, to Congress, and to the political parties. However, aside from the bedfellowing and the usual moral indignation (Get out of my bedroom, consenting adults, etc.), I learned something interesting while I was looking up other stories about this online. This Boston Phoenix article has a disturbing quote:But perhaps the most important thing about Ass Clowns 3 is this: it could land its distributors, Robert Zicari (a/k/a Rob Black) and his fiancée, Janet Romano (a/k/a Lizzie Borden), in prison for the next 50 years.
As Zicari observed in an interview last week with ABC News’s Nightline, that’s double the amount of prison time faced by Hemant Lakhani, the British national who was recently charged with trying to sell a surface-to-air missile to government agents posing as terrorists seeking to shoot down a commercial airliner. Thank you, John Ashcroft. I'm glad it's more important to protect adults from sexual images than it is to defend against terrorists. [via Politech, Boing Boing, MeFi, and nearly everywhere else on the Web]
Permalink | |
Lessig releases Free Culture under CC license
Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig has released his new book, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, for free under a Creative Commons license. This means you can download and read the book without paying a penny. Of course, you can still buy aPermalink | |
Medical privacy
February 13: Charlie Suisman, writing for Manhattan User's Guide, discusses the DoJ's request for the records of women seeking abortion services. He quotes a DoJ attorney: "Individuals no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential." Today, Charlie follows up: He reasons that if medical records aren't private, and Attorney General John Ashcroft has just had his gall bladder out... Suisman's among the sharpest NYC Web writers, and MUG is a daily must-read.Permalink | |
Ban porn in cars?
CNN reports that some citizens, police, and officials see in-car porn as a hazard. Two issues are at stake, and I think only one is actually valid: 1. Watching television is a distraction for drivers. 2. Passing motorists and pedestrians might happen to see, and be offended by, pornography in someone else's car. Lawmakers are considering rules and fines. Funny how "small government" applies only to corporations and not individuals, isn't it? [via BoingBoing]Michael Powell wavers on indecency
Powell warns that free-speech rights could hamper efforts to crack down on indecency.Permalink | |
Teen Titans, NASCAR, and Black Cinema: Unsuitable for deaf audiences
Television Captioining Censorship "The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) urged President Bush to overturn a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Education to declare almost 200 television shows inappropriate for captioning by the Department’s Technology and Media Services for Individuals with Disabilities program, effective October 1, 2003. According to NAD President, Andrew J. Lange, the Department's action is government censorship and contradicts President Bush’s promotion of family values and parental accountability." [More and still more; via Boing Boing and Neil Gaiman]Permalink | |
Medical privacy
Charlie Suisman of Manhattan User's Guide editorializes this morning on medical privacy. Check it out. Not only is Charlie funny, but he's exactly right.Ashcroft seeks abortion records
Two articles this week report that the Justice Department has subpoenaed medical records of women seeking so-called partial-birth abortions in several cities. Mark Taylor, writing for Crain's Chicago Business, reports that a judge in Chicago squashed a request for records from Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Eric Lichtbau, writing in today's NY Times, reports that a Manhattan judge has ordered several New York hospitals to turn over the records. [Crain's report comes via Politech]Permalink | |
Follow-up
Apparently, it isn't just Georgia's science curriculum that takes a beating in the state's new guidelines. Teacher Joseph Jarrell writes that, according to the state's new history curriculum, world history apparently begins with the sixteenth century, and the only really important stuff in the U.S. happened after 1870.Permalink | |
"Evolution" removed from Georgia's science standards
A proposed biology curriculum for the State of Georgia removes the word evolution, replacing it with biological change over time. The New York Times also reports that the curriculum fudges on the age of Earth, removing the word long from the phrase long history of the Earth. Some see this as a sop to creationists, many of whom believe Earth to be a mere four to eight thousand years old. The state's schools superintendent, Kathy Cox, said in a news conference Thursday that the word evolution causes "a lot of negative reaction" and distracts people from the ideas being taught. Cox argues that people get so worked up about the "monkeys-to-man thing" that they lose sight of the larger ideas of evolution. Cox states that textbooks may still use the word evolution, and that teachers will still be able to use it and to teach related concepts. Some teachers and scientists, however, oppose the changes, arguing they will provide teachers an excuse for glossing over evolutionary concepts; this, they say, will weaken biology teaching in the state and hinder students who go on to study biology in college. These changes, though, are part of an ongoing process to overhaul Georgia's curriculum, and they could be overturned or modified with enough public support. More: Forgetting Darwin: Georgia's proposed science curriculum protects children from the "e' word Georgia may shun 'evolution' in schools Cox: 'Evolution' a negative buzzword Proposed Georgia curriculum Science benchmarks from American Association for the Advancement of SciencePermalink | |
Michael Powell is really, really fucking brilliant
Reuters reports that FCC chair Michael Powell wants to overturn an earlier FCC ruling permitting the word fuck in some contexts. Powell is pushing to ban the word from nearly all broadcasts and in nearly all contexts. [via Politechbot and Metafilter]Permalink | |
Subtle censorship
Kids' books face censorship over gay charactersMartha Freeman got the bad news at lunch from her publisher and literary agent. Although "The Trouble With Babies" had received good reviews, the sales of her children's book about a young San Francisco girl were poor compared with the first title in her series, and the paperback rights would not be sold.
The reason: A brief passage...about two gay fathers and their adopted son apparently had discouraged many librarians across the United States from buying the title....
Freeman's publisher now wants her to write a third book in the series, but that leaves her with a question: Fight the censorship and retain the gay characters, or leave them out in the hopes of selling more books? [via ArtsJournal]Permalink | |
Profanity bill before Congress
In October, the FCC ruled that Bono's use of the phrase "this is really, really fucking brilliant" during the Golden Globe awards did not violate federal laws prohibiting indecent programming. The FCC's reasoning was that Bono's remarks were "fleeting and isolated" and did not "describe or depict sexual or excretory actitivities and organs." According to this ruling, the FCC has previously allowed the use of such words, used as insults, to stand, which I suppose means that under the current FCC regime, one could get away with calling the president a "cocksucker" on national television. Even a cursory Google search will turn up page after page by conservative and religious groups incensed by this ruling. Perhaps in response, California Republican Doug Ose and Texas Republican Lamar Smith introduced a bill in the House banning the use of such words. It'll be interesting to see where this goes. I'm sure the debate on this bill will be the very first time ever that any Congressperson has uttered the words cunt or asshole, so I'm happy to have them guiding the ship of American morality. [via Metafilter]Permalink | |
License
I've added an explicit disclaimer to my Colophon today, which explains the rights to anything you might find on this website. Most of my weblog pages already have a Creative Commons license, but I hadn't yet applied that license to my longer writings or to my photographs. Today, however, I got an e-mail from someone in Brazil, saying they'd found a couple of my pictures in a Google search, and asking whether they could use one of those pictures in a photo montage. I granted permission so long as the person credits me for the work and doesn't sell the photo. I think it's so cool that someone in Brazil likes my photos enough to reuse one.Permalink | |
Google, googling, googled, have googled...
Google calls in the 'language police': "Google is now a verb, meaning to search. It sounds like the ultimate compliment to the company, so why do its lawyers want to keep the word out of our dictionaries?" [BBC.com, via MetaFilter]
Permalink | |
Supreme Court upholds library filtering
High court OK's Internet filters for public libraries. The decision adds latitude for shielding kids from porn, but curbs free speech. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]
Permalink | |
PC destructobot Hatch: Porn and stolen software
Hatch Site Hides X-Rated Link. Earlier this week, Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch was caught using unlicensed software on his website. While his staff scrambled to fix that problem, Web surfers discovered his site had a link to a pornographic website. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News]
<scoff>
Permalink | |
Orrin Hatch to downloaders: We'll destroy your computers
According to an AP report, reposted on Salon, Sen. Orrin Hatch "favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet."
Full story on Salon
The poets are losing.
Permalink | |
"The poets are losing"
John Palfrey is blogging from the Internet Law 2003 Conference, at Harvard Law School. The title quote comes from a discussion of John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. As Palfrey explains:
One of the lawyers in the class says "it's dated." Why, we ask? "The poets are losing," he says.
The poets are losing. I wonder just how "independent" cyberspace truly is.
Permalink | |
CNN: Millionaires populate U.S. Senate
Of the millionaires, by the millionaires, and for the millionaires.
Nothing new, but still sickening.
Permalink | |
Petition to preserve the public domain
Lessig comments:
We have launched a petition to build support for the Public Domain Enhancement Act. That act would require American copyright holders to pay $1 fifty years after a work was published. If they pay the $1, the copyright continues. If they don’t, the work passes into the public domain. Historical estimates would suggest 98% of works would pass into the pubilc domain after 50 years. The Act would do a great deal to reclaim a public domain.
This proposal has received a great deal of support. It is now facing some important lobbyists’ opposition. We need a public way to begin to demonstrate who the lobbyists don’t speak for. This is the first step.
If you are an ally in at least this cause, please sign the petition. Please blog it, please email it, please spam it, please buy billboards about it — please do whatever you can. And most importantly, please help us explain its importance. There is a chance to do something significant here. But it will take a clearer, simpler voice than mine.
Permalink | |
Judge Posner on Plagiarism
Judge Richard Posner wrote, earlier this week, a concise and short essay for Newsday about plagiarism:
...Plagiarism can be a form of fraud, but it is no accident that, unlike real theft, it is not a crime. If a thief steals your car, you are out the market value of the car; but if a writer copies material from a book you wrote, you don't have to replace the book. At worst, the undetected plagiarist obtains a reputation that he does not deserve (that is the element of fraud in plagiarism)....
...Plagiarism of work in the public domain is more common than otherwise. Consider a few examples: "West Side Story" is a thinly veiled copy (with music added) of "Romeo and Juliet," which in turn plagiarized Arthur Brooke's "The Tragicall Historye of Romeo and Juliet," published in 1562, which in turn copied from several earlier Romeo and Juliets, all of which were copies of Ovid's story of Pyramus and Thisbe....
...Judges, who try to conceal rather than to flaunt their originality, far from crediting their predecessors with original thinking like to pretend that there is no original thinking in law, that judges are just a transmission belt for rules and principles laid down by the framers of statutes or the Constitution....
The whole essay's worth reading, so go check it out.
Permalink | |
A history of the music industry
From the music sheet to the MP3. From Sheet Music to MP3: Music through the 20th Century Among the current notices of legal online music stores finally coming of age across the 'Net, this is a lengthy but quite deep and interesting analysis (deepest I've seen so far) on how the music industry ended up being what it is today, how "pop" music came to be, and more. If anything, it shows how corporate greed and shady business practices are far from being a recent happening in the industry everybody loves to hate. The study ends with the state of the industry circa 1999, but that makes it no less valuable. [MetaFilter]
This looks like a remarkable document. It's long (34 pages, printed), which means I haven't read it yet, but it's definitely worth looking over if you want to understand why the music industry acts as it does.
Lessig at Cooper Union
Lessig spoke at Cooper Union on Monday evening. His speech was titled Free Culture: The Struggle to Liberate Creativity and the Internet from the Law. He explained, using Walt Disney as an example, how creative types have always appropriated ideas and images from others when building their own creations. "Steamboat Willie," the animated short that introduced Mickey Mouse, was based in large part on a Buster Keaton movie, Steamboat Bill, Jr.
The digital age, Lessig argues, makes it much easier to use existing culture in such innovative ways. Digital video, sampling, and other technologies make it simple for an artist to create a digital collage of sound or image. The threat to this innovation is a growing body of law that protects the interests of copyright holders--which, more and more, are large corporations operating in an age of increased media concentration.
This is really just a quick-and-dirty summary. His talk was interesting, although I've encounted the main ideas before, in his writings and in those of other commentators.
Finally getting into Cooper Union was also a treat. The centerpiece of the CU campus is an imposing large stone building near Astor Place. That thing is so solid, I suspect that thing could survive a direct nuclear assault. It opened in the 1850s and among the first speakers to grace its halls was Abraham Lincoln.
Permalink | |
Economist discusses digital music
The Economist covers the lay of the digital music land. [via GrepLaw]
I keep telling myself I have something intelligent to say about all this, but I haven't taken the time yet to write it all down. Feh to my busy damn life.
Permalink | |
Judge rules in favor of Grokster and Streamcast
Federal judge Stephen Wilson ruled Friday that P2P networks Grokster and Streamcast cannot be held responsible for the actions of their users. Wilson wrote:
Grokster and Streamcast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represented Streamcast in the case.
[links: New York Times; CNET; Wired News; Lessig's commentary; EFF; PDF of decision]
Permalink | |
Semantic Blog
the fight for semantics. Jon Udell's got a nice piece about the emergingly Semantic Blog. One part he missed was the emergence of CC licenses as part of the semantic blog space. Movabletype and Userland now both incorporate CC license options. The technique we've used with html has been questioned, but we are pushing hard to get RDF out there.... [Lessig Blog]
I haven't read these documents yet, but I did some Semantic Web work in my master's program, and it fascinates me. Once the Radio implementation of the CC license rolls out (if it hasn't already), I'll look into putting it in my site. Cool stuff.
Permalink | |
Amazon.com ordered to turn over customer's records; ruling currently on hold
Internet privacy battle plays out in Charleston
In a decision that threatened the privacy of online purchases, a federal magistrate in Charleston ordered the nation's largest online bookseller on Thursday to turn over its records of a Walterboro real estate broker's book purchases.
Minutes later, though, in a separate hearing, U.S. District Judge David Norton put a hold on federal Magistrate Robert Carr's ruling against Amazon.com.
[from Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier, via Privacy Digest]
In a federal case, Calvert Huffines is on trial for receiving child pornography. Amazon.com, which of course doesn't sell pornography, was subpoenaed by the U.S. government, requesting records relating to Huffines purchases. Information about these purchases "would help the government prove he has a sexual interest in children."
The article ends by saying:
The government's attempt to get Amazon's records is similar to court battles over what books former White House intern Monica Lewinsky ordered and books purchased by suspected drug dealers in Colorado. In 1998, Lewinsky wanted to keep private her book purchases. The federal court in the District of Columbia agreed with her. In April 2002, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that a bookstore did not have to tell a Denver drug task force who purchased two books on how to make drugs.
This also calls to mind the reporters who dug through Robert Bork's video-rental records during his confirmation hearings and attempts by the government under the Patriot Act to access library records.
Permalink | |
Report criticizes Google's porn filters
A report released this week by the Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society finds that Google's SafeSearch feature excludes many innocuous Web pages from search-result listings, including ones created by the White House, IBM, the American Library Association and clothing company Liz Claiborne. By Declan McCullagh. [CNET News]
Full CNET story; Berkman Center report
Permalink | |
Hawash held without charges; bail denied
Intel Coder Not Going Anywhere. A judge orders that an Intel engineer being held without charges in a terrorism investigation will be detained until at least the end of the month. His family and friends continue to protest his detention. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News]
Update on the Hawash case.
Permalink | |
Supreme Court upholds cross-burning ban
High court upholds ban on cross burning. A particularly virulent form of intimidation not protected by speech rights. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]
If I can scrape two spare minutes together, I need to track down the text of this decision. I've developed a strange glee for reading Supreme Court rulings.
Permalink | |
Why we may never regain the liberties that we've lost
In the wake of CFP2003, Dan Gillmor surveys the state of liberty in America.
...the architecture of tomorrow is being embedded with the tools of a surveillance society: ubiquitous cameras; the creation and linking of all manner of databases; insecure networks; and policies that invite abuse. They are being put into place by an unholy, if loose, alliance of government, private industry and just plain nosy regular folks.
...
Meanwhile, under cover of a war that has caused the news media to ignore other important news, the Bush administration issued an order that will guarantee the wrongful arrests or harassment of innocent people. The Justice Department told the FBI it no longer needed to worry about the accuracy of its National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database containing 39 million criminal records, including some documents that would barely pass the gossip hurdle.
Think about that last bit for a moment. Criminal records no longer need to be accurate. In the name of "security," are we willing to lock up the wrong person just so we feel safer? If there's a rapist on the streets, and the cops arrest a guy, sure you're going to feel safer. But if the police have arrested the wrong guy, based on "inaccurate" policing, you won't actually be any safer because the real rapist is out on the streets.
Likewise, we might feel safer knowing that the FBI have detained men like Maher Hawash, but if it turns out he really does know nothing about terrorist groups, his detention won't have helped prevent future terrorist attacks in any way. We'd be no more secure. Are we willing to sacrifice the civil rights of men like Hawash just so we can feel more secure?
Permalink | |
U. S. Citizen detained as material witness
Boing Boing brings to my attention the case of Maher "Mike" Hawash, a software engineer being held without charges in Oregon. Hawash was detained on the morning of Thursday, March 20, in the parking lot of an Intel facility, where he was working. At the same time, several armed FBI agents awoke Hawash's wife and children and searched their home.
Hawash is scheduled to receive a hearing on Monday morning, at the Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
Hawash has so far been charged with no crime. Palestinian by birth, he's been a U.S. citizen for over 10 years. At issue here appear to be two contributions Hawash made in 2000 to Global Relief Foundation, an Islamic charity in Illinois that came under FBI scrutiny after the events of September 11. The government suspects Global Relief's leaders of ties to Al Qaeda and believes that Global Relief channelled funds to terrorist organizers.
I say "appear" because Hawash's attorney and his family and friends still have no idea why he's been arrested. Remember, Hawash has not been charged. Futhermore, Hawash's friends also maintain that Hawash himself had no knowledge of possible links between Global Relief and terrorism and believed Global Relief to be a legitimate charity.
Hawash is being held as a material witness. Although material-witness laws require the government to first obtain a warrant before detaining a material witness, those laws also allow courts to seal those records, which has been done in Hawash's case. So even though the FBI presented evidence to a judge explaining why they wanted Hawash, that evidence is sealed and unavailable to Hawash's family.
Detainment is ordinarily supposed to prevent a material witness from fleeing the country, but Hawash's friends argue that with a wife, children, and a successful career as a software engineer, Hawash has every reason to remain in Oregon.
Permalink | |
Feinstein Introduces 2003 Privacy Act
Feinstein Introduces Privacy Act of 2003
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) hopes to stem the rising tide of identity theft and other privacy abuses with legislation setting a national standard for protection of personal information, including Social Security numbers, driver's licenses and health and financial data.
This legislation, known as The Privacy Act of 2003 (S. 745), establishes a two-tiered system of protection for all personal information. For the most sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers, Feinstein's bill calls for an opt-in system that requires companies to obtain an individual's explicit permission prior to the sale, licensing, or renting of the information to third parties.
For non-sensitive personal information such as names and addresses, companies that wish to collect, sell, or market that data must give individuals an opportunity to withhold their personal information if they so choose.
[dc.internet.com via GrepLaw; full text in first link] The PDF on this is 91 pages, but I want to look this over anyway; it's an important bill that's worth study and discussion.Permalink | |
CFP hotel violates guests' privacy
A Hotel's Privacy Invasion. I will not be staying again at the Ramada New Yorker hotel, the site of the just-ended Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
Dan Gillmor reports on his experiences with the Ramada New Yorker, which demanded photocopies of his drivers license and credit card.Permalink | |
CFP2003 audio files now available
I'm such a geek. I just downloaded the audio files from Wednesday's plenaries and keynotes. Next step is to load them to my iPod so's I can listen on the train tomorrow. Next best thing to being there, although one thing I greatly enjoyed about CFP2002 was meeting many interesting people. Mad love to Privacy Digest for pointing these out.Permalink | |
CFP audio files available online
Barry Steinhardt's notice from the front page of the CFP 2003 site:...I am pleased to announce that audio recordings of all the plenary sessions and keynote addresses will be posted on this site at the end of each day during the conference. The audio files will be available both in a streaming format and for download as MP3s.
This is excellent news for me, since my work schedule and finances will keep me from attending this year. And as my roommate just pointed out to me, I can stick the MP3s on my iPod and listen on the train! Anna, if you're around, this means you'll probably be able to hear Lessig's keynote. I really need to email these people with my gratitude.Permalink | |
"Revolution OS" released without CSS protection
What's So Free About This DVD?. A documentary filmmaker who labored for years on a film about open-source software programmers -- including Linus Torvalds -- releases it on DVD, without any copyright protection. He hopes people won't pirate it. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News]
Jessamyn on PATRIOT Act
Uber-cool librarian Jessamyn West discusses USA Patriot, its effects on libraries, and why you should care:You should care about the PATRIOT Act if you frequent libraries or bookstores, use pay phones, use an Internet service provider, go to school, go to the doctor, use credit cards or banks, have a lawyer, leave the country, go to jail, belong to an activist organization, read alternative publications [like this one] or know anyone who is contemplating any of the above activities, or maybe if you’re just a fan of freedom or the Bill of Rights. Why? Because the assumptions you may be making about your privacy, and your right to it, may be all wrong. Your rights to do all of these things, or do them free of surveillance and/or harassment, have changed in the past two years.
[Slingshot, via BoingBoing; see more Jessamyn at Jessamyn.com and librarian.net]Permalink | |
Putting the Blinders Back on Big Brother
BusinessWeek on creeping BigBrotherism (follow link for full story):In wartime, privacy and civil liberties are usually among the casualties. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the right of prisoners to petition their case before a judge. Woodrow Wilson approved the arrest of pacifists during World War I. And Franklin D. Roosevelt interned thousands of Japanese Americans in World War II. All three arguably made the wrong decision. But all three also reversed those excesses when the conflicts ended.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11 -- and with the U.S. invasion of Iraq now in full force -- the balance is once again shifting toward security at the expense of privacy.
[From BusinessWeek Online, via Privacy Digest]Permalink | |
CFP 2003 still a go
13th Annual Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy will go on. CFP 2003 will go on as planned in New York from April 2-4. [Privacy Digest]
Permalink | |
Cuban journos jailed
Online Journalists Jailed in Cuba. The Cuban government has arrested 10 independent journalists, most of whom publish their work on the Internet. Havana says the reporters are part of a U.S. effort to foment political opposition in the country. By Julia Scheeres. [Wired News]
I have a hard time accepting that the Bush administration understands the Web well enough to even try to "foment political opposition" via the Internet.Permalink | |
La. public school outs student, forces him to read Bible
ACLU challenges Little Rock school for harassing gay student
The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging officials at Little Rock, Ark.'s Jacksonville Junior High School over what it says is repeated punishment of a 14-year-old student for being openly gay. In a letter to school officials sent Thursday, the ACLU demanded that the school stop violating the student's rights and remove all unconstitutional disciplinary actions taken against him from his record by March 21 or face legal action. In its letter, the ACLU said that that school officials "outed" the gay student, Thomas McLaughlin, to his parents against his wishes and have since told him he must not discuss being gay while at school, forced him to read from the Bible, and disciplined him for being open about his sexual orientation.
[From Advocate.com, via MetaFilter; full story at link]Permalink | |
Do mass e-mails equal trespassing, or free speech?
E-Mail Case Goes to Trial Again. The California Supreme Court will hear arguments over a lower court's ruling that e-mail from a disgruntled former Intel engineer to his former co-workers are a form of virtual trespassing. By Julia Scheeres. [Wired News]
The guy emailed 30,000 former co-workers to rant about Intel. Two courts have now decided it's the equivalent of trespassing, and now it goes before the California Supreme Court. Intriguing.Permalink | |
Forbes on the Eldred Act
Lessig writes:So I received a copy of the March 31 issue of Forbes (not yet online), with a note from the editor in chief: "You might be interested in one of the editorials on page 28." On page 27-28, Steve Forbes endorses the proposal of the Eldred Act. More good news about progress on that front soon, but I am proud to count Mr. Forbes as someone who gets it. Now if we could only find an equivalently prominent Democrat. [Lessig Blog]
Permalink | |
Benetton tracks customers using smart tags
What Your Clothes Say About You. Clothing designer Benetton plans to weave radio frequency ID chips into its garment tags. While Benetton is poised to save money by tracking the clothes with RFID, it could also mean a loss of customers' privacy. By Elisa Batista. [Wired News]
What the hell, everyone else is blogging on this. The gist of this is, these ID chips will be woven into the tags, and anyone with the proper equipment can scan you and learn whether you're wearing Benetton clothes. Now, this will help Benetton track its merchandise, from manufacture to point of sale, much more efficiently, but privacy advocates worry about the implications.Permalink | |
BALANCE Act
U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has introduced a bill into Congress that's designed to protect fair use rights. The gist of it is to modify those portions of the DMCA that prevent consumers from fair use of copyrighted materials. [PDF text of bill; section-by-section analysis of bill.]Permalink | |
Microsoft gets takedown of infringing site
Microsoft speaks, site goes dark. Neowin.net was knocked offline for nearly 24 hours in an uncommonly harsh application of a widely used Internet copyright enforcement tool. [CNET News.com]
Permalink | |
3rd Circuit Appeals Court nixes COPA
Wired News: Court Nixes Child Net Porn Law. The court said that in practice, the law made it too difficult for adults to view material protected by the First Amendment, including many non-pornographic sites. The law, signed by President Clinton and endorsed by President Bush, has never been enforced. [Tomalak's Realm]
Courts have made this argument before: Taking away the rights of adults, in the interest of protecting children, is not kosher. The full text of the decision is online, in PDF format.Permalink | |
Berkeley PL Protects Patrons' Privacy
"Jackie told us that Travis Air Force Base phoned soon after 9/11, asking for records related to the possible use of a Berkeley Public computer to attempt to hack into their system. The call was refered to her, the director. When she told them a subpoena was needed they pointed out that their need for this information was critical. She said that she wanted to help them as much as she could and that a subpoena was required. She also told them how little information they have about their users. They did not come back with the subpoena.
At Berkely Public, they 'erase the servers' every night and shred the paper signup sheets. Circulation records are deleted as soon as material is checked in. (No time lag as we have)" [Retrofitted Librarian by way of The Shifted Librarian]
Permalink | |
Intellectual Freedom in a Time of War
From the March 2003 newsletter of the American Studies Association.Intellectual Freedom in a Time of War
... Free and frank intellectual inquiry is under assault by overt legislative acts and by a chilling effect of secrecy and intimidation in the government, media and on college campuses. This atmosphere hinders our ability to fulfill our role as educators: to promote public debate, conduct scholarly research, and most importantly, teach our students to think freely and critically and to explore diverse perspectives. Democracy is predicated on the right to question our government and leaders openly and to express dissent without fear. We are told, in fact, that our nation is ready to go to war to protect this precious freedom. The threat of war should not restrict public debate, as it often has in our nation's past. Vigorous debate and the widest possible discussion are crucial to the health of our democracy....
The full document is at the link, but dig this: "Democracy is predicated on the right to question our government and leaders openly and to express dissent without fear."Permalink | |
Sixth Circuit okays sucks domains
Highest Court Yet Says "Sucks.com" Domains OK [GrepLaw]The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that using sucks domains (in this case, taubmansucks.com) does not violate trademark protections. Opponents of sucks.com domains claim that their use causes marketplace confusion. This of course seems ridiculous. No reasonable person would expect Pepsico to market its products at the Web site pepsisucks.com. The appeals court seems to agree.
This means, of course, you're free to open michaeldietschsucks.com, if you care enough to do so.Permalink | |
A Fair Balance?
Digital Music Fans Get a Break in Europe. The European Commission has presented a draft directive that punishes copyright infringement for commercial purposes, but leaves the home music downloader untouched, infuriating the entertainment industry. [PC World]
Permalink | |
Supreme Court denies Barbie case
The Supreme Court today denied MCA's petition to hear its appeal regarding the Barbie Girl case. As you might recall, Mattel sued MCA saying the record label violated Mattel's Barbie trademarks. MCA won in lower courts on grounds that Barbie Girl is a clear parody. More here.Permalink | |
Congress sets limits on TIA
Both Parties Wary of Data Mining. An amendment to a spending bill that requires the Pentagon to spill the beans to Congress on its Total Information Awareness project gets bipartisan support. Privacy advocates see it as a step in the right direction. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
Strange. I'd post this article just for its content, but you might remember that its writer, Ryan Singel, is my cousin. Worlds colliding and all that.Permalink | |
Economist calls for copyright overhaul
Copyrights: a radical rethink Dramatically shorter terms--possibly even 14 years with one renewal--but with a price: stringent enforcement of copy-protection laws. I'd accept that tradeoff, but only as long as copying for fair use were still possible.Permalink | |
Tax on the poor?
Critique of Lessig's Copyright Tax Suggestion [GrepLaw] Some say Lessig's "compromise" punishes the poor. I wonder, though: Will my kids even know I had a Web log, let alone ever choose to protect its copyright?Permalink | |
The Eldred Compromise
Here's an idea: According to Justice Breyer, in his dissent to the Eldred decision, only 2% of work copyrighted between 1923 and 1942 is currently being commercially exploited. That means the remaining 98%--books, music, movies, etc.--is commercially unavailable. Anyone who wants to use that work in any way must find the original copyright holder to first secure permissions before that material in any form. So if you run a film archive, and you want to restore and present a film from 1928, you must first find the current copyright holder. But what do you do if that copyright holder is dead, and his or her estate is unreachable? Larry Lessig (yes, him again) offers a compromise: Require copyright holders to pay a small tax--Lessig suggest 50 bucks--to reregister a copyright 50 years after a work is published. The name and contact information of that copyright holder then goes on record. If the copyright holder fails to pay this tax for three consecutive years, the work enters the public domain. This provides artists or musicians or filmmakers or writers an easy way to determine who holds copyright to a work and seek permission to exploit that work in some way. This also protects the 2% of work that is commercially exploitable, while allowing the other 98% to enter the public domain.Permalink | |
Persecuting Pee-wee
Richard Goldstein writes in this week's Village Voice about the recent arrest of actor Paul Reubens on child-porn charges. It's an interesting article that I urge you to read. If Goldstein's sources are correct regarding the evidence against Reubens, the case, from an ethical perspective, seems pretty shaky. Goldstein explains that Reubens collects vintage erotica--photographs and magazines, most of it gay, from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. I might add here that similar materials exist in the archives of IU's Kinsey Institute. Goldstein writes:...Most of Reubens's collection would be considered softcore by current standards, but nestled among the many portraits of naked bronco busters and javelin throwers in posing straps—typical of the types that graced the pages of physique magazines—were a few dozen photos that could be contraband today, though they were quite legal when they first appeared.
During the '50s and '60s, no one was concerned that some models were underage, since they weren't shown having sex or even engaging in what tea-room graffiti of that era called "showing hard." Today these same images would qualify as child porn under a standard that has expanded so that it now includes not just hardcore images but photos of anyone under 18 displaying "sexual coyness" or a "lascivious" intent. As a collector of physique pictorials, Reubens could well possess such photos, because they were part of the mix.
[Physique magazines, I learned during a visit to the NYC Museum of Sex, were published as sort of above-ground gay porn. Physique mags depicted bodybuilders posing in such a way as to show off their musculature. Buyers were predominantly gay males.] Now, among Reubens's collection, Goldstein writes, "is what someone close to the defense describes as 'a few minutes of grainy footage' featuring teenage boys masturbating or having oral sex." Goldstein then asks whether Pee-wee knew this material was in his collection. Child-porn statutes generally require foreknowledge that material purchased violates the law. In this case, I suppose, ignorance of the law is an excuse. Goldstein at this point draws back from Reubens to consider a larger context. He mentions archivists who purchase entire collections without stopping to first examine every piece in what might be thousands of images. Archivists, as a rule, archive. To destroy once-legal material based on today's standards is "repugnant" to most archivists. Goldstein then steps back farther: "Is our obsession with child porn creating a climate where kids are commonly regarded as sex objects?" He doesn't use this example, but I will: Remember Miss Coppertone, the young girl from the Coppertone ads whose backside is exposed when a little dog pulls down her bathing suit? That image used to seem charming. Now, repeated news reports of pedophilia and child-porn arrests make that a little creepy. Don't believe me? Here's a link to an early version of the ad: http://www.mutoworld.com/BallentyneCoppertone.htm Now glance at the updated version on the Coppertone site: http://www.coppertone.com/ Oooooh. No more little-girl buttcrack.Permalink | |
EFF seeks noms for Pioneer Awards
From the EFF Web site:The Electronic Frontier Foundation established the Pioneer Awards to recognize leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology.
The International Pioneer Awards nominations are open to both individuals and organizations from any country.
I attended the Pioneer ceremony in San Francisco last year, and I hope to be there again this year in NYC. Did you realize that I've met (or just seen in person without meeting) many of the people about whom I blog?Permalink | |
NYT on Eldred
20-Year Extension of Existing Copyrights Is Upheld. The Supreme Court ruled that the extension Congress granted to all existing copyrights might have been bad policy but fell within Congress's authority. By Linda Greenhouse. [New York Times: Technology]
The Times piece has the advantage of less opining and more fact. I've really linked only to commentary up to now and not straight reporting. Justices Breyer and Stevens dissented in this 7-2 opinion. Anyone who's followed Justice Breyer's career even superficially (that'd be me, of course) should be unsurprised by his dissent. Breyer makes a powerful case against copyright extension in his 1970 Harvard Law Review article, "The Uneasy Case for Copyright: A Study of Copyright in Books, Photocopies, and Computer Programs," (84 Harv. L. Rev. 281).Permalink | |
Or, as Dan Gillmor puts it...
"...when Congress authorizes the entertainment industry to steal from you -- well, that's the American way." Full story
Permalink | |
Effect of Eldred ruling on public domain
Court Deaf to Public-Domain Pleas. The Supreme Court's decisive ruling to uphold a law extending copyrights for 20 years will force public-domain advocates to compete ever more fiercely with the powerful entertainment lobby. Michael Grebb reports from Washington. [Wired News]
I have to keep bringing this up, because it's important. In 1881, Carlo Lorenzini published The Adventures of Pinocchio. Pretend for a moment that current American copyright law applied, internationally, to work published in Italy. Pinocchio would be protected for the life of the author, plus 70 years. Lorenzini died 1890. Under current copyright law, Pinocchio would have entered the public domain in 1960. The lovable puppet, however, was free of copyright restrictions in 1940, when Disney adapted the book into an animated film. Disney and other movie studios have tapped deep into the public-domain well for over a century. Now, they've won a battle to keep you and me from the doing the same.Permalink | |
Supreme Court finds against Eldred
Eldred lost. I'd post more, but I'm hungry and I have comics to read. More later. Meanwhile, Larry Lessig, lead attorney in the case, has preliminary comments here along with links to the majority opinion and the two dissents. I'm going to read these opinions, by damn, although I can't guarantee I'll have anything smart to say in response.Permalink | |
Content providers and tech groups reach compromise
Music and Computer Companies Agree on Antipiracy Plan. The big record companies said today that they would not seek government intervention to prevent digital piracy. By Amy Harmon. [New York Times: Technology]
But really, does this change anything?Permalink | |
Blogspot blocked by Chinese
China blocks bloggers' sites [New Scientist] China's blocked the Blogspot domain. Anna, you out there? I guess you're now censored in China. Congratulations!Permalink | |
Doctorow responds to Gillmor
I posted earlier about Dan Gillmor's optimism regarding the copyright cartel. Cory Doctorow's a little more downbeat.Permalink | |
SpeechZilla vs. Trademark Kong
First came Victoria's Secret. Next up on the U.S. Supreme Court's trademark agenda: Barbie dolls.
At its private conference on Jan. 24, the Supreme Court will consider whether to grant review in dozens of cases including Mattel Inc. v. MCA Records Inc., No. 02-633. The Court will also meet in conference Jan. 17.
Mattel, which has manufactured and sold Barbie dolls since 1959, is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said MCA did not infringe the Barbie trademark when it marketed a Danish rock group's song "Barbie Girl."
Full article here. Does anyone remember that dumb song? These Goliath vs. Goliath battles are interesting to watch.Permalink | |
Cartel's copyright control loosening
LAS VEGAS - For several days last week, the cavernous convention halls here became battlefields in the copyright wars. On balance, the entertainment cartel didn't seem to be doing very well. full article
Dan Gillmor comments on new products, pending legislation, and court cases that appear to be weakening the hand of the copyright cartel.Permalink | |
Broadband wars
Broadband wars II. If you want to get an idea about how bad the broadband future will be, you need only read this letter from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association describing how good (from their perspective) the broadband future will be.... [Lessig Blog]
[Note: The "letter" that Lessig links to above is a large and slow-loading PDF file.] This longish blog entry by Larry Lessig discusses the future of broadband, in this case cable Internet access. The issue at stake is whether cable providers should have the right to discriminate in content provision. Think about this for a moment. If you have cable modem service through AOL Time Warner's Roadrunner division, and you want to download a movie trailer or a short film offered by Viacom's Paramount division, should Roadrunner have the right to deny you access to that content? Should Roadrunner have the right to slow down that content before it reaches your computer? Disney and Microsoft are leading a coalition that says, "No." Think about this for a moment. In this case, on this issue, Disney and Microsoft are the white hats. Their coalition apparently sent the FCC a letter urging regulation to prevent cable providers from discriminating against competitors' content. The NCTA have sent a letter taking the other side. This is important, if you're a broadband user. Whether you read these letters isn't that important. What's important is that you know this is going on.Permalink | |
Copyright Act
Critics Weigh In on Copyright Act. The U.S. Copyright Office asked for public comment on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it got it. Critics worry about everything from losing great art to restricting blind people's access to information. By Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]
Interesting article. I want to look later at the public comments in greater depth.Permalink | |
Norwegian DVD hacking case
Norwegian DVD hacking case goes to trial. Defendant pleads not guilty [InfoWorld: Top News] The Jon Johansen trial began today in Norway. Johansen is charged with cracking the CSS encryption scheme that's used to copy-protect DVDs. Johansen's stated goal in writing deCSS was to enable himself to back up his own, legally purchased, DVDs in case of damage or loss. With this going on in Norway, the ElcomSoft trial in California, and Eldred before the U.S. Supreme Court, this is an interesting time to watch the courts.Permalink | |
Freedom of information?
According to the Washington Post, AG Ashcroft is urging federal employees to deny FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. Goverment of the people, or goverment against the people?
Permalink | |
Federal info databases, la la la
Total Info System Totally Touchy. The U.S. government wants to create a massive database of Americans' personal information to help root out terrorists. Privacy advocates cry foul, and some in the industry aren't even sure it's technologically feasible. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
What do you think? Do you want the U.S. gubmint tracking your credit card and medical data? I just received a note in e-mail from EPIC, asking me to become a contributing member. I met some of the EPIC people when I was out in San Francisco earlier this year; they do good work, fighting for privacy rights and informing the public of privacy violations. I should seriously consider forking out the dough. By the way, the writer of that Wired piece mentioned above? I have a cousin by that name. Wonder if it's the same guy.Permalink | |
ElcomSoft trial starts Monday
California Trial Nears for Landmark Copyright Case. [Registration required.] SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Jury selection in the first criminal prosecution for alleged violations of U.S. digital copyright law will start on Monday in a Silicon Valley court, an attorney in the case said on Friday.
The closely watched case pits Russian software vendor ElcomSoft against federal prosecutors, who charge the Moscow-based firm violated the four-year-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act with a software program allowing users to manipulate material in Adobe Systems Inc.'s (ADBE.O) eBook format by getting around copyright safeguards.
By Reuters. [New York Times: Technology] Here's a question. You go out online and buy an e-book from, say, Amazon.com. You install Adobe's eBook reader to allow you to read the e-book, but you quickly learn that the eBook reader prevents you from running a text-to-speech program on the e-book. So, although you can read the book, your vision-impaired spouse cannot. "Ah," you say. "I'll write a program that converts this e-book from the proprietary eBook standard into a PDF file! I have a PDF reader that will let us run text-to-speech." Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, you've broken the law by circumventing the restrictions Adobe put in place to protect copyright owners. ElcomSoft, the company on trial, is charged with illegally creating and distributing such a product. It's important to know that ElcomSoft's product works only on e-books that a user has legally purchased for his or her own use. If you've downloaded a pirated copy, you can't use the ElcomSoft product. One of the issues at stake here is, when you purchase an e-book, do you have the right to use that e-book as you see fit? Can you transfer it to another computer? Can you copy portions of it under fair-use guidelines? Can you "loan" the e-book to another user as you would, say, a physical book? The DMCA was written to allow publishers to restrict what you, a consumer, can do with digital media files. Is this legal? Is it ethical? The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an excellent FAQ available concerning the ElcomSoft case, including a list of activities that Adobe's software prohibits users from doing with e-books they've purchased.Permalink | |
Copyright and computer software
Efficiency, Innovation and Transparency [GrepLaw] Swedish attorney Mikael Pawlo has up a concise overview of copyright protection, open source, and free software licensing.Permalink | |
Redesigns, libraries, etc.
So, the site redesign and update are almost done. I need to cull dead links, tidy up the resume, and make sure all's smooth, but it should be up very soon. Perhaps surprisingly soon. Meanwhile. Saturday was a nice New York day for the Dietsch. I went on a tour, finally, of the NYPL in midtown. The big one with the lions, y'know. Anyway, with all the time I'd spent there, editing and stuff, it was nice to finally have a look around at the place. See things I didn't take the time to look at when I was making it my place of employment, y'know. I hung around after the tour and saw the NYC Eats exhibit, up on the third floor. Cool stuff. Lots of paper ephemera like menus and napkins from restaurants, diners, street vendors, and other food purveyors from New York's history. All of this is in the Library's collection. People don't think of libraries collecting menus and photographs and postcards, but you'd be amazed. I then headed down the Bowery, to CBGB's 313 Gallery, next door to the famous rock venue. 313 had a showing of Illegal Art. The idea is to represent artists who use corporate icons, slogans, or familiar characters in ways of which their owners might not approve. So Disney-character porno cartoons, for example, or Kieron Dwyer's riff on the Starbucks logo. If you read this blog--yeah, both of you--you can understand why this would attract me. Creative expression depends entirely on allowing people to take ideas and concepts from other sources, filtering those ideas through their own mindware, and creating something new. This ties in perfectly with the IP and copyright and cyberlaw stuff I've been following. I could go on, but I've been drinking, and I'm not sure I'd make much sense. Also, I'm not sure either of you want to hear it.Permalink | |
Copyright and IP stuff again.
Copyright and IP stuff again. I know, it ain't your bag, probably. Oh fucking well. But this is more ha-ha than zzz-zzz, so be cool. I was out at St. Mark's Bookshop tonight and I bought a couple issues of 2600, along with the paperback edition of Laurence Lessig's latest book, The Future of Ideas. My interest in copyright and IP stuff went on hold while I moved, found a place to live, found a job, and so on, but now I can pay more attention to these things again. Anyway, I started reading Lessig's book tonight. I'm not far in yet, but it's interesting. Remember the days, about six years ago, when everyone said the Internet would revolutionize communication and entertainment? "Watch out, big boys," they all said. "When consumers can get music and movies and books over the Internet, why will they need cable or record stores or Borders, eh? It's a new world, old media, so adapt or get the hell out of the way." So, it's 2002, and where are we? Napster is dead. Audiogalaxy, dead. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act have double-teamed the American public, stifling innovation and keeping older works from entering the public domain. Someone "adapted" in the old vs. new media war, and it sure wasn't old media. These are the issues Lessig covers. And, really, I've been meaning to read his book for months. But it took until now. So, I sat and read about 30 pages tonight and then I got to thinking, "Hmmm. Anna Mojo has been discussing IP stuff off and on in her Web log also. I wonder whether she has anything new on this." Go have a peek and see what I saw when I got on her log. Maybe you'll chuckle as I did.Permalink | |
ILaw conference
ILaw, a conference on Internet law, is held this week at Harvard University. Thank god Dan Gillmor and Donna Wentworth are covering this; even student registration was $1000. [Gillmore: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5; Wentworth] I've read most of Gillmor's first day, skimmed his second, lighly glanced over the third, and really only blinked at Wentworth's coverage so far. There's a lot there. It sounds like a fascinating conference.Permalink | |
DeCSS
In unsurprising news, 2600 Magazine and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have abandoned their appeals over the DeCSS ruling that forced 2600 to remove DeCSS and links to DeCSS from its site. [Press releases: EFF, 2600.] As Declan McCullagh points out, 2600 and EFF have only limited resources to pursue this appeal. The chances that the Supreme Court would find on their behalf are slim.Permalink | |
Silence
Is it possible to copyright silence? Note to self: Hey, dummy, John Cage is not the guy from the Velvet Underground.Permalink | |
Audiogalaxy
cnet has an editorial about the Audiogalaxy closure. Eliot Van Buskirk supports an idea I asserted here--nuking file sharing across the board removes access not only to illegally distributed works, but legitimate files as well. He also looks at reasons behind the shuttering of Audiogalaxy and possible implications for future filesharing. Well worth a read.Permalink | |
Dirty thoughts under attack
In other legislative news, COPPA (the Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act) has passed the House. If the Senate approves, it will be illegal to create or possess any computer-generated image that appears to depict a minor. In other words, no minor needs to have actually been harmed in the creation of this image. The Supreme Court, earlier this year, struck down a similar law, judging that it punished dirty thoughts.Permalink | |
Peer to peer under attack
Gleaned from Metafilter: There's a bill before Congress that would allow copyright holders to launch denial of service attacks on peer-to-peer networks. Again, we're seeing that the only way that Hollywood and Washington know how to deal with file sharing is with the bluntest instruments possible. Denial of service attacks would block not just illegal uses of file sharing, but legitimate ones as well. I'll go surfing later and try to find the actual text of the bill.Permalink | |
Domain name disputes
The New York Times ran an item this morning [registration required] about a new report, looking at the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, an arbitration system set up to resolve domain name disputes. What happens when two people or organizations battle for control of a certain domain name? Domain names are those strings in the address bar of your browser: www.michaeldietsch.com, for example, is a domain name. If a company were to begin doing business as, say, Michael Dietsch Enterprises, Inc., the owners could attempt to prove that my use of michaeldietsch.com infringes on their right to further their business activities. Similar domain name disputes have arisen over nissan.com, madonna.com, and brucespringsteen.com. This report, written by Dr. Milton Mueller, an associate professor in the School of Information at Syracuse University, looks at 3800 such disputes, studying how the current arbitration system addresses and resolves them. The report also recommends improvements to the system. The report is available online in PDF format, along with a database containing information about the first 3800 cases arbitrated by this system. Here you'll find links to the report and to the database. Dr. Mueller has also written Ruling the Root, a new book about Internet governance, available through MIT Press. Given my growing interest in Internet law and policy, the report, its accompanying database, and this book should make for nice, light, summer reading.Permalink | |
CFPin'
With a funny and insightful speech from writer Bruce Sterling, CFP2002 drew to a close this afternoon. I know I've had little to say thus far about the conference, but I greatly enjoyed it, I learned a lot, and I have much to think about--many things that I never really considered before. I'll give a full update somewhere on my site when I return. Despite having had little to say thus far about CFP, I've been mentioned on a couple CFP-related Web logs, to my surprise. I'm mentioned at cfp2002.blogspot.com and also on David Singer's blog. I chatted at some length this morning with Mr. Singer. He has a list of CFP-related blogs that you should see if you wanna know more. I've skimmed some of these, and they look great. Those of you who've talked to me about attending next year should read all these Web logs, to a feel for the CFP culture--and believe me, there's a definite CFP culture. This evening, I'm off to James Sime's Tiki party, somewhere in Oakland. James runs Comics and Da-Kind and he's hosting a party associated with Wonder Con. Tomorrow evening is Comic Relief's 15th Anniversary party. Unless it rains, I probably won't be at Wonder Con itself. There's simply too much cool stuff in San Francisco to warrant spending all day inside. I need to figure out where the hell this Tiki party is, get directions, and suss out how to get to Oakland on BART. Otherwise, I'm feeling wistful already about my time in SF winding down. I leave Sunday morning and I'm already beginning to miss it here. Le sigh.... We have one functional Internet kiosk now in the hostel, so this'll probably be my last Blog entry before I leave. I probably won't have much email access either.Permalink | |
CFPin'
My conference started yesterday and I suspect it'll keep me pretty busy the rest of the week, so expect less frequent updates. And, really, expect less interesting updates, assuming the updates have been interesting at all to this point. The conference has been fascinating, learning about Constitutional law, the PATRIOT act, and biometric identification techniques--so far. Tonight was the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Awards, given annually to those who've helped shaped the Internet, computer technology, or freedom and privacy issues. Among this year's winners were the Norwegian teens who cracked encryption on DVDs and created DeCSS to play DVDs on Linux. John Perry Barlow, who co-founded EFF and who also wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead, was in attendance. Dude entered like a rockstar, with rockstar wife and rockstar clothes. We heard today from California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, a genuinely warm and witty man who's support for privacy issues is commendable. Very cool speech on his part. More later.Permalink | |
CFP2002
I've just been awarded a stipend to attend the CFP2002 conference in April in San Francisco. CFP stands for Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, and guests include the attorney general of California, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and science fiction author Bruce Sterling. Topics include constitutional law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, efforts to create a national identity card, restrictions on information in the wake of September 11, hacktivism (hacking in the name of activism--in this case, human rights), intellectual property, and public records versus personal privacy. I'm really excited about this. I can't believe they awarded me money!Permalink | |