In The News
ACTA Internet Chapter Leak Signals Far-Reaching Copyright Policy
Kaitlin Mara, Intellectual Property Watch
As governments negotiating the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) meet in Seoul this week, public interest concern has surfaced over leaked information on internet enforcement.
The leaks “confirm everything that we feared,” wrote Gwen Hinze of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “It’s bad. Very bad,” said Cory Doctorow, at influential blog BoingBoing.
It “provides firm confirmation that the treaty is not a counterfeiting trade, but a copyright treaty,” said University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist.
Trade Talks Hone in on Internet Abuse and ISP Liability
Paul Meller, IDG
ISPs around the world may be forced to snoop on their subscribers and cut them off if they are found to have shared copyright-protected music on the Internet, under an international agreement being promoted by the U.S.
Countries including Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as the European Union and U.S. have been negotiating an anticounterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) over the past two years to combat the growing problem of counterfeit products ranging from designer clothes to downloadable music.
Digital Bread Crumbs: Following Your Cell Phone Trail
Martin Kaste, NPR
Cell phones leave a data trail, and it is becoming standard operating procedure for police departments and federal agents to use this data to locate and track people. NPR talks to a forensic expert and to EFF attorney Jennifer Granick about the practice.
For Texas Instruments, Calculator Hackers Don't Add Up
David Kushner, IEEE Spectrum Magazine
Calculator hackers code games and even get USB peripherals running on their machines. There's one problem: Texas Instruments doesn't want hackers modifying their calculators. TI insisted hackers take down links leading to signing keys that enable such modifications. The incident raises compelling questions about the boundaries of innovation and collaboration online.
EFF Challenges VOIP Systems Patent
By Roy Mark, eWeek
As part of its Patent Busting Project, the Electronic Frontier Foundation claims it has discovered a prior patent and published reference material that should invalidate a patent granted to Acceris for implementing VOIP using analog telephones as endpoints
Apple Tweaks iPhone 3GS to Lock Out Jailbreakers
By Richard Adhikari, MacNewsWorld
"Apple is certainly entitled to modify its hardware as it likes -- just like Toyota can use nonstandard parts to make it hard on replacement part makers," Fred von Lohmann, EFF's senior staff attorney, told MacNewsWorld. "What Apple should not be entitled to do is invoke the DMCA to block hobbyists from tinkering with their own property -- just like a car company shouldn't be able to use the DMCA to prevent me from using replacement parts of my choice."
EFF: TI calculator hackers didn't violate DMCA
By Stephen Shankland, CNET News
The Electronic Frontier Foundation on Tuesday rebutted legal assertions by Texas Instruments that enthusiasts who figured how to install their own operating systems on TI calculators violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
EFF challenges Texas Instruments over calculator mods
By John Timmer, Ars Technica
Those issues were elaborated in a letter to TI from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has agreed to represent the three bloggers targeted by DMCA takedowns. The EFF points out that the keys don't actually control access to the OS in residence on the calculators, which TI makes available as a free download.
Google Books: Scanning the Future
By Ben Hallman, The American Lawyer
Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the proposed settlement may encourage stakeholders to "stop worrying about control, and to start worrying about remuneration.
Is EZ-Pass infringing on people’s privacy?
By Bruce Landis, Providence Journal
“That can very easily be used to track people’s location history,” said Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit that supports civil liberties in the high-tech arena. “It’s something people just don’t think about, that the system knows where you are and when you pay.”
