Hollywood Pressuring FCC on Selectable Output Control Again
Our friends at Public Knowledge have been doing a great job in Washington, D.C., fighting against the MPAA's efforts to selectively disable the high-definition analog (i.e., "component" video) outputs on your cable box. In essence, Hollywood is telling the FCC that it won't give Americans early access to blockbuster movies...
It’s Still A Duck: Court Re-Affirms That First Sale Doctrine Can Apply to “Licensed” Software
Building on a prior ruling, a federal court has re-affirmed that a Seattle man was not infringing copyright law by re-selling software he obtained from an Autodesk customer.
The ruling is bound to frustrate the copyright industries, which have struggled for years to convince courts and their...
Book Review: Bill Patry's Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars
Bill Patry is widely regarded as one of the leading copyright law experts in the United States. For the past several years, moreover, he's been Senior Copyright Counsel at Google. Yet somehow he's found the time to write a book, too, Moral Panics and the Copyright...
Google Releases Complete Google Voice App FCC Response
Today, recognizing pending FOIA requests by EFF and Wired News, Google dropped its claim of confidentiality and paved the way for the FCC to release the full text of its explanation of Apple's rejection of the Google Voice iPhone app. As we've reported previously, the FCC is...
EFF's Geek Reading: xkcd Webcomic Author Randall Munroe
Monday, September 21st will be the second Geek Reading event to benefit EFF, at 111 Minna in downtown San Francisco. This time, the author in question is Randall Munroe, otherwise known as the writer and cartoonist behind the brilliant webcomic xkcd.
For those not yet part of...
Improving DMCA Takedowns at Blogger, Flickr
In the past couple weeks, two major online service providers, Blogger and Flickr, announced improvements to their DMCA takedown policies. EFF had a hand in both: Blogger contacted us to discuss their improvements, and we contacted Flickr to raise some concerns we had. We're glad to see...
UK Musicians Oppose Draconian Disconnect Policy
The UK government still seems unsure as to whether it's a good idea to punish those accused of illegal downloading by cutting off Internet access for entire households, saying it wants to "support" the music industry. But now it seems a coalition of the actual British musicians, songwriters...
Google Book Privacy Policy: Good Start, Much More Needed
Late yesterday afternoon, September 3, 2009, Google finally issued a privacy policy for Google Books, both the current service and the extensive new book-related services they hope to have a federal court approve in October.While there are some good things in the policy — many that EFF and...
Cybersecurity Act Returns With a Fresh Coat of Paint
In April, we voiced serious concerns about the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, a bill by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), that sought to give the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet. For months, the bill has been redrafted behind closed doors and has recently been...
Grade the Obama Administration's Work on Consumer Privacy!
The Privacy Coalition, a coalition of organizations committed to privacy issues, is inviting the public to give the Obama Administration a grade on its privacy work thus far:
The Obama Administration can protect consumer privacy by supporting new laws, by safeguarding the personal information held by the federal...