In The News: November, 2009
Will secret copyright treaty restrict digital rights?
By Jeff Porten, Computerworld
The Electronic Frontier Foundation received a copy with 159 pages intact, but an additional 1,362 pages redacted with the claim that the contents were crucial to national security.
S.F. cops may have gone too far in seizing DJ gear at underground parties
Jennifer Maerz, SF Weekly
San Francisco police have been confiscating DJs' laptops when they break up warehouse parties, even though no one is being arrested or even cited. The practice is chilling, and deprives the DJs of their means of livelihood, even though the DJs did nothing wrong. This article reviews what's been happening and EFF's role in trying to protect laptop privacy.
D.C. Circuit Examines Warrantless GPS Surveillance
Legal Times
This is a news report about the oral argument in U.S. v. Jones, a GPS tracking case in which EFF filed an amicus brief arguing that such surveillance requires a warrant.
Mac cloner guilty, but "hackintosh" tools will persist
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
Psystar has a ray of hope left in this case, but the ruling's language indicates that the clone maker's success on the remaining claims is unlikely. Psystar did not respond to our request for comment, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann doesn't think this is necessarily a death blow to the hackintosh industry as a whole.
"While the ruling is a serious setback for Psystar, I don't see it having much impact beyond the facts of that case," von Lohmann told Ars. "On a number of important points, the outcome was driven by Psystar-specific factors, such as Psystar forfeiting one of their strongest defenses by failing to plead it in time. Moreover, my understanding is that the commercial 'hackintosh' industry has moved on to selling software that enables the user to bring their own PC and OS X DVD, rather than selling a pre-installed solution like the one at issue in the ruling."
iPhone app developer quits over approval process
by Jim Dalrymple, CNET News
In order to get the fixes to customers, Kafasis took out all of the offending images and replaced them with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) logo. If you tap on the logo, you will be taken to a page explaining why the images have been removed.
These Hobbyists Add to Calculators, Multiplying Their Fun
Dionne Searcey, Wall Street Journal
Calculator hobbyists having fun with and studying programmable calculators got unwanted attention from Texas Instruments' legal department. EFF is representing three of the hobbyists, who are violating no law. This article introduces some of the hobbyists and illuminates their interests and motivations.
Google Book Search Database Halved By Removing Most Foreign Texts
By Norman Oder, Library Journal
Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote, "Unfortunately, the parties did not add any reader privacy protections. The only nominal change was that they formally confirmed a position they had long taken privately that information will not be freely shared between Google and the Registry."
Copyright overreach goes on world tour
By Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post
Much information about ACTA has come from leaked documents posted to such sites as http://wikileaks.org; other details have been pried out through Freedom of Information Act requests by such groups as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Knowledge Ecology International.
Facebook Case Sets Up Google Latitude as Tempting Legal Tool
By Clint Boulton, eWeek
Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney for the EFF, who originally harangued Google over Latitude, was not happy about the feature, noting that Location History for Latitude creates a whole new set of privacy risks because that history may be vulnerable to demands by the government or civil litigants.
Activists launch online copyright database
By Shaun Nichols, V3.co.uk
The new Copyright Watch site is slated to serve as a reference base for users on copyright laws around the world. Among the groups participating in the effort are the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Information for Libraries.
Bush Feared Successor Might Revoke Telco Spy Immunity
By David Kravets, Wired News
The documents, unearthed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, also suggest the administration was wary it might first have to concede that the telcos were complicit in the alleged dragnet surveillance to garner congressional support for the amnesty bill. The legislation, passed in July 2008, killed the EFF’s federal civil rights lawsuit against the companies.
Web Site Says Justice Department Demanded It Secretly Turn Over Readers' Information
By Diane Macedo, FOXNews.com
"Not only was this request a plain violation of federal privacy law -- which would require the government to at least get a court order based on a factual showing to get that kind of data; not only did it violate Department of Justice regulations that require subpoenas to media organizations to be vetted by the attorney general; not only did it threaten the First Amendment right to read anonymously of all of Indymedia's users, it also violated Ms. Clair's First Amendment rights by ordering her not to disclose the subpoena's existence," EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston told FoxNews.com.
Two German Killers Demanding Anonymity Sue Wikipedia’s Parent
By John Schwartz, New York Times
“He who controls the past, controls the future,” said a bulletin on the case issued Thursday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group. Jennifer Granick, a lawyer for the group, said the case “really is about editing history.”
Help Threat Level Examine Federal Spy Documents
By David Kravets, Wired News
In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the EFF, the government has now begrudgingly divulged thousands of pages of documents pertaining to the legislation’s development.
We will be poring through them today.
The EFF notes, “The government has said it will continue to try to block the release of additional documents, including communications within the Executive Branch and records reflecting the identities of telecoms involved in lobbying for immunity.” More litigation on the disclosure matter is set for January.
Take a look at the immunity negotiation documents and, in the comments section, report your findings.
Justices question patent for abstract business innovations
By John Schwartz, New York Times
Pamela Samuelson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, said "It's not very often that some obscure issue of patent law can excite so much attention."
Samuelson, who was an author of a brief on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group, and others, said it was time for the court to tap the brakes on the business patents rush. The earlier State Street decision, her brief stated, had the effect of "knocking patent law loose from its historical moorings and improperly injecting patents into business areas where they were neither needed nor wanted."
Yes Men punk US Chamber of Commerce on climate change, sued
By John Timmer, Ars Technica
The EFF, having worked with the Yes Men to keep their fake site accessible, has announced that it will continue with what it terms a "free speech fight." To defend against the lawsuit, it will be joined by Davis Wright Tremaine, a large international law firm with a history of pro bono work.
EFF to Represent Yes Men in Court Battle Over Chamber of Commerce Action
By Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said Wednesday that it will represent the Yes Men in fighting a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against the activists for staging a fake news conference claiming the business association had changed its stance on climate change legislation. The chamber's lawsuit, filed in October, claimed the Yes Men unlawfully used the group's trademark and other intellectual property by using the chamber's logo in a press release and at the fake news conference.
What is Acta and what should I know about it?
By Bobbie Johnson, Guardian UK
"The US government appears to be pushing for three strikes – despite the fact that it has been categorically rejected by the European parliament," said Gwen Hinze of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, adding that the leaks "confirmed everything that we feared".
Knock it off: Global treaty against media piracy won't work in Asia
By Jeff Yang, SFGate
"The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations," wrote Gwen Hinze of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a grim post on the advocacy organization's "Deeplinks" blog. Or, as author and Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow put it even more pithily: "It's bad. Very bad."
Google's digitization of books
By Susan Noakes, CBC News
The main issue for readers is privacy. Because you are searching and reading on a public network, there is little assurance that your browsing and reading habits are private. Here are some of the questions raised by groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Are your reading habits safe from fishing expeditions by the government or lawyers in civil cases?
How will Google itself use information about your reading history?
How will Google combine information about your reading habits with other information it may have about you through its other products?
Top 10 Bogus Software Patents That Need to Get Busted
eWeek
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says it is tired of what it calls bogus software patents. While Congress dithers over patent reform, the EFF is taking action against the software patents it considers are suppressing noncommercial and small-business innovation or limiting free expression online. To combat these annoying patents, the EFF has targeted its own Top 10 egregious patents. eWEEK presents the EFF's most bogus software patents.
Supreme Court Hears Bilski Case
By Roy Mark, eWeek
In a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the PTO, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote, "EFF believes that patents should only be granted for technological processes. Congress never intended the strong protections of the patent monopoly to be available for mere services and methods of doing business."
Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists
By John Eggerton, CBSNews.com
Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, replied to the Justice Department on behalf of his client in a February 2009 letter (PDF) outlining what he described as a series of problems with the subpoena, including that it was not personally served, that a judge-issued court order would be required for the full logs, and that Indymedia did not store logs in the first place.
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.
Five classic Apple marketing tactics that lock you in
By Dan Tynan, PC World
Apple claims that jailbreaking the iPhone violates its copyrights and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Digital-rights organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation beg to differ.
The EFF's Fred von Lohman argues that iPhone owners should be free to tinker with their phones, especially when they can add capabilities that App Store programs don't yet provide. He notes that "the courts have long recognized that copying software while reverse-engineering is a fair use when done for purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software, a body of law that Apple conveniently fails to mention."
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.
Dirty Air, Dirty Fight
By Eliza Newlin Carney, National Journal
Neither the Chamber's copyright nor its trademark claims have legal merit, countered Matthew Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the Yes Men. "It seems rather clear that this is a fair use of copyright material," he said. "This is for fair comment and criticism."
Watchdog Group Calls Out 'Bogus Internet Censorship'
By Ki Mae Heussner, ABCnews.com
EFF's online " "Hall of Shame" spotlights high-profile examples of what it considers violations of copyright and trademark law.
"Free speech in the 21st century often depends on incorporating video clips and other content from various sources," EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry said in a statement. "It's what 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' does every night. This is 'fair use' of copyrighted or trademarked material and protected under U.S. law. "
Did Congress really give the FCC power to protect the 'Net?
By Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica
But it isn't just Comcast that says that the FCC is out of bounds. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the agency's proposed rulemaking a "Trojan Horse" which is "built on a shoddy and dangerous foundation." Since Congress didn't give the FCC specific authority in this area, what's next, worries EFF—an "Internet Decency Statement" pushed by conservatives, or an "Internet Lawful Use Policy" urged on the agency by the Hollywood studios? That's why the group calls the move "a power grab that would leave the Internet subject to the regulatory whims of the FCC long after Chairman Genachowski leaves his post."
