In The News: December, 2007
In the Fight Over Piracy, a Rare Stand for Privacy
Adam Liptak, New York Times
The record industry got a surprise when it subpoenaed the University of Oregon in September, asking it to identify 17 students who had made available songs from Journey, the Cars, Dire Straits, Sting and Madonna on a file-sharing network...
"People get pushed into settlements," said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group. "The Oregon attorney general is showing what a real fight among equals would look like."
Piracy and Privacy
Dan Mitchell, New York Times
In an effort to stymie Internet pirates, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a music industry group, is asking European lawmakers to require Internet service providers to use filters to block the illicit transfer of copyrighted material.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a privacy advocate, responded by sending a letter to the European Parliament arguing that such filters would be an “ineffective measure that will do little to practically address the concerns of major rights holders while imposing serious costs on the individual rights of European citizens.”The filtering technology would not be effective, according to the foundation, because pirates would simply encrypt files to bypass it in the same way that banks encrypt credit card information. Meanwhile, legitimate users of copyrighted material would be hampered in their ability to post video and music clips. And the costs would most likely be borne by service providers, and, by extension, their customers, the foundation said.
Amazon Wrangles Warner Into No-DRM Club
Chris Maxcer, E-Commerce Times
Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) has picked up the third major record label to let the online music retailer sell MP3 songs without digital rights management (DRM) schemes attached. Warner Music Group announced Thursday that Amazon customers can now buy and download songs from its artists... Amazon.com's DRM-free music store, Amazon MP3, launched in September and now boasts 2.9 million songs from more than 33,000 record labels. The company hasn't reported sales figures, but Bill Carr, Amazon.com's vice president of Digital Music, said its customers are delighted with Amazon MP3 and that the company has received thousands of e-mails thanking the company for offering DRM-free MP3 tracks.
"Ironically, it seems that DRM-free music actually decreases piracy somewhat," Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation , told the E-Commerce Times. "There are two reasons for that. One is that despite burning billions of dollars on DRM, nobody has ever implemented a DRM system that prevents any media from being available to pirates -- once media is available to pirates, it can be copied without limit. The second reason is that DRM sucks for the users ... people often choose to pirate stuff not because of the price, or not just because of the price, but because the DRM ruins the product they would have bought," he explained.
China on the Web: An Accident Waiting to Happen?
Katherine Noyes, Technology News
One might argue that China and the Internet are both like high-speed trains. Both are growing at an extremely rapid pace, and both are apparently unstoppable global economic forces that are reshaping the economic landscape. Unfortunately, one might also argue that they are on a collision course.
The intense world scrutiny could help "cast a spotlight" on China's policies, Danny O'Brien, international outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation , told the E-Commerce Times. On the other hand, "my fear is that it will also lead to more careful and secret repression, now that there's such strong pressure on the Chinese authorities to look 'cleaner than clean.'"
User-friendly Apple shows a blogger its ruthless core
John Naughton, The Observor
Visitors to ThinkSecret.com, a well-known site which publishes rumours and gossip about forthcoming Apple products, found an intriguing notice on the front page last Thursday.
'Apple and ThinkSecret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides,' it announced. 'As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and ThinkSecret will no longer be published. Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret's publisher, said: "I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits."'AppleInsider and O'Grady's PowerPage fought back - with legal assistance from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - arguing that the first amendment to the US Constitution protected them from being compelled to disclose their sources, a provision originally designed to protect journalists. Apple won at the first hurdle, but lost on appeal.
'The motion,' says Kurt Opsahl of the EFF, 'stopped Apple's lawsuit in its tracks and raised the prospect that Apple would have had to pay ThinkSecret substantial sums for its legal fees... While the court has never ruled, we believe the motion was meritorious, and Apple was looking at an embarrassing and expensive loss.'
Web crew hits Dallas to snap street-level views
David Flick, Dallas Morning News
What Kory Dunton saw last week from behind the wheel of her Chevrolet, Tina Winslow will soon be able to access from her Mac Pro.
Ms. Winslow is intrigued by the prospect, but also a bit worried.Stephen Chau, Google products manager, said Street View is an efficiency tool, allowing users to preview an unfamiliar neighborhood, judge whether parking will be a problem, even refresh their memories about what a restaurant or office building looks lik
But Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the online privacy advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation, still has concerns.
"People are used to a certain amount of anonymity as they go about the day. They may be going to AA meetings, clinics, even hospitals," she said. "There are things you want to keep private."
Jersey Judge Shields Anonymous Blogger
Paul McNamara, NetworkWorld.com
In a free-speech case that has drawn widespread attention, a New Jersey judge has upheld the right of a blogger to criticize county officials anonymously by telling those officials to take their subpoena seeking the author’s identity and put it where the sun don’t shine.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been front and center in keeping Manalapan Township officials off the throat of this lonely pamphleteer. You can read all of the EFF’s legal filings about the case here.
"We're grateful that Judge Flynn upheld the First Amendment rights of our client and recognized that anonymous speakers should not be intimidated into silence through the discovery process," said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman in a press release. "Now 'daTruthSquad' can continue to discuss township business without fear of government reprisal."
Apple shuts down rumours website
BBC News
Apple has settled a legal row with tip site Think Secret that will see the website shut down.
The legal battle between Apple and the site blew up in January 2005 when Think Secret revealed details of the Mac Mini before its official unveiling.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) aided Think Secret in its legal fight to stop Apple forcing it to reveal its sources.
"I hope that Apple takes from this that it is neither useful nor wise to sue its fans," said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney for the EFF.
FBI E-Mail Shows Rift Over Warrantless Phone Record Grabs
Ryan Singel, Wired News
By now it's well known that FBI agents can't always be troubled to get a court order before going after a surveillance target's telephone and internet records. But newly released FBI documents show that aggressive surveillance tactics have even caused friction within the bureau.
The FBI tech agent's critical e-mail is best understood in light of the bureau's ongoing courtroom attempts to get cellphone location information without having to show probable cause, according to EFF lawyer Marcia Hofmann.
"For years the government has made dubious legal claims to justify tracking people's locations with minimal oversight," Hofmann said. "These docs show that the government hasn't satisfied its own weak standards in some cases."
FBI Email Shows Rift Over Warrantless Phone Record Grabs
Ryan Singel, Wired News
An internal email obtained by EFF from the FBI showed a field agent venting about his colleagues' assertive surveillance efforts, including attempts to sidestep court order requirements to get phone records from service providers.
FBI Recorded 27 Million FISA 'Sessions' in 2006
Ryan Singel, Wired Blog
EFF FOIA documents show that the FBI intercepted 27,728,675 "sessions" in fiscal year 2006 through surveillance technology that monitors telephone communications of suspected spies and terrorists. In contrast, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved a mere 2,176 FBI requests for court-ordered surveillance in 2006.
Declassified Docs Show Fight Over Surveillance, Telecom Immunity
Declan McCullagh, CNET
Documents released through an EFF Freedom of Information Act suit revealed how high-level Administration officials have pushed Congress to amend federal surveillance law and immunize telecommunications companies from lawsuits based on their complicity in unlawful government surveillance.
Software Helps Web Users Detect Interference
Associated Press Wire Service, Savannah Morning News
Increasingly worried over Internet providers' behavior, a nonprofit has released software that helps determine whether online glitches are innocent hiccups or evidence of deliberate traffic tampering.
The San Francisco-based digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation hopes the program, released Wednesday, will help uncover "data discrimination" - efforts by Internet providers to disrupt some uses of their services - in addition to the cases reported separately by EFF, The Associated Press and other sources.
"People have all sorts of problems, and they don't know whether to attribute that to some sort of misconfiguration, or deliberate behavior by the ISP," said Seth Schoen, a staff technologist with EFF.
The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America
Mark Sullivan, PC World
Their names keep coming up over and over again in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country--those groups whose interests always seem to run counter to those of technology companies and consumers. They come in many forms: associations, think tanks, money-raising organizations, PACs, and even other tech-oriented industries like telecommunications.
The RIAA and MPAA have exercised considerable political and economic influence to push a legal and policy environment in which the content owners keep tight control of the way their content is distributed and used. "I think it's fair to say that their approach is that any innovation that they haven't signed off on is bad," says Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
