Anita Ramasastry has done a typically incisive analysis of the privacy issues related to the recent JetBlue case and the US government's proposals on the CAPPS11. The 1974 Privacy Act in the US only relates to databases compiled by the government and does not cover government's access to private sector databases.
"Soon, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) - which was
involved in the JetBlue data transfer - will begin to implement CAPPS II.
CAPPS II will attempt to update and revamp the existing federal no-fly
list program by employing the same kind of private sector data that
JetBlue provided to Torch Concepts.
Disturbingly, however, CAPPS II currently lacks meaningful privacy and
due process safeguards. Thus, not only should the Privacy Act be
amended, but so should the CAPPS II proposal.
Otherwise, consumers may find that data that they have provided to
companies in the private sector is now being used to target them for the
same scrutiny would-be terrorists receive. "
The defense contractor that analysed the data on 5 million JetBlue passengers, had been contracted by the army "to determine how information from public and private records
might be analyzed to help defend military bases from attack by terrorists
and other adversaries."
The contractor synthesised the JetBlue data with data bought from a large aggregating company and created a set of profiles:
(1) Young Middle Income Home Owners with Short
Length-of-Residence; (2) Older Upper Income Home Owners with
Longer Length-of-Residence; and (3) travellers with "anomalous
records."
As Prof Ramasastry says, "The third category, by definition, might potentially include renters,
students with both home and school addresses, older persons who have
moved recently, and persons with low incomes. Of course, such persons
are in some senses the norm in America. Yet the program may have
deemed them "anomalous" - and, thus a risk from a security standpoint. "
The other problem comes when there are errors in the data or it gets misused by the various actors (or their employees) engaged in the processing or transfer of the data.
The guy that is trying to sell his electronic voting machines to Ohio state, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed
to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." If you read in a novel you wouldn't believe it. Not, of course, suggesting that we should believe everything we read on the Net. Although, Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc., has been reported as having said similar things in the past.
Thursday, October 02, 2003
Monday, September 29, 2003
I've just lost a large post on electronic voting machines when IE Explorer crashed and I don't have the time to re-generate it, so I'll just point to this flash animation and a Salon article on alleged irregularities on the development of standards on same.
Insightful essay by science fiction writer Orson Scott Card on the problems the music industry is having with MP3s. He has a solution to the copyright term debate too,
"Twenty years after the author's
death or the author's hundredth birthday,
whichever comes last -- that's a workable
standard to provide for the author and his
or her immediate heirs. It comes to an end,
and the work enters the public domain as it
should.
And let's eliminate this nonsense about
corporate authorship. If a corporation
claims to be the "author" for copyright
purposes, then the whole life of the
copyright should be twenty years, period.
They make most of their money in twenty
years, except on a handful of works that
enter the public consciousness...
If you changed the law that way, suddenly
"work for hire" contracts would disappear,
and the real creators would be treated
with more respect by the big companies --
because they'd much rather have a fair
contract with an author whose copyright
will last many decades than to have
outright "authorship" of a twenty-year
copyright."
"Twenty years after the author's
death or the author's hundredth birthday,
whichever comes last -- that's a workable
standard to provide for the author and his
or her immediate heirs. It comes to an end,
and the work enters the public domain as it
should.
And let's eliminate this nonsense about
corporate authorship. If a corporation
claims to be the "author" for copyright
purposes, then the whole life of the
copyright should be twenty years, period.
They make most of their money in twenty
years, except on a handful of works that
enter the public consciousness...
If you changed the law that way, suddenly
"work for hire" contracts would disappear,
and the real creators would be treated
with more respect by the big companies --
because they'd much rather have a fair
contract with an author whose copyright
will last many decades than to have
outright "authorship" of a twenty-year
copyright."
Friday, September 26, 2003
Legal theory blog.
Ernest Miller at Lawmeme. Everything at Lawmeme is worth a look but scroll down for Miller's recent postings on copynorms and thoughts about how to resolve the conflicts in the p2p wars.
Donna Wentworth at Copyfight says:
"If you've got any (copy)fight in you at all, you've been following the
debate over the past 2-3 weeks about how to resolve the P2P wars
peacably--that is,
without harming technological innovation and/or the Net;
without harming people and/or violating their rights;
without harming the creators, producers or publishers of
creative works; and
without (further) harming copyright law by (further) upsetting its
intended balance.
Or, as a subset of the above questions, you may have been asking
yourself
whether the RIAA's legal campaign against P2P users is in any
sense a rational or justified approach to resolving the current
conflicts, and
if it isn't, what are the rational approaches, and finally
what approach is EFF advocating? "
I'm afraid I haven't been keeping up for the past few weeks at all. Sorry Donna. :-( Still totally buried in electronic and paper administrative mountains. Plus my latest batch of 160 or so students are starting my OU course, based on Larry Lessig's book, The Future of Ideas.
Loads of copyfight discussions I need to catch up with and point to but I should mention that the amazing Seth Finkelstein has decided to call it a day on his censorware research. I can only wish him the best of luck in getting financial and legal protection and/or in whatever venture he decides to pursue in the future. As and EFF pioneer award winner, you can't top the plaudits this unsung hero got in 2001 for the work he has tirelessly and singlehandly pursued for many years. Nice thoughts from admirers don't pay the bills or provide legal protection in these litigious times however.
Ernest Miller at Lawmeme. Everything at Lawmeme is worth a look but scroll down for Miller's recent postings on copynorms and thoughts about how to resolve the conflicts in the p2p wars.
Donna Wentworth at Copyfight says:
"If you've got any (copy)fight in you at all, you've been following the
debate over the past 2-3 weeks about how to resolve the P2P wars
peacably--that is,
without harming technological innovation and/or the Net;
without harming people and/or violating their rights;
without harming the creators, producers or publishers of
creative works; and
without (further) harming copyright law by (further) upsetting its
intended balance.
Or, as a subset of the above questions, you may have been asking
yourself
whether the RIAA's legal campaign against P2P users is in any
sense a rational or justified approach to resolving the current
conflicts, and
if it isn't, what are the rational approaches, and finally
what approach is EFF advocating? "
I'm afraid I haven't been keeping up for the past few weeks at all. Sorry Donna. :-( Still totally buried in electronic and paper administrative mountains. Plus my latest batch of 160 or so students are starting my OU course, based on Larry Lessig's book, The Future of Ideas.
Loads of copyfight discussions I need to catch up with and point to but I should mention that the amazing Seth Finkelstein has decided to call it a day on his censorware research. I can only wish him the best of luck in getting financial and legal protection and/or in whatever venture he decides to pursue in the future. As and EFF pioneer award winner, you can't top the plaudits this unsung hero got in 2001 for the work he has tirelessly and singlehandly pursued for many years. Nice thoughts from admirers don't pay the bills or provide legal protection in these litigious times however.
Must read interview with Michael Perelman at info-commons. One quote:
"What we are doing is stifling ideas by creating an atmosphere of secrecy, of litigation, and of restriction, all of which will harm the system's ability to create important ideas in the long run. The idea that information should be private property is absolutely new, absolutely untested, and in my mind absolutely destructive. Again, I would go back to this question of long-term replenishment and say, "Where do you see the private incentives for long-term replenishment?" If you think about the way the system works today, the private sector is very, very good at taking deep, basic, scientific insights and eventually turning them into marketable commodities. But at the same time what they are doing is destroying the system of creating deep, basic, scientific insights by using their financial leverage to force science into devoting more attention to the moneymaking process."
I'd recommend his book, Steal this Idea
But what about that soundbite for the those concerned about the expansion of intellectual property rights beyond their productive boundaries:
"The idea that information should be private property is absolutely new, absolutely untested, and in my mind absolutely destructive."
Takes eight seconds to say, rather than the politicians' preferred maximum of four. But hey, we're trying to raise the level of the debate.
"What we are doing is stifling ideas by creating an atmosphere of secrecy, of litigation, and of restriction, all of which will harm the system's ability to create important ideas in the long run. The idea that information should be private property is absolutely new, absolutely untested, and in my mind absolutely destructive. Again, I would go back to this question of long-term replenishment and say, "Where do you see the private incentives for long-term replenishment?" If you think about the way the system works today, the private sector is very, very good at taking deep, basic, scientific insights and eventually turning them into marketable commodities. But at the same time what they are doing is destroying the system of creating deep, basic, scientific insights by using their financial leverage to force science into devoting more attention to the moneymaking process."
I'd recommend his book, Steal this Idea
But what about that soundbite for the those concerned about the expansion of intellectual property rights beyond their productive boundaries:
"The idea that information should be private property is absolutely new, absolutely untested, and in my mind absolutely destructive."
Takes eight seconds to say, rather than the politicians' preferred maximum of four. But hey, we're trying to raise the level of the debate.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
A CNN report on a pirate Harry Potter publisher in Venezuela is a reminder of why publishing houses get so upset about copyright infringement. A poor Spanish translation of the latest J.K. Rowling blockbuster is selling like hotcakes for the equivalent of $25. This is despite the fact that the translator admits on nearly every page that there were phrases and sentences s/he could not understand. The official Spanish language translation is not due for months and this character decided to fill a gap in the market.
Thanks to Siva Vaidhyanathan for pointing to this story about the battle between Ontario province in Canada and a US biotech company, Myriad Genetics, with a patent on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Testing for these can apparently help to predict a woman's risk of developing breast cancer where there is a history of the illness in the family. Myriad are threatening court action unless Ontario stop doing their version of the test, (which is done at one third of the cost and provides results two months faster). Similar threats against British Columbia last year led labs there to discontinue testing, according to the report cited.
Thanks to Siva Vaidhyanathan for pointing to this story about the battle between Ontario province in Canada and a US biotech company, Myriad Genetics, with a patent on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Testing for these can apparently help to predict a woman's risk of developing breast cancer where there is a history of the illness in the family. Myriad are threatening court action unless Ontario stop doing their version of the test, (which is done at one third of the cost and provides results two months faster). Similar threats against British Columbia last year led labs there to discontinue testing, according to the report cited.
Monday, September 08, 2003
The Foundation for Information Policy Research has released an important new report on the implementation of the EU copyright directive of 2001.
"Implementing the European Union
Copyright Directive
Ian Brown
Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and
related rights in the information society has proven more contentious than
its drafters foresaw. This EU Copyright Directive (EUCD), as it is
commonly known, allowed only 19 months for implementation by
Member States. But controversy in many of the fifteen States meant that
only Denmark and Greece met this deadline.
Given the experience in the United States with a similar piece of legislation
passed in 1998, this may be less surprising than it seems. The EUCD and
the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) both give new
protection to “technological measures:” systems that restrict the use of
literary and other works in digital form based on instructions from their
owners. Even legitimate users of such works are forbidden from
circumventing such measures. Tools that facilitate circumvention are also
banned. This has led to problems in the US for innovators, researchers,
the press, and the public at large.
This guide describes the debate that has occurred within each of the EU
states during this process of implementation. It also describes the options
that are available in implementation, and how these options have been
exercised across the EU. Our aim is to provide information to government
and civil society bodies in the countries that will be joining the EU during
2004, and hence who must also transpose the Directive into national law
as part of that process. These organisations will then be in a better position
to represent the views of copyright users in the debate over transposition,
in order to ensure a proper balance between the rights of rightsholders and
users.
The European Commission is due to report on the operation of the
Directive in December 2004, after which amendments may be made by
the Parliament and Council. Until then, careful use of its flexibility in
implementation may prevent the recurrence in Europe of some of the
problems seen in the US as a result of the DMCA.
The guide will be updated to provide further information as the legal
situation evolves, particularly in those countries that have only very
recently, or are yet to, publish draft legislation (Ireland, Luxembourg and
Sweden.)"
You can see the entire report at the FIPR website.
"Implementing the European Union
Copyright Directive
Ian Brown
Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and
related rights in the information society has proven more contentious than
its drafters foresaw. This EU Copyright Directive (EUCD), as it is
commonly known, allowed only 19 months for implementation by
Member States. But controversy in many of the fifteen States meant that
only Denmark and Greece met this deadline.
Given the experience in the United States with a similar piece of legislation
passed in 1998, this may be less surprising than it seems. The EUCD and
the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) both give new
protection to “technological measures:” systems that restrict the use of
literary and other works in digital form based on instructions from their
owners. Even legitimate users of such works are forbidden from
circumventing such measures. Tools that facilitate circumvention are also
banned. This has led to problems in the US for innovators, researchers,
the press, and the public at large.
This guide describes the debate that has occurred within each of the EU
states during this process of implementation. It also describes the options
that are available in implementation, and how these options have been
exercised across the EU. Our aim is to provide information to government
and civil society bodies in the countries that will be joining the EU during
2004, and hence who must also transpose the Directive into national law
as part of that process. These organisations will then be in a better position
to represent the views of copyright users in the debate over transposition,
in order to ensure a proper balance between the rights of rightsholders and
users.
The European Commission is due to report on the operation of the
Directive in December 2004, after which amendments may be made by
the Parliament and Council. Until then, careful use of its flexibility in
implementation may prevent the recurrence in Europe of some of the
problems seen in the US as a result of the DMCA.
The guide will be updated to provide further information as the legal
situation evolves, particularly in those countries that have only very
recently, or are yet to, publish draft legislation (Ireland, Luxembourg and
Sweden.)"
You can see the entire report at the FIPR website.
The UK cabinet are divided on David Blunkett's plans for a biometrically embedded national identity card.
The national ID card proposal fails security expert Bruce Schneier's 5 step test at the first hurdle:
1. What problem(s) does the proposed solution - in this case a national identity card - solve?
2. How well does it solve it (or them) and how can it fail?
3. What other problems does the solution create?
4. How much does it cost?
5. Is it worth it, given the answers to the first four questions?
What about step 1 then? Well the proponents in government are keen to suggest it solves everything from immigration to terrorism and includes identity fraud, benefit fraud, illegal working, unauthorised access to health care, as some of the bonuses along the way. The ID card appears really to be David's Blunkett's Grand Plan, (in the mould of the BBC's fictional "Yes Prime Minister" Jim Hacker's Grand Design) to be used as a plaform to challenge for the leadership when Blair eventually steps down. In reality, it's a massive expensive, intrusive solution looking for a problem; and the list of problems it is claimed that it will solve grows progressively.
So in answer to Schneier's first question, we don't really know what problem it is supposed to solve. But it's a great platform to bring out a "vocal minority" who can be appropriately demonised in the mass media. (Of the 7000 or so people who responded to the government's exercise on the "entitlement card", about 6000 were against it - but the proponents in government still regularly say that a majority of those who responded to the exercise supported the idea, by a factor of 2 to 1).
How well does it work? Leaving aside the fact that we don't know what problem it will solve, the focus of supporters appears to be on the idea that it can't fail because it will be embedded with biometric information. But somebody should paint this in big bold print at the head of Mr Blunkett's grand plan -
Biometric information may be unique but it is not secret.
We leave bit's of dead skin and hair and our fingerprints on lots of things. Senior political figures have photos taken every day. Will some of those be of suffient quality to give iris scan details? Card's containing people's biometric information can therefore be forged and since there will be a be incentive for organised crime to forge these cards - due to the widely held belief that they can't be forged and the range of services they will provide access to - they are likely to be forged on a large scale.
What other problems does the 'solution' create - see above for starters.
How much? An absolute fortune - in the billions of pounds.
Is it worth it? Er, that's a tough one but on balance I'd say no.
And I'm not even a security specialist. Someone like Schneier could really poke holes in the proposal.
The Telegraph is painting it as the tortises versus the hares, with Blunkett and Blair and co. being the hares. Brown and Prescot are the alleged cautious tortises. Let's hope this one works out like the fable.
The Telegraph is also complaining about the new directory enquiries services in the UK. "Some of the new directory inquiries services were accused of operating a
"stalkers' charter" last night after providing phone numbers for people's
homes without being given the residents' names."
Former Environment minister, Michael Meacher, is painting the war of terrorism as bogus and suggesting "The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination" He's also scathingly critical of the UK support for the US in this context,
"The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the
"global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth
propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the
US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force
command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole
project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this
project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If
there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance,
driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing
saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical
change of course."
Whilst David Blunkett ponders his national identity card, senior police officers, according to the Guardian, are to "call this week for the database of 2m DNA samples to be extended to everyone in the country. " This would apparently help the police to prevent crime and solve crimes more easily.
The national ID card proposal fails security expert Bruce Schneier's 5 step test at the first hurdle:
1. What problem(s) does the proposed solution - in this case a national identity card - solve?
2. How well does it solve it (or them) and how can it fail?
3. What other problems does the solution create?
4. How much does it cost?
5. Is it worth it, given the answers to the first four questions?
What about step 1 then? Well the proponents in government are keen to suggest it solves everything from immigration to terrorism and includes identity fraud, benefit fraud, illegal working, unauthorised access to health care, as some of the bonuses along the way. The ID card appears really to be David's Blunkett's Grand Plan, (in the mould of the BBC's fictional "Yes Prime Minister" Jim Hacker's Grand Design) to be used as a plaform to challenge for the leadership when Blair eventually steps down. In reality, it's a massive expensive, intrusive solution looking for a problem; and the list of problems it is claimed that it will solve grows progressively.
So in answer to Schneier's first question, we don't really know what problem it is supposed to solve. But it's a great platform to bring out a "vocal minority" who can be appropriately demonised in the mass media. (Of the 7000 or so people who responded to the government's exercise on the "entitlement card", about 6000 were against it - but the proponents in government still regularly say that a majority of those who responded to the exercise supported the idea, by a factor of 2 to 1).
How well does it work? Leaving aside the fact that we don't know what problem it will solve, the focus of supporters appears to be on the idea that it can't fail because it will be embedded with biometric information. But somebody should paint this in big bold print at the head of Mr Blunkett's grand plan -
Biometric information may be unique but it is not secret.
We leave bit's of dead skin and hair and our fingerprints on lots of things. Senior political figures have photos taken every day. Will some of those be of suffient quality to give iris scan details? Card's containing people's biometric information can therefore be forged and since there will be a be incentive for organised crime to forge these cards - due to the widely held belief that they can't be forged and the range of services they will provide access to - they are likely to be forged on a large scale.
What other problems does the 'solution' create - see above for starters.
How much? An absolute fortune - in the billions of pounds.
Is it worth it? Er, that's a tough one but on balance I'd say no.
And I'm not even a security specialist. Someone like Schneier could really poke holes in the proposal.
The Telegraph is painting it as the tortises versus the hares, with Blunkett and Blair and co. being the hares. Brown and Prescot are the alleged cautious tortises. Let's hope this one works out like the fable.
The Telegraph is also complaining about the new directory enquiries services in the UK. "Some of the new directory inquiries services were accused of operating a
"stalkers' charter" last night after providing phone numbers for people's
homes without being given the residents' names."
Former Environment minister, Michael Meacher, is painting the war of terrorism as bogus and suggesting "The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination" He's also scathingly critical of the UK support for the US in this context,
"The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the
"global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a political myth
propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the
US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force
command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole
project. Is collusion in this myth and junior participation in this
project really a proper aspiration for British foreign policy? If
there was ever need to justify a more objective British stance,
driven by our own independent goals, this whole depressing
saga surely provides all the evidence needed for a radical
change of course."
Whilst David Blunkett ponders his national identity card, senior police officers, according to the Guardian, are to "call this week for the database of 2m DNA samples to be extended to everyone in the country. " This would apparently help the police to prevent crime and solve crimes more easily.
Friday, September 05, 2003
Fox outfoxed? From Fox News - "Judge Rejects Fox News' Request for Injunction on Franken Book." A 'fair and balanced' Fox News report on the judge's decision to throw out their case. Author Franken and publishers Penguin are pretty pleased with the publicity.
The BBC are planning to open their archive to the public. "Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's programme archives."
"The service, the BBC Creative Archive,
would be free and available to
everyone, as long as they were not
intending to use the material for
commercial purposes, Mr Dyke added."
"Open-source software maker MontaVista Software is advising customers not to pay any money to The SCO Group" The SCO website has been brought down be a denial of service attack. This is completely counter productive to the aims of the open source community and will only provide ammunition to people who want to discredit them. Eric Raymond put it pretty well: "We're the good guys. But that doesn't matter if we aren't *seen* to be the good guys. We cannot fight our war using vandalism and trespass and the suppression of speech, or SCO will paint us as crackers and maybe win."
"New DVD-copying tools to hit shelves"
Towards the end of August the California Supreme court ruled in favour of the DVD Content Control Association in their case against Andrew Bunner for posting DeCSS code on the Net. Essentially they said that requiring Bunner to respect the DVDCCA's trade secret was not an interference with his right to free speech under the first amendment. The decision has been going back and forth on this as it has worked its way through the courts. Just one, relatively old, question: how is CSS now a trade secret when DeCSS has been so widely distributed? That, at least, remains to be seen, as the Supreme Court has sent the case back to the lower appeal court to determine if Bunner has violated any trade secrets. Cindy Cohen of the EFF (who are supporting Bunner) seems confident of the outcome on that: “The appeals court can now examine the movie industry's fiction that DeCSS is still a secret and that a publication ban is necessary to keep the information secret". Having reflected on the detail of the decision the EFF and the First Amendment Project are even spinning it in a very positive fashion.
The UK government are proposing to set up a database on children, including a listing of their potential criminality. Odd that the usual suspects in the media have not rallied against it. As Ian Brown of Foundation for Information Policy Research says, "Imagine if the government proposed creating a database of "potential troublemakers" that covered 10% of the adult population, based upon the opinions of doctors, social workers or policemen..."
Off topic but Escaped murderers refused return
"When a Hopkins computer scientist declared a new breed of electronic voting machinery to be junk, he cracked open a wide and costly debate."
CAPPS Navigates Unfriendly Skies
Bill Clinton's former privacy czar, Peter Swire, is concerned at the privacy implications of the RIAA's campaign to target individual file sharers. Greplaw have and interview with Glenn Peterson who is representing the woman fighting to keep her identity a secret from the RIAA.
"However, the music industry is pursuing music piracy with strong
arm tactics and subpoena powers that far exceed those available
against violent criminals. It is astounding to me that the law bends
over backward to safeguard the constitutional rights of accused
criminals and then completely ignores the same rights of teenage
kids sharing music in an environment they have every reason to
believe is legal. It is important for me to stress that we do not
condone music piracy or copyright infringement. What we want
to do is clarify what qualifies as music piracy and further to
ensure that the so-called accused pirates have the same minimal
constitutional rights that we afford to those accused of doing
much more serious and harmful things than sharing music...
Arguably the most dangerous consequence, the
subpoena power can be put in the hands of anyone willing to
pretend to have a copyright claim. Without a judge's review,
these fraudulent requests are easily passed of as legitimate
ones, passing under only the minimum, ministerial scrutiny
of a court clerk with a rubber stamp. The potential abuser
categories are limitless, and include everything from
annoying marketers to swindlers, child abductors,
blackmailers, and terrorists."
The RIAA are not giving up on Peterson's client (Nycfashiongirl) or on MIT. They've sent a second subpoena filed in the local jurisdiction of Massachusetts, to get the alleged file sharer on the MIT network identified. Looks like the RIAA and the movie studios are gaining some allies in their fight with Streamcast and Grokster too, with amicus briefs coming from Harvard and NYU professors as well as expected sources such as "copyright holders ranging from Major League Baseball to the Screen Actors Guild. "
The Conservative Party in the UK, the remains of Margaret Thatcher's tories, actually want to shut down the BBC website, according to a report in the Guardian. I won't comment to avoid being impolite.
A group of economists are critical of the proposed Directive on the Patentability of
Computer-Implemented Inventions.
SCO deny they have any plans to sue commercial linux users.
David Blunkett is determined to press ahead with his national identity card in spite of Blair backing awaying from it. He's planning a test run later in the year in a 'small market town'. Cryptome have a copy of a WSJ article on A New Battleground In Web Privacy War: Ads That Can Snoop
Naomi Klein has taken a poke at the international franchise that is the War on Terror.
From The Register Want to visit Britain? Join the fingerprint queue
The MPAA are going after the 321 Studios folk in the UK alledging breach of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
Sharman Networks which owns Kazaa have complained to Google about copyright infringement. In response Google pulled the links to the KAzaa imitator complained of, for fear of the DMCA falling on their heads.
Protests on the EU sofware patent issue have delayed the vote in the European Parliament under later this month.
Freenet creator Ian Clarke has decided to leave the US partly due to the restrictive intellectual property laws.
The BBC are planning to open their archive to the public. "Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's programme archives."
"The service, the BBC Creative Archive,
would be free and available to
everyone, as long as they were not
intending to use the material for
commercial purposes, Mr Dyke added."
"Open-source software maker MontaVista Software is advising customers not to pay any money to The SCO Group" The SCO website has been brought down be a denial of service attack. This is completely counter productive to the aims of the open source community and will only provide ammunition to people who want to discredit them. Eric Raymond put it pretty well: "We're the good guys. But that doesn't matter if we aren't *seen* to be the good guys. We cannot fight our war using vandalism and trespass and the suppression of speech, or SCO will paint us as crackers and maybe win."
"New DVD-copying tools to hit shelves"
Towards the end of August the California Supreme court ruled in favour of the DVD Content Control Association in their case against Andrew Bunner for posting DeCSS code on the Net. Essentially they said that requiring Bunner to respect the DVDCCA's trade secret was not an interference with his right to free speech under the first amendment. The decision has been going back and forth on this as it has worked its way through the courts. Just one, relatively old, question: how is CSS now a trade secret when DeCSS has been so widely distributed? That, at least, remains to be seen, as the Supreme Court has sent the case back to the lower appeal court to determine if Bunner has violated any trade secrets. Cindy Cohen of the EFF (who are supporting Bunner) seems confident of the outcome on that: “The appeals court can now examine the movie industry's fiction that DeCSS is still a secret and that a publication ban is necessary to keep the information secret". Having reflected on the detail of the decision the EFF and the First Amendment Project are even spinning it in a very positive fashion.
The UK government are proposing to set up a database on children, including a listing of their potential criminality. Odd that the usual suspects in the media have not rallied against it. As Ian Brown of Foundation for Information Policy Research says, "Imagine if the government proposed creating a database of "potential troublemakers" that covered 10% of the adult population, based upon the opinions of doctors, social workers or policemen..."
Off topic but Escaped murderers refused return
"When a Hopkins computer scientist declared a new breed of electronic voting machinery to be junk, he cracked open a wide and costly debate."
CAPPS Navigates Unfriendly Skies
Bill Clinton's former privacy czar, Peter Swire, is concerned at the privacy implications of the RIAA's campaign to target individual file sharers. Greplaw have and interview with Glenn Peterson who is representing the woman fighting to keep her identity a secret from the RIAA.
"However, the music industry is pursuing music piracy with strong
arm tactics and subpoena powers that far exceed those available
against violent criminals. It is astounding to me that the law bends
over backward to safeguard the constitutional rights of accused
criminals and then completely ignores the same rights of teenage
kids sharing music in an environment they have every reason to
believe is legal. It is important for me to stress that we do not
condone music piracy or copyright infringement. What we want
to do is clarify what qualifies as music piracy and further to
ensure that the so-called accused pirates have the same minimal
constitutional rights that we afford to those accused of doing
much more serious and harmful things than sharing music...
Arguably the most dangerous consequence, the
subpoena power can be put in the hands of anyone willing to
pretend to have a copyright claim. Without a judge's review,
these fraudulent requests are easily passed of as legitimate
ones, passing under only the minimum, ministerial scrutiny
of a court clerk with a rubber stamp. The potential abuser
categories are limitless, and include everything from
annoying marketers to swindlers, child abductors,
blackmailers, and terrorists."
The RIAA are not giving up on Peterson's client (Nycfashiongirl) or on MIT. They've sent a second subpoena filed in the local jurisdiction of Massachusetts, to get the alleged file sharer on the MIT network identified. Looks like the RIAA and the movie studios are gaining some allies in their fight with Streamcast and Grokster too, with amicus briefs coming from Harvard and NYU professors as well as expected sources such as "copyright holders ranging from Major League Baseball to the Screen Actors Guild. "
The Conservative Party in the UK, the remains of Margaret Thatcher's tories, actually want to shut down the BBC website, according to a report in the Guardian. I won't comment to avoid being impolite.
A group of economists are critical of the proposed Directive on the Patentability of
Computer-Implemented Inventions.
SCO deny they have any plans to sue commercial linux users.
David Blunkett is determined to press ahead with his national identity card in spite of Blair backing awaying from it. He's planning a test run later in the year in a 'small market town'. Cryptome have a copy of a WSJ article on A New Battleground In Web Privacy War: Ads That Can Snoop
Naomi Klein has taken a poke at the international franchise that is the War on Terror.
From The Register Want to visit Britain? Join the fingerprint queue
The MPAA are going after the 321 Studios folk in the UK alledging breach of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
Sharman Networks which owns Kazaa have complained to Google about copyright infringement. In response Google pulled the links to the KAzaa imitator complained of, for fear of the DMCA falling on their heads.
Protests on the EU sofware patent issue have delayed the vote in the European Parliament under later this month.
Freenet creator Ian Clarke has decided to leave the US partly due to the restrictive intellectual property laws.
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
I'm way behind with everything, for which I apologise, but some of the following from the past couple of weeks may be of some interest.
"But as technology in general, and the Internet in particular, drives deeper into the fabric of daily life, battles also rage behind the scenes. They are struggles for control over how the Internet should work, over who sets the rules for its pipes and gateways and who owns the material that moves through them. These are the wars fought with armies of corporate lobbyists, technologists and citizen activists but largely ignored by the general public. And none is larger, or carries higher financial stakes, than the issue with the eye-glazing name of intellectual property." Said the Washington Post on 21st August (when I was away) in an article about the lobbying to kill a proposed meeting on open source development to be hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Dave Farber's interesting people list has more information on WIPO backing away from this meeting.
The city of Tampa (having finally won the Superbowl for the first time earlier this year) are dropping a face recognition system after a two year trial during which nobody was positively identified.
I see the Linux community are less than impressed with SCO's - so far - publicly presented evidence of intellectual property infringement. The examples are apparently code from the 1970's which is covered by a BSD licence which allows sharing of code. You've got to say this is a nice example of open and collaborative development in action - like the linux folk 'Dear SCO, I wouldn't use this code as the foundation of your case as you are likely to get laughed out of court' At least they've had the opportunity to try out some their evidence before using it in anger.
SCO's lawyer, at least, seems grateful for the tip: "Let's say you have a hundred files, and you put one of your hundred files under the GPL (GNU General Public License). That doesn't mean you've lost the rights to your other 99 files," Heise said. "So I don't think it's going to have an impact."
Tescos have ended their trial with the RFID chips linked to hidden cameras at their Cambridge store.
Somebody thinks that John Ashcroft's road show to promote the PATRIOT Act is funny.
File swapper fights RIAA subpoena. And the RIAA's tactics may be having an impact on file swapping with the volume being reduced since they decided to target individuals.
The RIAA and MPAA are, not surprisingly, appealing the April decision in favour of Grokster and Streamcast, where the judge declared that the p2p file sharing technologies were not illegal and were, in fact, analagous to home video recorders.
If this report is to be believed, SCO are taking a leaf out of the RIAA's book and going after individual linux users. The chances are that they are still talking about companies with deep pockets rather than individuals.
"But as technology in general, and the Internet in particular, drives deeper into the fabric of daily life, battles also rage behind the scenes. They are struggles for control over how the Internet should work, over who sets the rules for its pipes and gateways and who owns the material that moves through them. These are the wars fought with armies of corporate lobbyists, technologists and citizen activists but largely ignored by the general public. And none is larger, or carries higher financial stakes, than the issue with the eye-glazing name of intellectual property." Said the Washington Post on 21st August (when I was away) in an article about the lobbying to kill a proposed meeting on open source development to be hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Dave Farber's interesting people list has more information on WIPO backing away from this meeting.
The city of Tampa (having finally won the Superbowl for the first time earlier this year) are dropping a face recognition system after a two year trial during which nobody was positively identified.
I see the Linux community are less than impressed with SCO's - so far - publicly presented evidence of intellectual property infringement. The examples are apparently code from the 1970's which is covered by a BSD licence which allows sharing of code. You've got to say this is a nice example of open and collaborative development in action - like the linux folk 'Dear SCO, I wouldn't use this code as the foundation of your case as you are likely to get laughed out of court' At least they've had the opportunity to try out some their evidence before using it in anger.
SCO's lawyer, at least, seems grateful for the tip: "Let's say you have a hundred files, and you put one of your hundred files under the GPL (GNU General Public License). That doesn't mean you've lost the rights to your other 99 files," Heise said. "So I don't think it's going to have an impact."
Tescos have ended their trial with the RFID chips linked to hidden cameras at their Cambridge store.
Somebody thinks that John Ashcroft's road show to promote the PATRIOT Act is funny.
File swapper fights RIAA subpoena. And the RIAA's tactics may be having an impact on file swapping with the volume being reduced since they decided to target individuals.
The RIAA and MPAA are, not surprisingly, appealing the April decision in favour of Grokster and Streamcast, where the judge declared that the p2p file sharing technologies were not illegal and were, in fact, analagous to home video recorders.
If this report is to be believed, SCO are taking a leaf out of the RIAA's book and going after individual linux users. The chances are that they are still talking about companies with deep pockets rather than individuals.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Privacy advocates call for RFID regulation "How would you like it if, for instance, one day you realized your underwear was reporting on your whereabouts?" Callfornia state Senator Debra Bowen asked.
The Sad Tale of a Security Whistleblower by Mark Rasch at SecurityFocus. Rasch is the former head of the Department of Justice's computer crime division.
The Sad Tale of a Security Whistleblower by Mark Rasch at SecurityFocus. Rasch is the former head of the Department of Justice's computer crime division.
For folks interested in pursuing the kind of material I cover in this blog in a bit more detail, there are lots of universities who provide their internet law syllabus on the web. Jessica Litman is currently updating her links to these courses.
Monday, August 18, 2003
Here's a neat twist in the copyright wars - Grokster has reported the record industry to the Office for Fair Trading in the UK for restraint of trade!
From Lisa Rein's fair and balanced radar, I learn that (and it's difficult to believe this but) Howard Berman, when talking about his latest proposal to criminalise peer to peer file sharing, actually said, on CNN, "The penalty would range from...eh up to eh five years in jail. Notice, no death penalty but eh it i..it's part of our effort to send a message that that which is already illegal and that which is criminal should be avoided..." I had to play it repeatedly to have it sink in. "...no death penalty..."? People in California elected congressman Berman. If you're interested in Californian politics, or even if you're just interested in the entertainment business, Lisa has another link to a political analyst with a funny take on the story of Arnold Swarzenegger running for governor.
There's an interesting apparent throwaway line in the Sunday Times article about Peter Gabriel's song downloading joint venture with Microsoft. A spokeswoman for the British Phonographic Industry says there are no plans to sue UK file sharers: 'It's not a hearts-and-minds winner,' she says, 'It's a PR nightmare.'
From Lisa Rein's fair and balanced radar, I learn that (and it's difficult to believe this but) Howard Berman, when talking about his latest proposal to criminalise peer to peer file sharing, actually said, on CNN, "The penalty would range from...eh up to eh five years in jail. Notice, no death penalty but eh it i..it's part of our effort to send a message that that which is already illegal and that which is criminal should be avoided..." I had to play it repeatedly to have it sink in. "...no death penalty..."? People in California elected congressman Berman. If you're interested in Californian politics, or even if you're just interested in the entertainment business, Lisa has another link to a political analyst with a funny take on the story of Arnold Swarzenegger running for governor.
There's an interesting apparent throwaway line in the Sunday Times article about Peter Gabriel's song downloading joint venture with Microsoft. A spokeswoman for the British Phonographic Industry says there are no plans to sue UK file sharers: 'It's not a hearts-and-minds winner,' she says, 'It's a PR nightmare.'
Thursday, August 14, 2003
I've been tinkering with my course, T182 Law the Internet and Society: Technology and the Future of Ideas, (taster here) based on Larry Lessig's book The Future of Ideas. And I've been wondering how the Council of Europe's 'Declaration on freedom of communication on the Internet ' (Strasbourg, 28.05.2003) meshes with the EU copyright directive, and the likely autumnal developements on EU software patents and the intellectual property enforcement directive, the latter having already been called 'the DMCA on steroids'. I can't see a comfortable fit here, but then I can't see a comfortable fit the the Council of Europe's cybercrime treaty either, which the declaration says it is compatible with. Perhaps I'm looking at it through too complex a filter?
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Lots of people are poking fun at Fox News for their 'fair and balanced' lawsuit against Penguin.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "China is about to embark on the world's biggest experiment in the use of electronic identification cards, which next
year will begin to replace the paper national ID cards carried by 960 million Chinese citizens."
ISPs are accused by a new report of not doing enough to protect children online. Expect more demands for CDA and CIPA type legislation in Europe, without the CDA's section 230 protections for ISPs.
Meanwhile on the other side of the pond, the US government are trying to resurrect COPA, according to the Guardian. "The Bush administration has appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate a law that punishes Web site operators who expose children to dirty pictures and other inappropriate material."
According to the Wall Street Journal, "China is about to embark on the world's biggest experiment in the use of electronic identification cards, which next
year will begin to replace the paper national ID cards carried by 960 million Chinese citizens."
ISPs are accused by a new report of not doing enough to protect children online. Expect more demands for CDA and CIPA type legislation in Europe, without the CDA's section 230 protections for ISPs.
Meanwhile on the other side of the pond, the US government are trying to resurrect COPA, according to the Guardian. "The Bush administration has appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate a law that punishes Web site operators who expose children to dirty pictures and other inappropriate material."
The EFF and Stanford Center for Internet & Society Cyberlaw Clinic have launched DirecTVDefense.org. From the site:
"DirecTV has launched a reckless legal campaign that threatens smartcard researchers and innovators. Over the past few years, the company has sent hundreds of thousands of demand letters and filed nearly 9,000 federal lawsuits in response to the mere purchase of smart card readers, emulators, unloopers, reprogrammers, bootloaders, and blockers. The satellite TV company accuses techies – some of whom threw out their televisions in favor of the Internet long ago – of using these devices to illegally intercept its signals. But the smart card readers and their variousderivatives are capable of so much more: they secure computer networks, enable user-based identification, and further scientific discovery.
People who intercept DirectTV’s satellite signal are breaking the law. However, DirecTV’s cease and desist letter campaign does not distinguish the legitimate users from the thieves. This website is meant as a legal resource for the legitimate computer scientists, technology workers, and hobbyists who are being harassed by DirecTV's no holds-barred slash-and-burn legal strategy. This site provides scientists, researchers, innovators and their lawyers with the resources necessary to fight DirecTV and protect their right to own and use multi-purpose technology for its legal applications – and without fear of reprisal."
DirecTV's volume of cease and desist letters has reached about 100,000 in the past year. That's a lot of threats. This site is worth a thorough read.
"DirecTV has launched a reckless legal campaign that threatens smartcard researchers and innovators. Over the past few years, the company has sent hundreds of thousands of demand letters and filed nearly 9,000 federal lawsuits in response to the mere purchase of smart card readers, emulators, unloopers, reprogrammers, bootloaders, and blockers. The satellite TV company accuses techies – some of whom threw out their televisions in favor of the Internet long ago – of using these devices to illegally intercept its signals. But the smart card readers and their variousderivatives are capable of so much more: they secure computer networks, enable user-based identification, and further scientific discovery.
People who intercept DirectTV’s satellite signal are breaking the law. However, DirecTV’s cease and desist letter campaign does not distinguish the legitimate users from the thieves. This website is meant as a legal resource for the legitimate computer scientists, technology workers, and hobbyists who are being harassed by DirecTV's no holds-barred slash-and-burn legal strategy. This site provides scientists, researchers, innovators and their lawyers with the resources necessary to fight DirecTV and protect their right to own and use multi-purpose technology for its legal applications – and without fear of reprisal."
DirecTV's volume of cease and desist letters has reached about 100,000 in the past year. That's a lot of threats. This site is worth a thorough read.
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
The letter urging the EU JURI committe to reject the IP enforcement directive from new CODE collective of civil liberties groups I mentioned earlier is available online.
This is a joke right? "Fox News Channel has sued liberal humorist Al Franken and the Penguin Group to stop them from using the phrase "fair and balanced" in the title of his upcoming book." The book is apparently called "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." Ranks up there with Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone case.
More IP fun over at Lawmeme. What are we going to do about vicious pirates who..... er ..... copy .... er... bags?
More IP fun over at Lawmeme. What are we going to do about vicious pirates who..... er ..... copy .... er... bags?
38 civil liberties groups from around Europe have combined to form a new coalition to oppose the proposed EU intellectual property enforcement directive. "The groups argue that the proposed IP Enforcement Directive, is a "DMCA on steroids" that would hand broad anti-competitive powers to large foreign companies, limit competition, and erode the traditional rights of consumers to use the products they purchase as they see fit." It includes the UK's Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR).
Microsoft have been fined $520 million for patent infringement after a jury concluded they stepped on Eolas Technologies and University of California patents.
Aaron Swartz paints Dean Kamen (the inventor of the Segway) in a new light for me. "All you technologists get an A+ for doing great things but a D- for being socially responsible...Your technology isn’t going to do what you think it will. Answering machines were supposed to make sure we can talk to everyone, but now we use them to screen calls. Cell phones were supposed to connect us to everyone, but instead they separate us from the people in the same room. We won’t solve the digital divide with more technology. The most important thing we can invent is inventors. If we keep having more people with less resources the world is going to be an ugly place." Nicely said. A man with a mission and let's hope he has some success. This short superhero feature on Kamen focussed me, for the first time really, on his social conscience, whereas I've primarily always thought of Kamen as a passionate technology advocate.
CSAPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) are launching a boycott Gillette campaign because Gillette (or, more accurately, their retailers) are using RFID tags in their products to surreptitiously take photographs of shoppers. Tescos are running a trial at their Cambridge store, which the Guardian headined as Tesco tests spy chip technology.
USA Today report on the mass deployment of webcams throughout schools in the Biloxi district of Mississippi. "So far, Biloxi is the only school district in the nation to install Webcams in every classroom -- nearly 500 so far." This is allegedly for security. No comment
Microsoft have been fined $520 million for patent infringement after a jury concluded they stepped on Eolas Technologies and University of California patents.
Aaron Swartz paints Dean Kamen (the inventor of the Segway) in a new light for me. "All you technologists get an A+ for doing great things but a D- for being socially responsible...Your technology isn’t going to do what you think it will. Answering machines were supposed to make sure we can talk to everyone, but now we use them to screen calls. Cell phones were supposed to connect us to everyone, but instead they separate us from the people in the same room. We won’t solve the digital divide with more technology. The most important thing we can invent is inventors. If we keep having more people with less resources the world is going to be an ugly place." Nicely said. A man with a mission and let's hope he has some success. This short superhero feature on Kamen focussed me, for the first time really, on his social conscience, whereas I've primarily always thought of Kamen as a passionate technology advocate.
CSAPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) are launching a boycott Gillette campaign because Gillette (or, more accurately, their retailers) are using RFID tags in their products to surreptitiously take photographs of shoppers. Tescos are running a trial at their Cambridge store, which the Guardian headined as Tesco tests spy chip technology.
USA Today report on the mass deployment of webcams throughout schools in the Biloxi district of Mississippi. "So far, Biloxi is the only school district in the nation to install Webcams in every classroom -- nearly 500 so far." This is allegedly for security. No comment
Sunday, August 10, 2003
Large US retailers and food companies are trying to get RFIDs designated as anti-terrorist devices according to Wired. This would be comical if it wasn't so serious. Of course the natural follow up is that it is the patriot duty of every citizen to support anti-terrorism measures. Can't wait to see David Blunkett jumping on this bandwagon.
The RIAA's P2P war hit a slight snag on Friday when a Boston judge threw out their subpoena from a Washington D.C. court to identify Massachusetts students. . "The court rejected the RIAA's bald-faced attempt to use a single D.C. court ruling to steamroller Internet users' privacy nationwide," said EFF staff attorney Wendy Seltzer. One up for MIT and Boston College. Nice article on the RIAA crusade here. Haven't come across Phillyburbs before.
IBM are coming out all guns blazing against the SCO lawsuit over linux. They're treating SCO's advice that they indemnify their customers against IP infringement claims with contempt. A clear sign they don't believe SCO has a chance in court. They're also saying SCO ahve violated the GPL and undermined their own case with their past behavior and finally, in true IBM form, they're accusing SCO of violating at least four IBM patents. Anyone for settlement talks?
Elsewhere, eBay have written to Google to demand they ban advertisers using keywords like 'ebay', 'bay' and 'auction web sites'. Francis Hwang wonders if domain names matter as much as they used to?
And the 9th circuit, according to Yale's excellent Lawmeme, "will be hearing arguments on a suit challenging the constitutionality of computerized voting systems that do not generate paper records." As Steven Wu says, "What in heaven's name are the arguments against requiring a paper trail or some other independent (and independently verifiable) indicator of voter intent?"
The RIAA's P2P war hit a slight snag on Friday when a Boston judge threw out their subpoena from a Washington D.C. court to identify Massachusetts students. . "The court rejected the RIAA's bald-faced attempt to use a single D.C. court ruling to steamroller Internet users' privacy nationwide," said EFF staff attorney Wendy Seltzer. One up for MIT and Boston College. Nice article on the RIAA crusade here. Haven't come across Phillyburbs before.
IBM are coming out all guns blazing against the SCO lawsuit over linux. They're treating SCO's advice that they indemnify their customers against IP infringement claims with contempt. A clear sign they don't believe SCO has a chance in court. They're also saying SCO ahve violated the GPL and undermined their own case with their past behavior and finally, in true IBM form, they're accusing SCO of violating at least four IBM patents. Anyone for settlement talks?
Elsewhere, eBay have written to Google to demand they ban advertisers using keywords like 'ebay', 'bay' and 'auction web sites'. Francis Hwang wonders if domain names matter as much as they used to?
And the 9th circuit, according to Yale's excellent Lawmeme, "will be hearing arguments on a suit challenging the constitutionality of computerized voting systems that do not generate paper records." As Steven Wu says, "What in heaven's name are the arguments against requiring a paper trail or some other independent (and independently verifiable) indicator of voter intent?"
Friday, August 08, 2003
Recommended - Exchange between Ernest Miller (Yale) and Fred von Lohmann (EFF)on compulsory licenses and Larry Lessig's lament about MP3.com's lawyers.
Charles Cooper thinks the Total Information Awareness programme is a good idea. Or, at least, that's what he has written, I suspect to bait the usual libertarians. He's right that DARPA (originally ARPA) was set up during the cold war (by Dwight Eisenhower in response to the Soviet launch of the sputnik satellite in 1957) "to think big about technology". It was essentially the then president's technology fast response agency, to avoid getting caught on the hop by the Soviets again.
As such DARPA shouldn't be castigated for proposing ideas like the TIA or the terrorism futures market, both of which are about using information for particular ends. He's wrong to imply that we should not worry about or thoroughly debate the real utility or specific deployment of such systems, however, because he hasn't seen any proof that TIA will lead an Orwellian future, though he has seen " the smoking hole that used to be the World Trade Tower complex in my hometown of New York City." In response I'm reminded of Ben Franklin's 1759 comment that "Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I'm neither a US constitutional scholar nor even a US citizen but even to me there seemed to be fairly fundamental questions raised under the first, Fourth and Fifth Amendments by the proposed TIA as it had been described variously by George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft and other members of the current president's administration. There are intuitively obvious reasons to argue that the best available technologies should be put at the disposal of the 'good guys' in targetting and fighting the 'bad guys'. That's no reason to expand the notion to the extent that those same technologies should be deployed in the assumption that the only way to catch the bad guys is to assume everyone is a baddie, until they prove otherwise. The natural outcome of the latter scenario is that so much energy is expended on checking the innocent that the real bad guys find it much easier to get lost in the noise.
Charles Cooper thinks the Total Information Awareness programme is a good idea. Or, at least, that's what he has written, I suspect to bait the usual libertarians. He's right that DARPA (originally ARPA) was set up during the cold war (by Dwight Eisenhower in response to the Soviet launch of the sputnik satellite in 1957) "to think big about technology". It was essentially the then president's technology fast response agency, to avoid getting caught on the hop by the Soviets again.
As such DARPA shouldn't be castigated for proposing ideas like the TIA or the terrorism futures market, both of which are about using information for particular ends. He's wrong to imply that we should not worry about or thoroughly debate the real utility or specific deployment of such systems, however, because he hasn't seen any proof that TIA will lead an Orwellian future, though he has seen " the smoking hole that used to be the World Trade Tower complex in my hometown of New York City." In response I'm reminded of Ben Franklin's 1759 comment that "Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I'm neither a US constitutional scholar nor even a US citizen but even to me there seemed to be fairly fundamental questions raised under the first, Fourth and Fifth Amendments by the proposed TIA as it had been described variously by George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft and other members of the current president's administration. There are intuitively obvious reasons to argue that the best available technologies should be put at the disposal of the 'good guys' in targetting and fighting the 'bad guys'. That's no reason to expand the notion to the extent that those same technologies should be deployed in the assumption that the only way to catch the bad guys is to assume everyone is a baddie, until they prove otherwise. The natural outcome of the latter scenario is that so much energy is expended on checking the innocent that the real bad guys find it much easier to get lost in the noise.
The UK has banned the iTrip device that allows you to play your iPod tunes on the radio. It facilitates breaches of the 1949 Wireless and Telegraphy act which requires anyone with a radio transmitter to have a license.
The Oyez project has released an "inaugural set of Supreme Court MP3 files." I've been listening to the argument of the the Katz v U.S. eavesdropping case and the re-argument of the Roe v Wade abortion case, as I've been sorting through some routine admin. work. Terrific to be able to hear these, although in the Katz file it seems not all the justices were miked up, so it's not possible to hear all their questions.
The big issues for the Autumn on this side of the pond look likely to be the round EU implementations of the copyright directive, the September EU parliament and Commission decisions on the patenting of software in the EU and the EU's IP enforcement directive and finally, I guess, any action the Commission decide to take against Microsoft. Throw DRM and trusted computing into the fray an you've got a complex 'mess', as my systems colleagues at the Open University would call it. The Foundation for Information Policy Research are leading the UK fight against the IP enforcement directive. As he has been making NGOs aware of the directive, FIPR Chairman and Cambridge University security specialist, Ross Anderson, has come to realise that this directive could have a significant effect on ordinary retailing,
"RFIDs (radio-frequency IDs) are devices smaller than grains of rice
that can be fitted on goods such as clothes and which will, when
integgorated electronically, return a 128-bit unique number. You can
think of them as bar codes that identify individual objects rather
than merely product ranges, and that can be read from a foot or two
away. Walmart has ordered its suppliers to fit them, so we're going to
get them in everything we buy for more than a few pounds, within a
couple of years, like it or not.
RFIDs will be useful in detecting and preventing counterfeit goods, so
they will be covered by the directive. It will be an offence to mess
with them, or to possess kit to mess with them."
So these RFIDs as copyright "technological protection measures" will effectively be able to be used to create market barriers. When it comes to RFIDs I had always been more concerned about the privacy implications but the market manipulation that Ross points out is not nearly as transparent, so is potentially being overlooked by policy makers and certain sectors of commerce which don't yet realise the impact they might have when combined with regulations like the proposed IP enforcement directive.
The Oyez project has released an "inaugural set of Supreme Court MP3 files." I've been listening to the argument of the the Katz v U.S. eavesdropping case and the re-argument of the Roe v Wade abortion case, as I've been sorting through some routine admin. work. Terrific to be able to hear these, although in the Katz file it seems not all the justices were miked up, so it's not possible to hear all their questions.
The big issues for the Autumn on this side of the pond look likely to be the round EU implementations of the copyright directive, the September EU parliament and Commission decisions on the patenting of software in the EU and the EU's IP enforcement directive and finally, I guess, any action the Commission decide to take against Microsoft. Throw DRM and trusted computing into the fray an you've got a complex 'mess', as my systems colleagues at the Open University would call it. The Foundation for Information Policy Research are leading the UK fight against the IP enforcement directive. As he has been making NGOs aware of the directive, FIPR Chairman and Cambridge University security specialist, Ross Anderson, has come to realise that this directive could have a significant effect on ordinary retailing,
"RFIDs (radio-frequency IDs) are devices smaller than grains of rice
that can be fitted on goods such as clothes and which will, when
integgorated electronically, return a 128-bit unique number. You can
think of them as bar codes that identify individual objects rather
than merely product ranges, and that can be read from a foot or two
away. Walmart has ordered its suppliers to fit them, so we're going to
get them in everything we buy for more than a few pounds, within a
couple of years, like it or not.
RFIDs will be useful in detecting and preventing counterfeit goods, so
they will be covered by the directive. It will be an offence to mess
with them, or to possess kit to mess with them."
So these RFIDs as copyright "technological protection measures" will effectively be able to be used to create market barriers. When it comes to RFIDs I had always been more concerned about the privacy implications but the market manipulation that Ross points out is not nearly as transparent, so is potentially being overlooked by policy makers and certain sectors of commerce which don't yet realise the impact they might have when combined with regulations like the proposed IP enforcement directive.
Thursday, August 07, 2003
Well, there's been plenty going on since I've been away.
The RIAA have started their avalanche of subpoenas, the first stage in tracking down and suing P2P file sharers.
MIT and Boston college stand up to the RIAA.
Red Hat have stepped prominently into the SCO linux-unix battle.
Tony Blair is apparently backing away from a national ID card
A UK government funded report supposedly to determine how to stimulate broadband rollout has declared that DRM is the only way to do this. (Do I hear 'interests' and 'vested' and perhaps even 'smells' coming together in some combination?) I can't put it better than Ross Anderson: "I deeply resent the use of my tax money to help Disney and Microsoft grind their axes. But this sort of nonsense cannot just be ignored - if not rebutted it will become policy."
The FBI are targetting VOIP as a threat to national security
The ACLU are challenging the constitutionality of the USA-PATRIOT Act
UCITA has taken a big blow as National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws put their support for it on ice.
The UK draft proposal on the implementation of the EUCD reaches its first birthday, as the UK Patent Office as putting the final touches to the final draft.
Queensland University staff have their pcs scanned for MP3 files.
Congress sees the introduction of the P4 bill with the stated aim of protecting children from P2P porn.
The UK Human Rights Act gets accused of fostering a culture of litigation
Dow Jones win a hearing in Australia to appeal the Gutnick online defamation decision.
Sony win the playstation mod chip appeal in Australia
EBay have $29.5 million dollars in damages awarded against them for patent infringement
The consumer commission in Australian rejects a complaint about copy protected CDs
Mitch Bainwol, a republican party staffer, replaces Hilary Rosen at the RIAA
The EFF issue advice on how to avoid getting sued by the RIAA
A US appeal court oks the evidence of a Turkish hacker in a child pornography case
The Pentagon propose and then withdraw the idea of a terrorism futures market.
The European Commission declare that they are likely to fine Microsoft for continuing anti-competitive practices.
Amazon begin working with publishers on the idea of an online searchable non-fiction books archive.
And that's just for starters. I'm really backed up with work so don't have the time to expand on these but there's plenty of background to be had on all these stories from all the usual suspects listed under my links.
The RIAA have started their avalanche of subpoenas, the first stage in tracking down and suing P2P file sharers.
MIT and Boston college stand up to the RIAA.
Red Hat have stepped prominently into the SCO linux-unix battle.
Tony Blair is apparently backing away from a national ID card
A UK government funded report supposedly to determine how to stimulate broadband rollout has declared that DRM is the only way to do this. (Do I hear 'interests' and 'vested' and perhaps even 'smells' coming together in some combination?) I can't put it better than Ross Anderson: "I deeply resent the use of my tax money to help Disney and Microsoft grind their axes. But this sort of nonsense cannot just be ignored - if not rebutted it will become policy."
The FBI are targetting VOIP as a threat to national security
The ACLU are challenging the constitutionality of the USA-PATRIOT Act
UCITA has taken a big blow as National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws put their support for it on ice.
The UK draft proposal on the implementation of the EUCD reaches its first birthday, as the UK Patent Office as putting the final touches to the final draft.
Queensland University staff have their pcs scanned for MP3 files.
Congress sees the introduction of the P4 bill with the stated aim of protecting children from P2P porn.
The UK Human Rights Act gets accused of fostering a culture of litigation
Dow Jones win a hearing in Australia to appeal the Gutnick online defamation decision.
Sony win the playstation mod chip appeal in Australia
EBay have $29.5 million dollars in damages awarded against them for patent infringement
The consumer commission in Australian rejects a complaint about copy protected CDs
Mitch Bainwol, a republican party staffer, replaces Hilary Rosen at the RIAA
The EFF issue advice on how to avoid getting sued by the RIAA
A US appeal court oks the evidence of a Turkish hacker in a child pornography case
The Pentagon propose and then withdraw the idea of a terrorism futures market.
The European Commission declare that they are likely to fine Microsoft for continuing anti-competitive practices.
Amazon begin working with publishers on the idea of an online searchable non-fiction books archive.
And that's just for starters. I'm really backed up with work so don't have the time to expand on these but there's plenty of background to be had on all these stories from all the usual suspects listed under my links.
Friday, July 18, 2003
Take a few minutes to read Take Another Little Piece of My Art by Derek Slater. It's worth it. Also his experiment with blogging using his analysis of the Napster case. Actually why not just take a run over to a copyfighter's musings and have a look for yourself at Mr Slater's recent thoughts. Some interesting ideas on Richard Posner's decision in the Madster case, in particular.
The US Senate has voted to cut off funding to the Total Information Awareness computer-surveillance program.
Kevin Poulson at SecurityFocus is reporting DirecTV dragnet snares innocent techies "In recent months the satellite TV giant has filed nearly 9,000 federal lawsuits against people who've purchased signal piracy devices. But some of those devices have legitimate uses, and innocent computer geeks are getting caught in the crackdown. "
Meanwhile the Grokster/Morpheus case is apparently being fast-tracked for review by the 9th circuit Court of Appeals.
Overture to a patent war? (via Corante) is worth a read.
I'm off to spend the next week at an Open University summer school, teaching first year technology students about the structures of bridges and planes, and the uses and limitations of mathematical, physical and computer models.
The US Senate has voted to cut off funding to the Total Information Awareness computer-surveillance program.
Kevin Poulson at SecurityFocus is reporting DirecTV dragnet snares innocent techies "In recent months the satellite TV giant has filed nearly 9,000 federal lawsuits against people who've purchased signal piracy devices. But some of those devices have legitimate uses, and innocent computer geeks are getting caught in the crackdown. "
Meanwhile the Grokster/Morpheus case is apparently being fast-tracked for review by the 9th circuit Court of Appeals.
Overture to a patent war? (via Corante) is worth a read.
I'm off to spend the next week at an Open University summer school, teaching first year technology students about the structures of bridges and planes, and the uses and limitations of mathematical, physical and computer models.
Yes Magazine have been following up on the electronic voting and voter purging issue.
Hector MacQueen, law professor at Edinburg University, points to an email alert from the editors of World Intellectual Property Report, entitled IP Commission OKs Spying on Internet Users to Protect Copyright:
"PARIS--A copyright advisory board within France's Ministry of Culture
has accepted government plans to increase surveillance of Internet
users as part of a wider bid to stop illegal copying and transmission
of protected artistic works in cyberspace.
The Superior Council for Artistic and Literary Intellectual Property
(Conseil Superieur de la Propriete Litteraire et Artistique, or
CSPLA) announced June 26 that it would support proposed legislation
now working its way through Parliament that aims to adapt copyright
protection to the Digital Age, principally through greater spying on
Internet users.
The CSPLA opinion was issued in response to parliamentary debate on
legislation -- the Law on the Digital Economy -- that would adopt
European Union Directive 2001/29/EC, of May 22, 2001, on the
Harmonization of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in
the Information Society.
A united version of the legislation -- combining a text approved
last February by the National Assembly, or lower house, of
Parliament, and one approved by the Senate, or upper house, in late
June -- is expected to be passed by Parliament by year-end, after
fine-tuning by members of both houses and concerned government
ministries.
The CSPLA opinion -- which demands "reconciliation" between long-
standing concerns over privacy protection and individual liberties
and the growing need for copyright protection on-line -- is likely to
weigh heavy with Culture Ministry officials when they are asked for
future comment on the bill.
(The full report will appear in the August issue of World E-Commerce
& IP Report. Copyright 2003, BNA International Inc.) "
Hector MacQueen, law professor at Edinburg University, points to an email alert from the editors of World Intellectual Property Report, entitled IP Commission OKs Spying on Internet Users to Protect Copyright:
"PARIS--A copyright advisory board within France's Ministry of Culture
has accepted government plans to increase surveillance of Internet
users as part of a wider bid to stop illegal copying and transmission
of protected artistic works in cyberspace.
The Superior Council for Artistic and Literary Intellectual Property
(Conseil Superieur de la Propriete Litteraire et Artistique, or
CSPLA) announced June 26 that it would support proposed legislation
now working its way through Parliament that aims to adapt copyright
protection to the Digital Age, principally through greater spying on
Internet users.
The CSPLA opinion was issued in response to parliamentary debate on
legislation -- the Law on the Digital Economy -- that would adopt
European Union Directive 2001/29/EC, of May 22, 2001, on the
Harmonization of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in
the Information Society.
A united version of the legislation -- combining a text approved
last February by the National Assembly, or lower house, of
Parliament, and one approved by the Senate, or upper house, in late
June -- is expected to be passed by Parliament by year-end, after
fine-tuning by members of both houses and concerned government
ministries.
The CSPLA opinion -- which demands "reconciliation" between long-
standing concerns over privacy protection and individual liberties
and the growing need for copyright protection on-line -- is likely to
weigh heavy with Culture Ministry officials when they are asked for
future comment on the bill.
(The full report will appear in the August issue of World E-Commerce
& IP Report. Copyright 2003, BNA International Inc.) "
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Via Michael Carroll at Villanova, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have just published a Handbook on Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge
Two democrats are proposing a bill, Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection
and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003, that would lead to jail time for file sharers. One of these, Howard Berman, was the guy who previously introduced a bill to provide copyright holders with immunity for damaging other people's computers.
Copyfight has lots of links to pieces on Berman's proposal.
Whilst Berman wants to jail file sharers, the head of Interpol wants a global crackdown on piracy which he links to terrorism.
Two democrats are proposing a bill, Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection
and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003, that would lead to jail time for file sharers. One of these, Howard Berman, was the guy who previously introduced a bill to provide copyright holders with immunity for damaging other people's computers.
Copyfight has lots of links to pieces on Berman's proposal.
Whilst Berman wants to jail file sharers, the head of Interpol wants a global crackdown on piracy which he links to terrorism.
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Hot on the heels of Germany being the fifth EU country to implement the EU copyright directive, the Commission have decided to pursue the other member states for failure to do so yet.
Loyola University Chicago releases two student names to RIAA.
Loyola University Chicago releases two student names to RIAA.
Friday, July 11, 2003
Just got time to point you at the terrific Donna Wentworth's Copyfight and A copyright cold war? The polarized rhetoric of the peer-to-peer debates by John Logie at FirstMonday.
Also, one of my students just pointed me at this amusing cartoon at User Friendly.
Also, one of my students just pointed me at this amusing cartoon at User Friendly.
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Alan Cunningham of the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, University of London, has started a weblog on issues related to intellectual property, law, technology, philosophy and economics.
The End of End-to-End? By Simson Garfinkel at ECommerce Times:
"Whenever you hear a company bragging about the great services it can offer directly in its
network, understand that it is trying to kill end-to-end. Personally, I'd rather have a dumb
network, a pair of smart endpoints, and a future"
"Whenever you hear a company bragging about the great services it can offer directly in its
network, understand that it is trying to kill end-to-end. Personally, I'd rather have a dumb
network, a pair of smart endpoints, and a future"
The latest Journal of Information Technology Law has just been published. Refereed articles include:
Trademark Infringement, the Internet and Jurisdiction
by Professor David Bainbridge, Aston Buiness School
Internet File-sharing and the Liability of Intermediaries for Copyright Infringement:A Need for International Consensus by Matthew Just, University of Warwick
Software Development, Intellectual Property, and IT Security
by Robert Gehring, Technical University of
Much Pain for Little Gain? A Critical View of Software Patents
by Christian Koboldt, DotECon Consultants, London
Bearing the Burden: Small Firms and the Patent System
by Stuart Macdonald, Sheffield University
Software Patents and Innovation
by Sylvain Perchaud, President of Europe Shareware:Association Pour la Promotion des Auteurs Européens de Sharewares
There is also a commentary on two of the articles on software patents
The Proposed Software Directive: A User's Comments
by Simon Davies, Patent Attorney, D Young and Company
Trademark Infringement, the Internet and Jurisdiction
by Professor David Bainbridge, Aston Buiness School
Internet File-sharing and the Liability of Intermediaries for Copyright Infringement:A Need for International Consensus by Matthew Just, University of Warwick
Software Development, Intellectual Property, and IT Security
by Robert Gehring, Technical University of
Much Pain for Little Gain? A Critical View of Software Patents
by Christian Koboldt, DotECon Consultants, London
Bearing the Burden: Small Firms and the Patent System
by Stuart Macdonald, Sheffield University
Software Patents and Innovation
by Sylvain Perchaud, President of Europe Shareware:Association Pour la Promotion des Auteurs Européens de Sharewares
There is also a commentary on two of the articles on software patents
The Proposed Software Directive: A User's Comments
by Simon Davies, Patent Attorney, D Young and Company
From Larry Lessig's blog, a (warning: large mp3) "wonderful radio show from the Columbia Workshop in 1937 about characters leaving the “copyright lane” for the “public domain.” It is a brilliantly complex and funny tale that reveals an understanding about the value of the public domain that would be hard to recognize today." The show was written by Eustace Wyatt.
A barrister, Jon Holbrook, is not happy with UK government's proposed law on corporate killing. He explains why in Spiked magazine.
"In summary: the government is proposing to create an offence of homicide where criminal guilt
exists in the absence of personal criminal guilt, where the management's errors may not amount to
gross negligence and where the death may not have been the direct result of those errors...
The offence of corporate killing has been devised as a means of securing a conviction for a
person's death where the moral culpability for manslaughter does not exist. The notion of criminal
responsibility is being degraded to such an extent the offence of corporate killing will be criminal in
name only."
Thoughtful piece. Unlikely to make an impact though because the proposed law has such intuitive political and popular appeal. I hasten to add that just because something is intuitively appealing on the surface does not necessarily mean it is correct.
Check out this from an 'urban infiltration' enthusiast at Declan McCullagh's Politech.
"Over the years, it becomes
glaringly obvious to explorers such as ourselves, that almost all of
the critical infrastructure of large cities is _totally_ vulnerable.
Electricity, water, gas, communications, sewage, drainage, rail - all of
them could be shut down over wide areas for days or weeks by simple acts
of vandalism, at remote and unguarded locations...
... we have two observations:
1. It would be easy for anyone wishing to massively disrupt society,
to successfully attack the crucial infrastructure (and escape free.)
2. Suck attacks do not seem to occur...
...The only possible conclusion, is that there is simply no one seriously
interested in committing major infrastructure attacks. And that implies
there are actually no true (or even wannabe) 'terrorists' among us.
And never have been."
I don't accept the conclusion but if s/he is correct about the vunerability of the infrastructure, it is surprising that we have not yet had such an attack.
"In summary: the government is proposing to create an offence of homicide where criminal guilt
exists in the absence of personal criminal guilt, where the management's errors may not amount to
gross negligence and where the death may not have been the direct result of those errors...
The offence of corporate killing has been devised as a means of securing a conviction for a
person's death where the moral culpability for manslaughter does not exist. The notion of criminal
responsibility is being degraded to such an extent the offence of corporate killing will be criminal in
name only."
Thoughtful piece. Unlikely to make an impact though because the proposed law has such intuitive political and popular appeal. I hasten to add that just because something is intuitively appealing on the surface does not necessarily mean it is correct.
Check out this from an 'urban infiltration' enthusiast at Declan McCullagh's Politech.
"Over the years, it becomes
glaringly obvious to explorers such as ourselves, that almost all of
the critical infrastructure of large cities is _totally_ vulnerable.
Electricity, water, gas, communications, sewage, drainage, rail - all of
them could be shut down over wide areas for days or weeks by simple acts
of vandalism, at remote and unguarded locations...
... we have two observations:
1. It would be easy for anyone wishing to massively disrupt society,
to successfully attack the crucial infrastructure (and escape free.)
2. Suck attacks do not seem to occur...
...The only possible conclusion, is that there is simply no one seriously
interested in committing major infrastructure attacks. And that implies
there are actually no true (or even wannabe) 'terrorists' among us.
And never have been."
I don't accept the conclusion but if s/he is correct about the vunerability of the infrastructure, it is surprising that we have not yet had such an attack.
Some stories of interest from the US press:
Net Radio Group Threatens to Sue RIAA in the Washington Post
How to Make a Sonic Purée From Pop Snippets in the New York Times
and
PATENT BENDING in the New Yorker.
Extract from the latter -
Innovators came up with new ways of selling products, handling
suppliers, running organizations, or managing information. If the ideas were good, the innovators got rich, but they also got
imitated, which made them less rich than they might have been.....
Those were the days. Now the first thing someone with a good notion does is press the government to protect it. Priceline
patented its reverse-auction method for selling cut-rate airline tickets. I.B.M. patented a method for keeping track of people
waiting in line for the bathroom."
This is a bit like getting a patent on the idea of fishing, not a new kind of fishing rod but the idea of fishing itself.
Net Radio Group Threatens to Sue RIAA in the Washington Post
How to Make a Sonic Purée From Pop Snippets in the New York Times
and
PATENT BENDING in the New Yorker.
Extract from the latter -
Innovators came up with new ways of selling products, handling
suppliers, running organizations, or managing information. If the ideas were good, the innovators got rich, but they also got
imitated, which made them less rich than they might have been.....
Those were the days. Now the first thing someone with a good notion does is press the government to protect it. Priceline
patented its reverse-auction method for selling cut-rate airline tickets. I.B.M. patented a method for keeping track of people
waiting in line for the bathroom."
This is a bit like getting a patent on the idea of fishing, not a new kind of fishing rod but the idea of fishing itself.
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
A French court has castigated EMI for inadequate warnings on copy protected CDs, apparently saying they mislead consumers. My schoolboy french is not up to the job of translating the court's opinion but it is available online.
Shawn Fanning is, according to the LA Times, "looking for backers of technology he's developing that would let file-sharing networks distribute music without violating copyrights"
Shawn Fanning is, according to the LA Times, "looking for backers of technology he's developing that would let file-sharing networks distribute music without violating copyrights"
Posting here is likely to slow to a trickle over the summer as I get hit with lots of exam marking and summer school as well as a couple of weeks leave.
Notable: The World Intellectual Property Organisation have received a challenge from a diverse group with interests in the "explosion of open and collaborative projects to create public goods. " Signatories to a letter to the Director General of WIPO, requesting that WIPO "convene a meeting in calendar year 2004 to examine these new open collaborative development models, and to discuss their relevance for public policy" look likely to have that request fulfilled. James Love of the Consumer Project on Technology seems to have organised the letter and co-signatories include James Boyle, Larry Lessig, Yochai Benkler, Diane Cabell, Tim Hubbard, Bruce Perens, Ralph Nadar, Laurie Racine, Richard Stallman, Jonathan Zittrain. Other organisations associated include the Consumers Association in the UK and Medecins sans Frontieres.
Also notable: MIT are launching a "Government Information Awareness" GIA project in response to the US government's TIA programme. Wired News explains.
Notable: The World Intellectual Property Organisation have received a challenge from a diverse group with interests in the "explosion of open and collaborative projects to create public goods. " Signatories to a letter to the Director General of WIPO, requesting that WIPO "convene a meeting in calendar year 2004 to examine these new open collaborative development models, and to discuss their relevance for public policy" look likely to have that request fulfilled. James Love of the Consumer Project on Technology seems to have organised the letter and co-signatories include James Boyle, Larry Lessig, Yochai Benkler, Diane Cabell, Tim Hubbard, Bruce Perens, Ralph Nadar, Laurie Racine, Richard Stallman, Jonathan Zittrain. Other organisations associated include the Consumers Association in the UK and Medecins sans Frontieres.
Also notable: MIT are launching a "Government Information Awareness" GIA project in response to the US government's TIA programme. Wired News explains.
Thursday, July 03, 2003
If you get a chance read The Copyright Cage by Jonathan Zittrain, published in the latest edition of Legal Affairs. Also Orin S. Kerr's "Seeing it Both Ways" in the same edition.
New Scientist is reporting that stem cells have enabled paralysed rats to walk. This brings to mind parallel issues and a speech by the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, speaking in Edinburg earlier this year. He said "The world's response to the HIV/AIDs pandemic has been murder by indifference... HIV/AIDS is a modern apocalypse. It is a catastrophe that exceeds everthing else in human history in the field of communicable diseases, and it is impossible to understand the depth of the excruciating human toll without keeping in mind that we have never dealt with this kind of human phenomenon before." He went on to make the point that hundreds of billions of dollars have been magically found for the fight against terrorism, yet the West could put a major dent in the fight against AIDS with just $10 billion per year. Koffi Annan has set up the Global Fund to this end but has so far only got pledges to the cummulative effect of about $2billion and only a fraction of those pledges actually donated. Lewis said "We could stop this pandemic in its tracks in a few short years. We know what to do - we simply must find the will to do it."
In the thick of all this internet law and technological developments there is the background not just of the effects of the changes, which most of accept all too passively, but also of the use to which we actively put these developments. I haven't touched on the ethical issues in stem cell research but if we are going to engage in these kinds of developments we surely should be looking at them in the kind of global equitable context that Lewis is so passionate about?
In the thick of all this internet law and technological developments there is the background not just of the effects of the changes, which most of accept all too passively, but also of the use to which we actively put these developments. I haven't touched on the ethical issues in stem cell research but if we are going to engage in these kinds of developments we surely should be looking at them in the kind of global equitable context that Lewis is so passionate about?
I'm irritated because I just wrote a longish piece about GILC's latest newsletter and lost it in the bowels of Blogger when I tried to post. I'll just point to the newsletter at this point and not repeat my comments.
Jonathan Wallace, in this month's Ethical Spectacle, denounces the Supreme Court's decision upholding CIPA, as a fraud. Jonathan is very well informed about filter software, having run the Censorware Project with Seth Finkelstein, for some years. He makes the point that the fundamental problem with filtering the web is its size and the automated spiders which do most of the assessment are not clever enough to make the required assessments. Also that the few humans involved in assessing sites for software filters are often untrained and subject to unreasonable time contraints and daily quotas, which don't allow them to do the job properly. He goes on:
"Another issue of stunning importance raised by censorware is whether libraries can appropriately delegate their
decision-making processes to twenty year old art students with no training clicking through hundreds of sites a day. Even if
librarians could create their own censorware by reviewing web sites and deciding which to "acquire" for the library, there seems
something inherently suspect in allowing strangers to do it--especially when the strangers refuse to disclose to the libraries the
contents of their blacklists or even the methodologies used to compile them...
Significant portions of my site, such as An Auschwitz Alphabet, and even the pornography essays cited above, are routinely
used as sources by high school and college students writing papers. If you block me on a library computer, you are segregating
me from a significant section of my audience whom I believe would benefit from being able to read my views. If that segregation
has occurred because some artificial stupidity software misapprehended the nature of my site, or a homemaker working
part-time for a censorware company didn't take enough time to understand what my site is about, don't I have reason to
complain? "
That's a fair question IMHO. He reserves his most stinging criticism for Chief Justice Rehnquist, who said in the majority opinion "Assuming that such erroneous blocking presents Constitutional difficulties, any such concerns are dispelled by the ease with which patrons may have the filtering software disabled." I questioned this in the context of the embarrassment factor in an earlier post but Jonathan has another more important point given the current state of the art with software filters:
"The Chief Justice says that the wholesale mischaracterization of innocuous or socially useful sites as porn by a
program that then prevents you from seeing them in a forum in which a large number of Americans secures Internet access,
may not present any kind of free speech problem. That's not food for thought; its poison for thought.
The rest of the sentence is a howler. As the trial court discovered, censorware is not easily turned off in a library. Most
products forward you through a single proxy server. The library does not have the ability to get you out to the Internet through
any other port, and there is no way to switch off the proxy. The best the library can do is contact the censorware company and
request that the particular site the library patron wishes to view be removed from the blacklist. Sometimes the censorware
companies don't respond to such requests; when they do, it can take weeks, rendering the unblocking futile, as the patron has
probably forgotten, lost interest, or turned in her research paper by now. Finally, there have been instances of censorware
companies manually unblocking a site several times, only to have it re-added to the blacklist by the spider...
Since censorware itself is a fiction--a startling case of doing something inaccurate, poorly planned, buggy, in order to create the
fiction of doing something-- it is not surprising that the Chief Justice tacked on an additional fiction, that the censorware can be
turned off when a user requests. If we can pretend that censorware works, we might as well also pretend that it can be shut off." Food (or 'poison' as Jonathan might content) for thought.
"Another issue of stunning importance raised by censorware is whether libraries can appropriately delegate their
decision-making processes to twenty year old art students with no training clicking through hundreds of sites a day. Even if
librarians could create their own censorware by reviewing web sites and deciding which to "acquire" for the library, there seems
something inherently suspect in allowing strangers to do it--especially when the strangers refuse to disclose to the libraries the
contents of their blacklists or even the methodologies used to compile them...
Significant portions of my site, such as An Auschwitz Alphabet, and even the pornography essays cited above, are routinely
used as sources by high school and college students writing papers. If you block me on a library computer, you are segregating
me from a significant section of my audience whom I believe would benefit from being able to read my views. If that segregation
has occurred because some artificial stupidity software misapprehended the nature of my site, or a homemaker working
part-time for a censorware company didn't take enough time to understand what my site is about, don't I have reason to
complain? "
That's a fair question IMHO. He reserves his most stinging criticism for Chief Justice Rehnquist, who said in the majority opinion "Assuming that such erroneous blocking presents Constitutional difficulties, any such concerns are dispelled by the ease with which patrons may have the filtering software disabled." I questioned this in the context of the embarrassment factor in an earlier post but Jonathan has another more important point given the current state of the art with software filters:
"The Chief Justice says that the wholesale mischaracterization of innocuous or socially useful sites as porn by a
program that then prevents you from seeing them in a forum in which a large number of Americans secures Internet access,
may not present any kind of free speech problem. That's not food for thought; its poison for thought.
The rest of the sentence is a howler. As the trial court discovered, censorware is not easily turned off in a library. Most
products forward you through a single proxy server. The library does not have the ability to get you out to the Internet through
any other port, and there is no way to switch off the proxy. The best the library can do is contact the censorware company and
request that the particular site the library patron wishes to view be removed from the blacklist. Sometimes the censorware
companies don't respond to such requests; when they do, it can take weeks, rendering the unblocking futile, as the patron has
probably forgotten, lost interest, or turned in her research paper by now. Finally, there have been instances of censorware
companies manually unblocking a site several times, only to have it re-added to the blacklist by the spider...
Since censorware itself is a fiction--a startling case of doing something inaccurate, poorly planned, buggy, in order to create the
fiction of doing something-- it is not surprising that the Chief Justice tacked on an additional fiction, that the censorware can be
turned off when a user requests. If we can pretend that censorware works, we might as well also pretend that it can be shut off." Food (or 'poison' as Jonathan might content) for thought.
Ex French prime minister and now MEP, Michel Rocard, is, according to Libération, leading the opposition to software patents. This is despite being in the same political group in the parliament as Arlene McCarthy, who is leading the drive for software patents. Rocard says "A civilization should be preserved where the place of the world outside the market and of the human intellect is respected... any software which describes or facilitates the circulation of the products of the mind [les produits de l'esprit] (nb text processing, for example) should not be patentable." Extract from the article:
"One does not find a computer on the Parisian desk of Michel Rocard. He
admits it freely: he is not "one of the generation which has an easy
facility with the computer". However, as president of the Committee for
Culture in the European Parliament, he has had to plunge himself, with
an "evil madness", into software patentability, "words which even a year
ago were unknown to me". Today, if he speaks about it in such an
animated way, it is because hiding behind the technical aspects there is
a real issue about civilization. For the ex prime minister, the
introduction of patents on software in Europe would be "very serious".
It would call into question the freedom of movement of human knowledge. "
As someone who is not "one of the generation which has an easy facility with the computer" he's showing a grasp of the issues here.
"One does not find a computer on the Parisian desk of Michel Rocard. He
admits it freely: he is not "one of the generation which has an easy
facility with the computer". However, as president of the Committee for
Culture in the European Parliament, he has had to plunge himself, with
an "evil madness", into software patentability, "words which even a year
ago were unknown to me". Today, if he speaks about it in such an
animated way, it is because hiding behind the technical aspects there is
a real issue about civilization. For the ex prime minister, the
introduction of patents on software in Europe would be "very serious".
It would call into question the freedom of movement of human knowledge. "
As someone who is not "one of the generation which has an easy facility with the computer" he's showing a grasp of the issues here.
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Check out Derek Slater on Judge Richard Posner's decision in the Madster and Aimster case. Yesterday, the judge ruled against the file sharing services as expected.
In another long running Internet law dispute, the California supreme court ruled yesterday in favour of a former Intel employee, Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi. The company had complained that Hamidi had interfered with employee productivity by sending mass emails on six separate occasions over two years to up to 35000 Intel employees, criticising the company's employment practices. He did not breach any security systems and offered to and did remove anyone from his list who did not wish to recieve his emails any further. There was no argument that the conduct had deprived Intel of the use of their computer system. Intel alleged that Hamidi committed the tort of tresspass to chattels and the court at first instance and the court of appeal had ruled in their favour. The California Supreme court, however, on a split 5-4 decision said that "Such an electronic communication does not constitute an actionable trespass to personal property, i.e. the computer system, because it does not interfere with the possessor's use of or possession of, or other legally protected interest in, the personal property itself." They also said "Our conclusion does not rest on any special immunity for communications by electronic mail; we do not hold that messages transmitted through the Internet are exempt from the ordinary rules of tort liablity." And thye distinguished the case from others where spammers had been held liable but where the volume mail had been so high as to interfere with the operation of the system which constituted the personal property. "...under California law, the tort does not encompass, and should not be extended to encompass, an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning." I recall the case originally raising cyber-libertarians because it was claimed that Mr Hamidi's right to free speech was being impaired. It's an interesting decision.
In another long running Internet law dispute, the California supreme court ruled yesterday in favour of a former Intel employee, Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi. The company had complained that Hamidi had interfered with employee productivity by sending mass emails on six separate occasions over two years to up to 35000 Intel employees, criticising the company's employment practices. He did not breach any security systems and offered to and did remove anyone from his list who did not wish to recieve his emails any further. There was no argument that the conduct had deprived Intel of the use of their computer system. Intel alleged that Hamidi committed the tort of tresspass to chattels and the court at first instance and the court of appeal had ruled in their favour. The California Supreme court, however, on a split 5-4 decision said that "Such an electronic communication does not constitute an actionable trespass to personal property, i.e. the computer system, because it does not interfere with the possessor's use of or possession of, or other legally protected interest in, the personal property itself." They also said "Our conclusion does not rest on any special immunity for communications by electronic mail; we do not hold that messages transmitted through the Internet are exempt from the ordinary rules of tort liablity." And thye distinguished the case from others where spammers had been held liable but where the volume mail had been so high as to interfere with the operation of the system which constituted the personal property. "...under California law, the tort does not encompass, and should not be extended to encompass, an electronic communication that neither damages the recipient computer system nor impairs its functioning." I recall the case originally raising cyber-libertarians because it was claimed that Mr Hamidi's right to free speech was being impaired. It's an interesting decision.
Donna Wenthworth is blogging ILAW at Stanford and Larry Lessig has just done his synopsis of his first book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace -
1. Cyberspace can be regulated, contrary to libertarian opinion.
2. Four things constrain behaviour - law, norms, market forces and architecture
3. These four regulators interact with each other, so e.g. law can influence norms
4. Architecture, once set, regulates without further human input
5. Original Net architecture facilitated anonymity. Elements grafted on to the architecture undermined that facility e.g. cookies "Puts a tag on your computer. A clever, tiny change with dramatic consequences." Another example is IP mapping which makes users "relatively identifiable"
6. So small changes can hugely change the effect of the architecture.
He also refers to the HP - MIT fight over spam blacklisting which I had fogotten -
Battle between HP and MIT. HP subscribed to ORBS. MIT mail was blocked; MIT didn’t implement policies ORBS thought appropriate. MIT got mad. They started blocking all mail from HP. Arms race. This was only stopped because ORBS went down.
Summarising, he says:
"Code is law" is not my idea; it’s Mitch Kapor’s. He
said: "Architecture is politics." Second point: code is
plastic. Third point: sometimes no law can beget bad
code. Fourth point, more tentative: good law can be used
to avoid bad code (maybe)?
1. Cyberspace can be regulated, contrary to libertarian opinion.
2. Four things constrain behaviour - law, norms, market forces and architecture
3. These four regulators interact with each other, so e.g. law can influence norms
4. Architecture, once set, regulates without further human input
5. Original Net architecture facilitated anonymity. Elements grafted on to the architecture undermined that facility e.g. cookies "Puts a tag on your computer. A clever, tiny change with dramatic consequences." Another example is IP mapping which makes users "relatively identifiable"
6. So small changes can hugely change the effect of the architecture.
He also refers to the HP - MIT fight over spam blacklisting which I had fogotten -
Battle between HP and MIT. HP subscribed to ORBS. MIT mail was blocked; MIT didn’t implement policies ORBS thought appropriate. MIT got mad. They started blocking all mail from HP. Arms race. This was only stopped because ORBS went down.
Summarising, he says:
"Code is law" is not my idea; it’s Mitch Kapor’s. He
said: "Architecture is politics." Second point: code is
plastic. Third point: sometimes no law can beget bad
code. Fourth point, more tentative: good law can be used
to avoid bad code (maybe)?
Some insight on the Microsoft XBox mod chip story in Australia. Nathan Cochrane is not too impressed with the Microsoft PR person. He believes "Microsoft was denied the right of an adequate reply" to the story because the PR person he and the ZDNet reporter, Patrick Gray, contacted did not do her job properly.
Today Nathan is reporting on a proposed new service P2P for expatriate TV watchers. A "French company is ready to launch a device that lets television viewers watch any channel on earth, and may open another front in the battle over digital copyright."
And Declan McCullagh elsewhere is complaining about Microsoft's lobbying efforts to induce regulation to keep the Net neutral. Declan is a pure libertarian who is suspicious of government regulation and believes market forces will right all wrongs for consumers. I admire his convictions but given that market forces are ultimately underpinned by contract law - ie. government regulation - I have never been totally convinced. The world is a bit more complex than pure libertarianism would have us believe. Nevertheless Declan is irritated that Microsoft, of all companies, should be changing tack on their coincident beliefs - Microsoft also, until recently, viewed with suspicion government interference in the marketplace. His second complaint about Microsoft in the article is they are taking a position in their lobbying that they have so far refused to espouse or defend in public.
Today Nathan is reporting on a proposed new service P2P for expatriate TV watchers. A "French company is ready to launch a device that lets television viewers watch any channel on earth, and may open another front in the battle over digital copyright."
And Declan McCullagh elsewhere is complaining about Microsoft's lobbying efforts to induce regulation to keep the Net neutral. Declan is a pure libertarian who is suspicious of government regulation and believes market forces will right all wrongs for consumers. I admire his convictions but given that market forces are ultimately underpinned by contract law - ie. government regulation - I have never been totally convinced. The world is a bit more complex than pure libertarianism would have us believe. Nevertheless Declan is irritated that Microsoft, of all companies, should be changing tack on their coincident beliefs - Microsoft also, until recently, viewed with suspicion government interference in the marketplace. His second complaint about Microsoft in the article is they are taking a position in their lobbying that they have so far refused to espouse or defend in public.
Monday, June 30, 2003
In the DEMOS report, Mobilisation, James Harkin concludes that the killer app of the next generation mobile phones will be "location awareness" i.e. the ability to pinpoint the user's location accurately at any time. Will people really come to love being tracked precisely and minutely? The DEMOS report is available at their website.
Kieran McCarthy has some advice for opponents of software patents in Europe, on persuading politicians of the merits of their case - appeal to their egos. HE suggests there are three things to avoid
1. Ideological arguments - because politicians move with the prevailing winds
2. Little people defence - politicians don't like picking fights with the powerful, as it can damage their careers
3. Criticism - politicians don't like to be told they are stupid and just don't get it. (No more than anyone else!) Better to ride the ego, wine and dine, tell them how clever they are and then explain your perspective in easy to manage chunks or soundbites. They understand, for example, the argument that 'patents encourage innovation and investment and that harmonising laws make things simpler everywhere'. They don't get the argument that 'patents (ans software patents in particular) can restrict innovation in some circumstances because...[add here any one of umpteen complex justifications for the anti software patent stance] ....' If you cannot make your point in 3 or 4 seconds you just will not get through.
1. Ideological arguments - because politicians move with the prevailing winds
2. Little people defence - politicians don't like picking fights with the powerful, as it can damage their careers
3. Criticism - politicians don't like to be told they are stupid and just don't get it. (No more than anyone else!) Better to ride the ego, wine and dine, tell them how clever they are and then explain your perspective in easy to manage chunks or soundbites. They understand, for example, the argument that 'patents encourage innovation and investment and that harmonising laws make things simpler everywhere'. They don't get the argument that 'patents (ans software patents in particular) can restrict innovation in some circumstances because...[add here any one of umpteen complex justifications for the anti software patent stance] ....' If you cannot make your point in 3 or 4 seconds you just will not get through.
Friday, June 27, 2003
From the Berkman Center we learn that "James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, has won this year's World Technology Award in Law" James' book Shamans Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society is one of the most enlightening works on intellectual property and information economics I've ever read and this award is thoroughly deserved. The elite list of nominees he was up against gives you an indication of how important his work is:
Prof. Martin Adelman - George Washington University Law School
Mr. Hisamitsu Arai - Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters,Cabinet Secretariat
Prof. Yochai Benkler - New York University School of Law
Prof. Robert Bohrer - California Western School of Law
Prof. James Boyle - Duke Law School
Mr. Stuart Brotman - Stuart N. Brotman Communications
Prof. Paul Goldstein - Stanford Law School
Dr. Thomas Hoeren - University of Muenster
Dr. Kamil Idris - World Intellectual Property Organization
Mr. Michael Kirk - American Intellectual Property Law Association
Prof. Edmund Kitch - University of Virginia
Prof. Lawrence Lessig - Stanford University
Judge Richard Linn - U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Prof. Daniel Poulin, Mr. Ernst Perpignand and Mr. Marc-Andre Morissette - LexUM, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal
Prof. Pamela Samuelson - UC Berkeley
Dr. Barbara Simons - Association for Computing Machinery
A fair few things of note around but I'm limited for time today, so check out the usual suspects like Donna Wenthworth but one thing I would like to point you to is David Post's short note at the Volokh Conspiracy -
"Copyright Battles, Con't: Public Library of Science, a group of scientists and physicians seeking to insure that scientific information is placed in the public domain, free of copyright or other intellectual property protection, has launched a campaign to strip copyright protection entirely from works prepared with the "substantial" financial support of the US government.....
It's an important effort, I think (full disclosure: I've been a kind of informal advisor to the PLoS people for a while now), worth keeping an eye on. The recording industry's battles over Internet "piracy" have received most of the buzz in this area, but in many ways this clash between scientists and scientific publishers is equally important for the future of copyright law. " I have a quibble - I'd have said it's more important for scientific information to be in the public domain but I guess that's the techie in me.
Prof. Martin Adelman - George Washington University Law School
Mr. Hisamitsu Arai - Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters,Cabinet Secretariat
Prof. Yochai Benkler - New York University School of Law
Prof. Robert Bohrer - California Western School of Law
Prof. James Boyle - Duke Law School
Mr. Stuart Brotman - Stuart N. Brotman Communications
Prof. Paul Goldstein - Stanford Law School
Dr. Thomas Hoeren - University of Muenster
Dr. Kamil Idris - World Intellectual Property Organization
Mr. Michael Kirk - American Intellectual Property Law Association
Prof. Edmund Kitch - University of Virginia
Prof. Lawrence Lessig - Stanford University
Judge Richard Linn - U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Prof. Daniel Poulin, Mr. Ernst Perpignand and Mr. Marc-Andre Morissette - LexUM, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal
Prof. Pamela Samuelson - UC Berkeley
Dr. Barbara Simons - Association for Computing Machinery
A fair few things of note around but I'm limited for time today, so check out the usual suspects like Donna Wenthworth but one thing I would like to point you to is David Post's short note at the Volokh Conspiracy -
"Copyright Battles, Con't: Public Library of Science, a group of scientists and physicians seeking to insure that scientific information is placed in the public domain, free of copyright or other intellectual property protection, has launched a campaign to strip copyright protection entirely from works prepared with the "substantial" financial support of the US government.....
It's an important effort, I think (full disclosure: I've been a kind of informal advisor to the PLoS people for a while now), worth keeping an eye on. The recording industry's battles over Internet "piracy" have received most of the buzz in this area, but in many ways this clash between scientists and scientific publishers is equally important for the future of copyright law. " I have a quibble - I'd have said it's more important for scientific information to be in the public domain but I guess that's the techie in me.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
A company that makes mod chips for the Microsoft XBox has released the design of the chips under an open source license in Australia. Microsoft and rival Sony will not like that. Sony, in January 2002, successfully shut down, through legal action, a [messiah] mod chip [for Sony's Playstation] importer to the UK but failed in a similar action in Australia, in July 2002.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
George Radwanski, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, resigned yesterday after his recent troubles. It's a long and robust resignation letter and he's sticking strongly to the line that he is the victim of nasty politics, perpetrated by folk in power, who didn't appreciate his effectiveness in his job.
"I hope that all fair-minded Canadians will judge me by what I have accomplished on their behalf and
by the unwavering vigour, commitment and spirit of service with which I have carried out my duties,
and not by the vicious, untrue and distorted things that have recently been said and reported about
me. I have paid a heavy price in these past days for doing my job of overseeing and defending the
privacy rights of all Canadians as I believe they deserve to have it done, but I leave proudly and
with no regrets except for being unable to carry on this vital work."
The Canadian media have a rather more negative perspective on the resignation.
"I hope that all fair-minded Canadians will judge me by what I have accomplished on their behalf and
by the unwavering vigour, commitment and spirit of service with which I have carried out my duties,
and not by the vicious, untrue and distorted things that have recently been said and reported about
me. I have paid a heavy price in these past days for doing my job of overseeing and defending the
privacy rights of all Canadians as I believe they deserve to have it done, but I leave proudly and
with no regrets except for being unable to carry on this vital work."
The Canadian media have a rather more negative perspective on the resignation.
SCOTUS blog on US V ALA on the Supreme Court decision upholding CIPA enforcement of library filters. They also provide a brief accessible summary of the positions of the various justices.
Jenny Levine's got a collection of links on the case. You can tell she's not overly enamoured with the decision,
"This decision only points out even further how out of touch
our politicians and judges are with the daily lives of the
people they are supposed to represent. Obviously none of
them use the public libraries they just deemed themselves
knowledgeable enough to censor.
Final thought for the night: someone please correct me if
I'm wrong, but there's no additional funding for libraries to
start purchasing site licenses for filtering software, using staff
time and resources to create internal solutions, or
outsourcing the job of building something. So now we're
supposed to divert existing monies (that help pay for the
access itself?) from our already weakened budgets in order
to be compliant with this decision? I'm still looking for the
common sense logic here...."
I suspect one of the Chief Justice's arguments, which he will be most criticised for, by opponents of the decision will be: "A library’s failure to make quality-based judgments about all the materials it furnishes from the Web does not somehow taint the judgments it does make. A library’s need to exercise judgment in making collection decisions depends on its traditional role in identifying suitable and worthwhile material; it is no less entitled to play that roll when it collects material from the internet than when it collects material from any other source. Most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion. We do not subject these decisions to heightened scrutiny; it would make little sense to treat libraries’ judgments to block online pornography any differently, when they judgments are made for just the same reason.” He's not actually treating like with like here and is pre-supposing that the libraries define what gets filtered out. Whereas it is the software filter companies who decide what criteria are used for filtering. Justice Souter, who disagreed with the majority (6-3) opinion, argues that excluding porn from an existing set of resources is different from actively spending money on porn to include in those resources. For a self described luddite, that's a pretty good demonstration that he understands the difference between the 'push' nature of most conventional media versus the 'pull' nature of the Net. Chief Justice Rehnquist, in the paragraph quoted, doesn't display a direct awareness of the push v pull distinction. It's unfair to take the paragraph out of context and I have not yet read the entire 56 page ruling but that one jumped out at me a bit.
One of the concurring justices (can't remember which at the moment) seems to be primarily swayed by the argument that there is no big deal here. If library patrons want unfiltered access to the Net via a library computer, they can just ask the librarian to switch the filter off. The possibilty of such an outlet then brings the question of anonymity into play. I might find it no big deal to ask a librarian to switch a filter off because, for example, it happens to block access to a site like the Ethical Spectacle, maintained by a prominent critic of software filters, Jonathan Wallace. (The websites of people like Jonathan and Seth Finkelsteinhave been blacklisted by some filter software companies.) Others might not be prepared to ask a librarian to switch off a filter for fear of being perceived in a negative light as someone interested in pornography. In his dissent, Justice Souter, on this point said "First, the statute says only that a library 'may' unblock, not that it must...In addition, it allows unblocking only for a 'bona fide research or other lawful purposes'. There is therefore necessarily some restriction, which is surely made more onerous by the uncertainty of its terms and the generosity of its discretion to library staffs in deciding who gets complete Internet access and who does not." Absolutely.
Jenny Levine's got a collection of links on the case. You can tell she's not overly enamoured with the decision,
"This decision only points out even further how out of touch
our politicians and judges are with the daily lives of the
people they are supposed to represent. Obviously none of
them use the public libraries they just deemed themselves
knowledgeable enough to censor.
Final thought for the night: someone please correct me if
I'm wrong, but there's no additional funding for libraries to
start purchasing site licenses for filtering software, using staff
time and resources to create internal solutions, or
outsourcing the job of building something. So now we're
supposed to divert existing monies (that help pay for the
access itself?) from our already weakened budgets in order
to be compliant with this decision? I'm still looking for the
common sense logic here...."
I suspect one of the Chief Justice's arguments, which he will be most criticised for, by opponents of the decision will be: "A library’s failure to make quality-based judgments about all the materials it furnishes from the Web does not somehow taint the judgments it does make. A library’s need to exercise judgment in making collection decisions depends on its traditional role in identifying suitable and worthwhile material; it is no less entitled to play that roll when it collects material from the internet than when it collects material from any other source. Most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion. We do not subject these decisions to heightened scrutiny; it would make little sense to treat libraries’ judgments to block online pornography any differently, when they judgments are made for just the same reason.” He's not actually treating like with like here and is pre-supposing that the libraries define what gets filtered out. Whereas it is the software filter companies who decide what criteria are used for filtering. Justice Souter, who disagreed with the majority (6-3) opinion, argues that excluding porn from an existing set of resources is different from actively spending money on porn to include in those resources. For a self described luddite, that's a pretty good demonstration that he understands the difference between the 'push' nature of most conventional media versus the 'pull' nature of the Net. Chief Justice Rehnquist, in the paragraph quoted, doesn't display a direct awareness of the push v pull distinction. It's unfair to take the paragraph out of context and I have not yet read the entire 56 page ruling but that one jumped out at me a bit.
One of the concurring justices (can't remember which at the moment) seems to be primarily swayed by the argument that there is no big deal here. If library patrons want unfiltered access to the Net via a library computer, they can just ask the librarian to switch the filter off. The possibilty of such an outlet then brings the question of anonymity into play. I might find it no big deal to ask a librarian to switch a filter off because, for example, it happens to block access to a site like the Ethical Spectacle, maintained by a prominent critic of software filters, Jonathan Wallace. (The websites of people like Jonathan and Seth Finkelsteinhave been blacklisted by some filter software companies.) Others might not be prepared to ask a librarian to switch off a filter for fear of being perceived in a negative light as someone interested in pornography. In his dissent, Justice Souter, on this point said "First, the statute says only that a library 'may' unblock, not that it must...In addition, it allows unblocking only for a 'bona fide research or other lawful purposes'. There is therefore necessarily some restriction, which is surely made more onerous by the uncertainty of its terms and the generosity of its discretion to library staffs in deciding who gets complete Internet access and who does not." Absolutely.
Monday, June 23, 2003
Following the deliberations of JURI on software patents, the European Parliament are scheduled to vote on the matter on 30 June, according to this contribution to Slashdot. For those of you who may be concerned enough about this to consider contacting your Member of the European Parliament about this, the UK OFFICE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT have provided a convenient map to allow you to identify your representatives.
Breaking news - the Supreme Court has just posted it's judgement in the CIPA library filtering case, US v ALA. Looks as though they've ruled the Act constitutional. No doubt the legal scholars will be all over this one very soon.
Phillip Greenspun in the Harvard blogosphere is concerned at the privatisation of previously public owned resources. His theory is that in spite of an economic downturn, the stock prices of companies absorbing these commons is going up because of this absorption. It would be really interesting to see some hard evidence of such a direct link, if there is some out there. Larry Lessig has offered some relevant background to the part of the story about Disney flyovers.
Update: Given that the Supreme Court has now ruled CIPA is ok on first amendment grounds, it's interesting to note that Reporters Without Borders have just published their second report on the state of global Net censorship. Vint Cerf has written the foreword. In it he says:
Truth is a powerful solvent. Stone walls melt before its
relentless might. The Internet is one of the most powerful
agents of freedom. It exposes truth to those who wish to see
and hear it. It is no wonder that some governments and
organizations fear the Internet and its ability to make the truth
known. The phrase "freedom of speech" is often used to
characterize a key element of democratic societies : open
communication and especially open government. But freedom
of speech is less than half of the equation. It is also vital that
citizens have the freedom to hear and see. It is the latter area in
which many governments have intervened in an attempt to
prevent citizens from gaining access to information that their
governments wish to withhold from them.
Breaking news - the Supreme Court has just posted it's judgement in the CIPA library filtering case, US v ALA. Looks as though they've ruled the Act constitutional. No doubt the legal scholars will be all over this one very soon.
Phillip Greenspun in the Harvard blogosphere is concerned at the privatisation of previously public owned resources. His theory is that in spite of an economic downturn, the stock prices of companies absorbing these commons is going up because of this absorption. It would be really interesting to see some hard evidence of such a direct link, if there is some out there. Larry Lessig has offered some relevant background to the part of the story about Disney flyovers.
Update: Given that the Supreme Court has now ruled CIPA is ok on first amendment grounds, it's interesting to note that Reporters Without Borders have just published their second report on the state of global Net censorship. Vint Cerf has written the foreword. In it he says:
Truth is a powerful solvent. Stone walls melt before its
relentless might. The Internet is one of the most powerful
agents of freedom. It exposes truth to those who wish to see
and hear it. It is no wonder that some governments and
organizations fear the Internet and its ability to make the truth
known. The phrase "freedom of speech" is often used to
characterize a key element of democratic societies : open
communication and especially open government. But freedom
of speech is less than half of the equation. It is also vital that
citizens have the freedom to hear and see. It is the latter area in
which many governments have intervened in an attempt to
prevent citizens from gaining access to information that their
governments wish to withhold from them.
Ian Lance Taylor visited SCO to find out about their case against IBM and linux. There was no direct access to legal documents and SCO are still keeping the detailed evidence and claims under wraps but there is more detail here than in previous media reports. Taylor did have to sign a draconian non disclosure agreement but was shown a piece of code that SCO claimed infringed their rights. Taylor wasn't convinced by the example and wasn't able to provide a copy because of the NDA but his perspective was that that it was possible that some code may have been copied from unix into linux but that there were numerous examples of the same code to be found easily around the net and that SCO were stretching the definition of what constituted a derivative work. Nice to see a few scraps emerging on this saga but the explicit evidence and court documents remain elusive and beyond the scope of open scrutiny for the moment.
The Special Olympics World Summer Games 2003 opened in Dublin on Saturday evening. Can somebody tell me why the british media have ignored it? As the official site says "This is the first time in the 35-year history of Special Olympics that a World Games Opening Ceremony has been held outside of the United States of America." It's on the UK's doorstep and yet the media here are more interested in a guy with a false beard and a dress sneaking into a 21st birthday party.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)