In The News: July, 2007
"Attempted infringement" appears in new House intellectual property bill
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
Back in May, the Justice Department issued some proposed legislation to tighten US intellectual property laws and to criminalize some forms of "attempted infringement." Now, legislation based on the proposals has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), complete with stiffer jail terms for violators and the controversial "attempted infringement" clause...
The bill is full of the sort of things that groups like the EFF aren't going to like, and in fact the EFF has already issued a statement condemning the legislation. One of their concerns is that a small change to the law could have big effects on casual file-sharers for a different reason: P2P users could face greater penalties for infringement after statutory damages are expanded.
The bill allows "a judge to dole out damages for each separate piece of a derivative work or compilation, rather than treating it as one work," wrote Derek Slater, "for example, copying an entire album could translate into damages for each individual track, even if the copyrights in those tracks aren't separately registered."
New bill backs prison time for piracy 'attempts'
Anne Broache, CNET News.com
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may not have a lot of pals in Congress these days, but he has nevertheless found someone willing to pursue the dramatic copyright crackdown lurking on his legislative wishlist...
Digital rights activists are already bristling at the new language, which currently has no co-sponsors. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance, has argued that the bill and similar past efforts would lead to more convictions of innocent people. In a recent blog post, EFF activism coordinator said he hopes the Chabot proposal "meets the same fate as last year's DoJ proposal and is stopped dead in its tracks."
Bush Asks Congress To Expand Surveillance
CBS News
In the midst of a festering public scandal surrounding the administration's secret wiretapping program and the attorney general's efforts to have it extended, President George W. Bush is calling on Congress to expand the law governing the issuance of warrants to intelligence agencies for surveillance...
This could affect a lawsuit before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing AT&T for violating the rights of its customers by assisting the NSA with spying. The government has sought to have the suit dismissed on the grounds that state secrets would be exposed in a trial.
Audio: Uneasy Ties Bind Music Companies, Music Blogs
Joel Rose, NPR
Record labels usually frown on fans sharing music for free online, but tolerate MP3, or music, blogs. These fan-run sites have proven effective in breaking unknown indie bands. But it's a relationship that is still rocky at times, as Joel Rose of member station WHYY reports.
(Featuring EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann.)
Your Help Needed in Analyzing FBI Docs
Lisa Vaas, eWeek
Lacking something to read at the beach this summer? Problem solved: There are 1,138 pages detailing FBI activity that need to be pored over by good citizens so as to ferret out abuse of power.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has requested that people "dive into the docs," all of which are freely downloadable, with searchable text, from the nonprofit group's Web site.
Judge won't dismiss states' wiretap suits
Paul Elias, Associated Press
A federal judge declined to dismiss lawsuits filed by Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, and two other states seeking information on a warrantless wiretap program run by the federal government. The decision keeps the cases alive, pending an appeals court decision...
Cindy Cohn, chief lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group that will argue the case against the government in the appeals court, said yesterday's ruling was "significant because the government wanted to kill these cases and the judge refused."
YouTube User Puts Legal Lash to Universal
Nicholas Carlson , InternetNews
Now it's the copyright holders getting taken to court.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit today against Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), asking a federal court to protect the fair use and free speech rights of a mother who posted a short video of her toddler son on the Internet.
Senators to abandon '08 e-voting paper trail mandate
Anne Broache, CNET News.com
Democratic senators on Wednesday made another push for banning electronic voting machines that lack paper trails, but they've backed away from doing so in time for next year's presidential election...
In some ways, the Senate effort resembles a bill approved by a House of Representatives panel in May. Election officials have criticized that bill as setting forth unrealistic requirements, insufficient funding and impossible timetables--including implementation, with some exceptions, by next year's elections. But advocacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say it is an important step toward creating more open, transparent elections.
Universal demands takedown of homemade dancing toddler clip; EFF sues
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
A 29-second video clip of a toddler dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" is the subject of a new court complaint against Universal Music Publishing Group, which demanded that the clip be removed from YouTube in early June. Apparently, the company believes that a few seconds of music blasting from a background stereo infringes on its copyright, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation disagrees. The EFF filed suit against Universal yesterday, alleging that the music in the clip was "self-evident non-infringing fair use."
EFF Takes Universal To Court Over DMCA Issues
Terrence Russell, Wired News
Not since that annoying Ally McBeal baby has a dancing toddler caused so much commotion. All it took was Stephanie Lenz uploading a 29 second clip of her son rocking out to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" on YouTube and now Universal Music Publishing Group is up in arms. The worst of it came last month as YouTube removed the clip in compliance with their own DMCA policy after Universal's official request.
Now the Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced that they are filing suit against the music giant with the intent to "protect the fair use and free speech rights of a mother who posted a short video of her toddler son dancing to a Prince song on the Internet."
EULA: What Are You Signing Away?
Andrew K. Burger, E-Commerce Times
Software developers and vendors have used standard contracts to protect themselves, their products and services, and to set the terms of agreements with customers. However, in doing so they often set legally binding terms and conditions that consumer advocacy groups would argue overstep the bounds of what should be expected or permissible...
EULAs have been used "to require users to sign away their fair use rights, such as the right to reverse engineer," Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) staff attorney Corynne McSherry told the E-Commerce Times. "Essentially, companies are using contract law to trump basic IP (Internet protocol) protections for users -- often without users' knowledge."
Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations
John Solomon, Washington Post
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005...
Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the nonpartisan Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "I think these documents raise some very serious questions about how much the attorney general knew about the FBI's misuse of surveillance powers and when he knew it." A lawsuit by Hofmann's group seeking internal FBI documents about NSLs prompted the release of the reports.
Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations
John Solomon, Washington Post
On April 27, 2005, Attorney General Gonzales assured Congress that "there has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" as a result o the PATRIOT Act. An EFF lawsuit against the Department Of Justice revealed that just six days before he made this statment to Congress, Gonzales had been copied on a communication to a presidential oversight board reporting improper use of a National Security Letter by the FBI. This incident helped to prompt an internal Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales has made false or misleading testimony before Congress.
Spoon-altering psychic has copyright advocates bent out of shape
Paul Elias, Associated Press
Uri Geller became a 1970s superstar and made millions with an act that included bending spoons, seemingly through the power of his own mind...
"All it takes is a single e-mail to completely censor someone on the Internet," said Jason Schultz, a lawyer for the online civil rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing Geller over an unflattering clip posted on YouTube for which he claimed a copyright ownership.
Imagine There's No DRM... I Wonder if You Can
Tekla S. Perry, IEEE Spectrum
Digital rights management, the group of technologies that control copying and use of digital media downloads and disks, has infuriated consumers since its inception in the mid-1990s...
If the industry moves in the direction of lifting DRM and “we end up in a world in which music is sold in an unrestricted format as a default, we have the world we want to live in,” says Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a consumer advocacy organization.
Hollywood hates pirates, but can it use them?
Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com
Attorney Nancy Prager sees only thievery in file sharing. Don't even try to suggest anything otherwise to her...
"File sharing has been going on for years now and yet the movie industry continues to see record profits and revenues," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users. "Clearly file sharing is not killing the movie industry, far from it."
More Evil Than Google?
Andy Greenberg, Forbes.com
No matter how many times Google chants its "Don't be evil" mantra, its critics just won't disappear...
So is it fair to hold a double standard for Google and other search companies? Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that it is: Because of the company's unprecedented dominance of the search industry and its massive data collection, he says that a little evil from Google goes a long way.
"Google gets the most press because it's the biggest, and that's fair," Opsahl says. "Every decision they make has so much impact."
