Apple has replaced Microsoft as the chief foe of open source...

Will the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s latest slam of Apple, over its attempt to kill a BluWiki thread with a DMCA order, mark a turning point?

Apple is trying to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to stop the iPodHash project, and thereby to restrict the freedom of iPod owners who'd prefer to use alternatives to iTunes, such as Songbird and WinAmp...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has offered to get involved, and has published Apple Confuses Speech with a DMCA Violation, a Legal Analysis by Fred von Lohmann. He says: "Short answer: Apple doesn't have a DMCA leg to stand on." There's also a long answer.

When copies of a fake New York Times and an accompanying Web site started making the rounds on the morning of November 12, many people believed that the move would result in a legal firestorm from the newspaper...

"De Beers is demanding that Joker.com disable Mr. Schweppes' domain name based on De Beer's alleged belief that the Web site associated with that domain name contains materials that infringe De Beers' trademark," EFF attorney Corynne McSherry, wrote in a Tuesday letter to McGinley. "These threats are improper and baseless and we demand that you withdraw them immediately."

What has been heralded as a breakthrough in the digitisation of human knowledge is also raising questions about how most humans will access that knowledge, according to an expert in copyright and the public interest.

Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently raised concerns about Google’s new settlement with publishers allowing the search engine to continue borrowing millions of books from libraries and scanning them to make a digital library.

When Apple released its new MacBook and MacBook Pro models, as well as updated MacBook Air models, one feature of those latest laptops touted by Apple was their Mini DisplayPort video connection...

“This is a remarkably short-sighted move for both Apple and Hollywood,” wrote Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a post to the organization’s Web site. “This punishes existing iTunes customers.” He also called new MacBook’s a downgrade in everyone’s previous investment in iTunes content.

Creativity may not be the first thing that comes to mind when travelling through the kilometres of mostly grey, Soviet-era cement-block buildings outlying the capital of Moldova, often referred to as Europe’s poorest state...

Exceptions and limitation have been shown to provide as much if not more contribution to economies, the meeting was told by several speakers. Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation said an “enormous amount” of economic activity relies on exceptions to copyright, such as technology providers and online businesses like auction site eBay and search engine Google.

Apple made available Quicktime 7.5.7 for select computers late in the day yesterday, an update intended to fix the inability to play SD content purchased from the iTunes store on an external display. This was an issue that we first reported on last week when it came to our attention that the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros seemingly came with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, lovingly known as HDCP for short, on their mini-DisplayPorts. Needless to say, the Internet at large was very unhappy about this revelation, and Apple even got blasted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation because of it.

The US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a guide on how IT professionals can avoid falling foul of the law as a result of ethical hacking...

"A computer-security researcher who has inadvertently violated the law during the course of her investigation faces a dilemma when thinking about whether to notify a company about a problem she discovered in one of the company's products," the guide states. "By reporting the security flaw, the researcher reveals that she may have committed unlawful activity, which might invite a lawsuit or criminal investigation. On the other hand, withholding information means a potentially serious security flaw may go unremedied."

Host Jonathan Kirsch, an attorney specializing in intellectual property and publishing law, moderates a panel discussion on a landmark literary-legal settlement. It allows Google to scan and make available online many out-of-print but still-copyrighted books. The settlement portends a viable digital future for authors, publishers and libraries. Is there any downside?

Guests:
Alexander McGillivray: Associate General Counsel for Products and Intellectual Property, Google
James Gleick: Vice President, Authors' Guild
Allan Robert Adler: Vice President for Legal and Government Affairs, Association of American Publishers
Fred von Lohmann: Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Agents along the Canada and Mexico borders are using a controversial new machine that can "read" the personal information contained in some government-issued ID cards — such as passports and driver's licenses — as travelers approach a checkpoint...

"There's this strange rush to a fancy or shiny new technology," says Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The cards "are quite vulnerable" to being cloned or having their codes broken.

A copyright lawsuit against a man who posted instructions on how to print unlimited copies of coupons has been dropped...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also filed an amicus brief in support of Stottlemire's motion to dismiss, arguing that Coupons' technology didn't protect access to the files in question, and therefore Stottlemire did not circumvent anything.

Congress had no right to pass a law intended to torpedo lawsuits accusing the nation’s telecoms of massive violating privacy laws when they helped the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping of Americans, a privacy group told a federal judge Thursday.

The reply brief (.pdf) from the Electronic Frontier Foundation marks the last paper salvo in the battle over retroactive amnesty for the nation’s telecoms that are accused of helping the Bush administration secretly circumvent federal wiretapping law for five years.

A high-powered First Amendment attorney has agreed to represent real estate news site Blockshopper, which is being sued by law firm Jones Day for trademark infringement lawsuit for having linked to the firm's Web site...

Digital rights groups from around the country are seeking to get involved in the case. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Citizen are among the groups that attempted to file a friend-of-the-court brief on Blockshopper's behalf, but Darrah turned those organizations away. He ruled last week that a friend-of-the-court brief "would not now be helpful."

Not since former vice-president Al Gore “invented” the Internet has technology been as hot a talking point in the corridors of power in Washington...

The CTO would also likely play a role in the U.S. government's involvement in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an international treaty under construction by a number of nations, including Canada, that would enact strict enforcement rules surrounding intellectual property and copyright matters. The Electronic Frontier Foundation in the U.S. and several other legal groups have already publicly condemned the ACTA.

In what is fast becoming a holiday tradition, retailers are barraging coupon sites with complaints that they publicized upcoming markdowns before the stores wanted to release the information...

Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Corynne McSherry added that pursuing claims that upcoming discounts are "trade secrets" could generate bad publicity for retailers. "In a court of public opinion, especially in these economic times, it's not going to look good to say, 'We make a lot of money by not telling people that we're about to put stuff on sale,' " McSherry said.

The Internet has made it possible for every citizen with a gripe against a company to broadcast their feelings far and wide online. But that doesn't mean that businesses are happy about this...

This morning, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a counterclaim against the Union Square Partnership on Durkee's behalf. The rights group argues that Durkee only incorporated portions of the official site in order to mock the organization.

"Because the disputed website is a parody, it by necessity mimics certain elements of USP's website," the group argues. "For example, the parody site replaced pictures of happy shoppers with photos of the 80 year-old elm trees that have been destroyed and a portrait of a squirrel holding a 'Keep Parks Public!' sign."

Tennessee has agreed to filter computer networks for unauthorized music downloads at the state's colleges and universities...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet-user advocacy group, called the law "ridiculous," and said the costs of enforcing it would top $9 million.

"The entertainment industry lobby seems to be succeeding, bit-by-bit in persuading legislators to coerce universities into buying 'infringement suppression' technologies," the EFF said in a blog post, adding that these technologies are expensive and "won't stop file sharing on campus networks."

President-elect Barack Obama will face a series of early decisions on domestic spying that will test his administration’s views on presidential power and civil liberties...

The Justice Department has already moved to take advantage of the immunity provision by certifying in court that the phone companies were complying with a presidential order. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that has taken the lead in the lawsuit, maintains that Congress acted beyond its powers.

A hearing is set for Dec. 2. Cindy Cohn, legal director for the foundation, said that as the case moved forward the new administration could act to withdraw the immunity certification made by the Bush Justice Department.

Courts in recent years have been raising the evidentiary bar law enforcement agents must meet in order to obtain historical cell phone records that reveal information about a target's location. But documents obtained by civil liberties groups under a Freedom of Information Act request suggest that "triggerfish" technology can be used to pinpoint cell phones without involving cell phone providers at all...

This summer, however, the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the Justice Department, seeking documents related to the FBI's cell-phone tracking practices. Since August, they've received a stream of documents—the most recent batch on November 6—that were posted on the Internet last week.

In September, the state of Kentucky won a legal victory in its fight to control gambling within its borders, as a judge ordered the seizure of the domain name registrations of a variety of online gambling outfits. Although the ruling targeted 141 sites, the legal challenge has been accepted by two of the businesses targeted, which have filed an appeal in the case. Their appeal has now been joined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU, and the Center for Democracy and Technology, who use an amicus brief to argue that the initial seizure ruling was flawed on several levels.

Magistrate judges across the country are renewing calls for Congress to set a consistent legal standard for law enforcement to meet when seeking cellphone tracking information about a wireless provider's customers...

The inconsistencies are so pronounced that last year, federal judges in the Central District of California created two application forms - one for judges who require a warrant based on probable cause, and one for those who don't, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Those groups sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act for disclosure of records showing how widespread the practice is.

Berkeley’s Long Haul Infoshop finally has its computers back, but its legal battle with UC Berkeley is far from settled.

Jennifer Granick, Civil Liberties Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in San Francisco, said she has asked the campus police to delete all the information they seized during an Aug. 27 raid at the Infoshop.

Attorneys for the University of Tennessee student accused of breaking into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's email account have filed a small forest's worth of court documents in defense of the high-profile suspect. Among them is a motion to prohibit prosecutors from referring to their client as a hacker...

The indictment "is very strangely pled and circular," said Jennifer Granick, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's not surprising given the nature of the charges and given the quality of the indictment that the defendant would see a real opportunity here to make some points in favor of the defendant."

While the on-air sparring between Barack Obama and John McCain is finally over, another battle may be brewing, propelled by the very same commercials and Web videos the campaigns used to attack each other...

"In a world where you're getting sued left and right, it becomes a very strong incentive to take everything down, because you'll have the shield of the law," said EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.

For years the U.S. has been sending observers oversees to monitor foreign election processes and help assure that democratic principles are followed abroad...

Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, saw an opportunity for his organization to provide a real-time service in 2008 that would expand on those efforts and serve not only voters, volunteers, and Election Protection's legal experts but also the media, academics and others looking to document areas that needed election reform.

"In previous iterations of this stuff, it had all been done on paper and all this stuff ended up in desk drawers and was never looked at," said Zimmerman, who also leads EFF's e-voting litigation efforts. "We thought that seemed to be a bad idea."

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, Americans won't just get a new president; they might finally learn the full extent of George W. Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping...

But even if the anticipated flood of leaks doesn't materialize, advocates hope that Obama and the Democratic Congress will get around to airing out the White House closet anyway. "Obama has pledged a lot more openness," says Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was the first to file a federal lawsuit over the illegal eavesdropping.

Craigslist, the famed pioneer of free online classified advertising, announced Thursday that one type of advertising will soon no longer be free: those for erotic services...

Craigslist is not legally required to take such steps - existing law provides immunity to services such as Craigslist for actions taken by their users, said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. However, law enforcement officials can subpoena such companies for user information such as phone and credit card numbers...

Meanwhile, groups such as the EFF are watching the agreement to see how it works out, said Opsahl.

"Is it going to be a narrowly focused activity that does not spread out to other areas?" he said. "Or will the attorneys general see this as the beginning of a process to get yet more records and ability to obtain the records of online speaking?"

There's nothing unconstitutional about Congress putting an end to lawsuits accusing the nation's largest telecoms of secretly helping the Bush administration spy on Americans' communications, government and telecom lawyers told a federal court late Wednesday...

The government played the immunity card in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's case against AT&T in September. That suit, along with some three dozen others, are being heard in by Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California's federal court.

Today could be a long day for election officials in states relying on electronic-voting machines to record votes in the US presidential election, if early reports of malfunctions are any indication.

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By late morning voters in Michigan also began reporting that machine malfunctions were contributing to long lines and that some polling sites had to use paper ballots, according to the Our Vote Live blog. The Electronic Frontier Foundation developed Our Vote Live as a way to document voter problems reported to the Election Protection Coalition.

In any election, voting problems are bound to crop up--whether it's miscalibrated electronic machines or a lack of pencils to fill out paper ballots.

In such a highly anticipated election, the sheer number of people expected to vote Tuesday will likely add to the problems. CNET News will be keeping track of e-voting glitches and problems as they arise. Refresh for updates throughout the day (all times in PST, unless noted otherwise).

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation site OurVoteLive.org, which is recording complaints from voters across the country, has had more than 9,000 complaints of voting problems, including at least 500 reports with voting equipment.

A group called the Election Protection Coalition will be dispatching lawyers today to take calls of voter complaints and go to court to preserve voting access.

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A website hosted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation will chronicle allegations of voting irregularities. A recent post told of more than 700 early voters who waited more than eight hours at a polling place in Kansas City. The report says hundreds of voters were told to return at a time after the polls would be closed.