Press Releases: February, 2006
Strange Bedfellows Unite to Fight AOL's "Email Tax"
National Conference Call - Tuesday, 1pm EST
This Tuesday, an unlikely coalition of left and right, non-profits and small businesses, and Internet advocacy groups will hold a national telephone news conference call to announce an unprecedented combined campaign against AOL's new "pay-to-send" email proposal
Sony BMG Settles Up with Music Fans for Copy-Protection Debacle
EFF Urges Consumers to Claim Clean CDs and Extra Downloads
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging music fans who purchased Sony BMG music CDs containing flawed digital rights management (DRM) to submit their claims now for clean CDs and extra downloads as part of a class action lawsuit settlement.
"This settlement gives consumers what they thought they were buying in the first place -- clean, safe music that will play on their computers and their iPods as well as their stereo systems," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl.
Internet Companies Need Code of Conduct in Authoritarian Regimes
EFF Calls for Limits on Data Collection and Retention
San Francisco - As Congressional hearings about how U.S. Internet companies do business in China are set to begin, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling for the industry and government to work together to develop simple guidelines to decrease the harm done by participating in authoritarian regimes.
EFF Challenges Clear Channel Recording Patent
Illegitimate Patent Locks In Artists and Threatens Innovators
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a challenge Tuesday to an illegitimate patent from Clear Channel Communications. The patent -- for a system and method of creating digital recordings of live performances -- locks musical acts into using Clear Channel technology and blocks innovations by others.
Clear Channel claims that its patent creates a monopoly on all-in-one technologies that produce post-concert live recordings on digital media and has threatened to sue anyone who makes such recordings with a different system. This has forced bands like the Pixies into using Clear Channel's proprietary technology, and it hurts investment and innovation in new systems developed by other companies.
"Clear Channel shouldn't be able to intimidate artists with bogus intellectual property," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. "We hope the Patent Office will take a hard look at Clear Channel's patent and agree that it should be revoked."
The request for reexamination filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office shows that a company named Telex had in fact developed similar technology more than a year before Clear Channel filed its patent request. EFF, in conjunction with Theodore C. McCullough of the Lemaire Patent Law Firm and with the help of students at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law, wants the patent office to revoke the patent based on this and other extensive evidence.
"The patent system serves an important public purpose in our economy," said Schultz. "Keeping illegitimate patents out of that system helps up-and-coming artists and entrepreneurs succeed for all of us."
The Clear Channel patent challenge is part of EFF's Patent Busting Project, aimed at combating the chilling effects bad patents have on public and consumer interests. Illegitimate patents currently in effect could prevent you from building a hobbyist website or even streaming a wedding video to your friends. The Patent Busting Project seeks to document the threats and fight back by filing requests for reexamination against the worst offenders.
For the full reexamination request:
http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/clearchannel/CC_reexam.pdf
For more on the evidence against Clear Channel:
http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/patent.php?p=clearchannel
Contacts:
Jason Schultz
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
jason@eff.org
Theodore C. McCullough
Attorney
Lemaire Patent Law Firm
Nominate a Pioneer for EFF's Pioneer Awards
Awards Recognize Leaders on the Electronic Frontier
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling for nominations for its 2006 Pioneer Awards -- the annual celebration of leaders on the electronic frontier who extend freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology. Past winners have included Tim Berners-Lee, Linus Torvalds, and Ed Felten.
Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation
Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop
San Francisco Google announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text- based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.
"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "Unless you configure Google Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it. Other litigants--your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whomever--could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."
The privacy problem arises because the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only limited privacy protection to emails and other files that are stored with online service providers--much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it's on your computer at home. And even that lower level of legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to allow it.
"This Google product highlights a key privacy problem in the digital age," said Cindy Cohn, EFF's Legal Director. "Many Internet innovations involve storing personal files on a service provider's computer, but under outdated laws, consumers who want to use these new technologies have to surrender their privacy rights. If Google wants consumers to trust it to store copies of personal computer files, emails, search histories and chat logs, and still 'not be evil,' it should stand with EFF and demand that Congress update the privacy laws to better reflect life in the wired world."
Google can and should design its technologies to avoid these problems in the first place. For example, searching across computers can be accomplished without Google having to keep copies of those computers' contents. Alternatively, Google could encrypt the stored data such that only the user has access.
"Google constantly touts its creative brainpower. More privacy-protective technologies are surely not beyond its reach, so long as its engineers make that a design priority," added Bankston.
For more on the new version of Google Desktop:
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=technology&story...
For more on Google's data collection: http://news.com.com/FAQ+When+Google+is+not+your+friend/2100-1025_3-60346...
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/21/google_subpoena_ro...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/0...
http://news.com.com/%20Bill+would+force+Web+sites+to+delete+personal+inf...
CD Copy Protection Firm Promises Fix for Software Problems
SunnComm Agrees to Terms of EFF Open Letter
San Francisco - In response to an open letter written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), SunnComm Technologies, Inc., has outlined what it has done and will do to address potential security problems caused by its MediaMax CD copy-protection software and to help protect against future vulnerabilities. Use of the software on CDs released by Sony BMG has received significant media attention, but many consumers are unaware that the software was also used by several independent music labels.
