BayTSP is paid anywhere from $200 to $50,000 per month by owners of intellectual property -- primarily software companies, movie studios, and record companies -- to find who is illegally copying, distributing, or helping to distribute without permission their intellectual property. For example: Adobe Systems arranged to have Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov arrested at the 2001 DefCon security conference in Las Vegas for violating the DMCA by showing how to circumvent copy protection in Adobe's eBook software. The arrest was made on information supplied by BayTSP. Now we get to the part I find especially interesting, and where I think there is a lot of confusion among users. This has to do with how BayTSP finds out who is distributing kiddy porn or pirated music files. If you think your activities on the Internet are anonymous, you are wrong. When BayTSP finds an IP address that appears to be the source of child pornography or pirated music or video files, under the DMCA, it can subpoena ISP logs. These logs can directly connect even dynamic IP addresses to user accounts, making it clear very quickly who owns the offending account. Every ISP keeps these http logs, and even products for so-called anonymous surfing aren't effective in circumventing the technique. "We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing," Ishikawa claims. "If you are illegally sharing copyrighted materials, we know who you are."
BayTSP is paid anywhere from $200 to $50,000 per month by owners of intellectual property -- primarily software companies, movie studios, and record companies -- to find who is illegally copying, distributing, or helping to distribute without permission their intellectual property. For example: Adobe Systems arranged to have Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov arrested at the 2001 DefCon security conference in Las Vegas for violating the DMCA by showing how to circumvent copy protection in Adobe's eBook software. The arrest was made on information supplied by BayTSP.
Now we get to the part I find especially interesting, and where I think there is a lot of confusion among users. This has to do with how BayTSP finds out who is distributing kiddy porn or pirated music files. If you think your activities on the Internet are anonymous, you are wrong. When BayTSP finds an IP address that appears to be the source of child pornography or pirated music or video files, under the DMCA, it can subpoena ISP logs. These logs can directly connect even dynamic IP addresses to user accounts, making it clear very quickly who owns the offending account. Every ISP keeps these http logs, and even products for so-called anonymous surfing aren't effective in circumventing the technique.
"We have 100 percent coverage of peer-to-peer file sharing," Ishikawa claims. "If you are illegally sharing copyrighted materials, we know who you are."
More broadly, a mood has come to prevail not only in the academy -- particularly among administrators and trustees -- but also among legislators that has strengthened the thrust of copyright revision. Together, trends in scholarship, copyright law, and mood have combined to generate a set of assumptions about academic work that are weighted toward the exploitation of professors and the protection of a university's "property," and against sharing or distributing knowledge. The rising importance of privately sponsored research on campus and efforts by universities to capitalize on faculty research, distance education, and other opportunities are changing the nature of universities. While they are still the largest content-consuming institutions around, they have been thinking and acting like content providers -- and have missed the radical implications of changed copyright law. ... We make a grave mistake when we choose to engage in discussions of copyright in terms of "property." Copyright is not about "property" as commonly understood. It is a specific state-granted monopoly issued for particular policy reasons. While, technically, it describes real property as well, it also describes a more fundamental public good that precedes specific policy choices the state may make about the regulation and dispensation of property. But we can't win an argument as long as those who hold inordinate interest in copyright maximization can cry "theft" at any mention of fair use or users' rights. You can't argue for theft. ...Two rhetorical strategies have emerged. Most prominent is "commons talk." A growing number of activists and law professors are pushing for an appreciation of the "information commons." Sparked by a brilliant 1997 article by the Duke University law professor James Boyle, "A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?," this movement toward preservation and expansion of an information commons resembles the environmental movement 40 years ago. With good luck and hard work, activists hope to build a similar level of public concern and awareness about how information operates in society, and the need for it to be commonly owned and shared. For an important statement on the information commons, see David Bollier's Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth (Routledge, 2002). The second rhetorical strategy involves focusing on users of copyrighted material -- everyone who reads, writes, watches, photographs, listens, or sings. This is a more pragmatic approach, intended to warn people that the harmless acts they have taken for granted for years, like making a mixed tape or CD for a party, or "time shifting" television programs and skipping commercials, are threatened by recent changes in law and technology. The organization digitalconsumer.org is promoting "The Consumer Technology Bill of Rights," which makes private, noncommercial uses positive rights instead of weak defenses to accusations of infringement.
More broadly, a mood has come to prevail not only in the academy -- particularly among administrators and trustees -- but also among legislators that has strengthened the thrust of copyright revision. Together, trends in scholarship, copyright law, and mood have combined to generate a set of assumptions about academic work that are weighted toward the exploitation of professors and the protection of a university's "property," and against sharing or distributing knowledge. The rising importance of privately sponsored research on campus and efforts by universities to capitalize on faculty research, distance education, and other opportunities are changing the nature of universities. While they are still the largest content-consuming institutions around, they have been thinking and acting like content providers -- and have missed the radical implications of changed copyright law.
... We make a grave mistake when we choose to engage in discussions of copyright in terms of "property." Copyright is not about "property" as commonly understood. It is a specific state-granted monopoly issued for particular policy reasons. While, technically, it describes real property as well, it also describes a more fundamental public good that precedes specific policy choices the state may make about the regulation and dispensation of property. But we can't win an argument as long as those who hold inordinate interest in copyright maximization can cry "theft" at any mention of fair use or users' rights. You can't argue for theft.
...Two rhetorical strategies have emerged. Most prominent is "commons talk." A growing number of activists and law professors are pushing for an appreciation of the "information commons." Sparked by a brilliant 1997 article by the Duke University law professor James Boyle, "A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?," this movement toward preservation and expansion of an information commons resembles the environmental movement 40 years ago. With good luck and hard work, activists hope to build a similar level of public concern and awareness about how information operates in society, and the need for it to be commonly owned and shared. For an important statement on the information commons, see David Bollier's Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth (Routledge, 2002).
The second rhetorical strategy involves focusing on users of copyrighted material -- everyone who reads, writes, watches, photographs, listens, or sings. This is a more pragmatic approach, intended to warn people that the harmless acts they have taken for granted for years, like making a mixed tape or CD for a party, or "time shifting" television programs and skipping commercials, are threatened by recent changes in law and technology. The organization digitalconsumer.org is promoting "The Consumer Technology Bill of Rights," which makes private, noncommercial uses positive rights instead of weak defenses to accusations of infringement.
Even so, not all execrable laws are equally loathsome. A careful look at the DMCA shows that, far from prohibiting all security research, the law does not regulate as many activities as people seem to believe. And if activists hope to assail a law like the DMCA, they'll be taken more seriously if they know what they're talking about. "The risk that a researcher could go to jail for giving a speech at an academic conference is essentially zero," says Orin Kerr , a law professor at George Washington University and a former prosecutor for the Justice Department. In fact, Kerr says, it makes sense to take opponents' claims about the scope of the copyright law with a grain of salt. "Opponents of the DMCA want to dramatize its effects, so they want people to believe that the law is incredibly broad," Kerr says. "If the public believes that the DMCA is stopping Professor Felten and other researchers from conducting legitimate research, then that is a major victory for opponents of the law."
Even so, not all execrable laws are equally loathsome. A careful look at the DMCA shows that, far from prohibiting all security research, the law does not regulate as many activities as people seem to believe. And if activists hope to assail a law like the DMCA, they'll be taken more seriously if they know what they're talking about.
"The risk that a researcher could go to jail for giving a speech at an academic conference is essentially zero," says Orin Kerr , a law professor at George Washington University and a former prosecutor for the Justice Department. In fact, Kerr says, it makes sense to take opponents' claims about the scope of the copyright law with a grain of salt.
"Opponents of the DMCA want to dramatize its effects, so they want people to believe that the law is incredibly broad," Kerr says. "If the public believes that the DMCA is stopping Professor Felten and other researchers from conducting legitimate research, then that is a major victory for opponents of the law."
A controversial portion of digital copyright law will get a public airing next month. Starting Nov. 19, the United States Copyright Office will begin taking public comments on the section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, known as the DMCA, which prohibits people from breaking encryption technologies.
A controversial portion of digital copyright law will get a public airing next month.
Starting Nov. 19, the United States Copyright Office will begin taking public comments on the section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, known as the DMCA, which prohibits people from breaking encryption technologies.
When Adam Bresson showed how to make copies of copyright-protected videos in a speech at a hacker conference this weekend he realized he was risking arrest for violating U.S. copyright law that landed a Russian man behind bars after the same event last year. ... His message: people's rights to make "fair use" copies of copyrighted material for personal use are being eroded by copyright holders. He cited as examples recording companies selling CDs that can't be played in PCs or car CD players, movie studios selling DVDs that can only be viewed by people in specific geographic regions and emerging technologies that prevent people from copying their own CDs.
When Adam Bresson showed how to make copies of copyright-protected videos in a speech at a hacker conference this weekend he realized he was risking arrest for violating U.S. copyright law that landed a Russian man behind bars after the same event last year.
... His message: people's rights to make "fair use" copies of copyrighted material for personal use are being eroded by copyright holders.
He cited as examples recording companies selling CDs that can't be played in PCs or car CD players, movie studios selling DVDs that can only be viewed by people in specific geographic regions and emerging technologies that prevent people from copying their own CDs.
On a visit to the enemy territory of the Silicon Valley, representatives from News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has sued numerous technology companies, defended their legislative push during a panel sponsored by the Cato Institute. Meanwhile, the leader of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA ) and Silicon Valley Rep. Zoe Lofgren lamented their support of earlier Hollywood-backed bills, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), saying the industry had abused them.
On a visit to the enemy territory of the Silicon Valley, representatives from News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has sued numerous technology companies, defended their legislative push during a panel sponsored by the Cato Institute.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA ) and Silicon Valley Rep. Zoe Lofgren lamented their support of earlier Hollywood-backed bills, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), saying the industry had abused them.
So what we do have here? Software companies are using this new copyright law primarily to circumvent a fundamental principle of established copyright law. Is that how Congress intended the DMCA to be used? And did it intend that small ISPs should have to hire lawyers or become lawyers themselves in order to protect themselves and their customers from arbitrary takedowns? I hope not, but that's the way the DMCA works in the real world.
Sure, it will play movies dubbed in Spanish or Swedish. But if you bought it in the United States, it will probably spit out any DVD you pick up in Madrid or Stockholm. You can thank the motion picture companies, which divide the world up into six regions and block DVD players from crossing technological borders. Programmers have been offering ways around the restrictions for years, however, and a renegade open-source advocate planned to publicize their possibly illegal efforts on Friday. But under pressure from his bosses at Hewlett-Packard, Linux guru Bruce Perens declined to risk violating 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in San Diego. "I care more about this than getting myself fired, but the fact is that getting myself fired today would have hurt Hewlett-Packard's Linux program," Perens said.
Sure, it will play movies dubbed in Spanish or Swedish. But if you bought it in the United States, it will probably spit out any DVD you pick up in Madrid or Stockholm. You can thank the motion picture companies, which divide the world up into six regions and block DVD players from crossing technological borders.
Programmers have been offering ways around the restrictions for years, however, and a renegade open-source advocate planned to publicize their possibly illegal efforts on Friday.
But under pressure from his bosses at Hewlett-Packard, Linux guru Bruce Perens declined to risk violating 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in San Diego.
"I care more about this than getting myself fired, but the fact is that getting myself fired today would have hurt Hewlett-Packard's Linux program," Perens said.
It's a sunny summer day and you pull your CDs from your home stereo, toss them in your bag and head out. In the car, you listen to your music, and when you reach the beach, you slip a CD into a portable boom box. Most people wouldn't give any of that a second thought. But the simple transfer of music, from home to car to portable device, could soon be ending. Content companies and consumer advocates are waging a vicious battle in Washington, with the future of consumer rights -- and what you can do with products you have purchased -- at stake. ...Mandating technology solutions, or locking down what people can do with technology, could have devastating effects on future innovation. When DigitalConsumer.org advocates say the personal computer revolution wouldn't have happened under today's copyright laws, it's easy to write their comments off as a paranoid. But it might not be far from the mark. From the labs at MIT in the late '50s to the free software and open-source programmers in the '90s, hacking has historically relied on an open and available flow of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has curtailed that flow of information.
It's a sunny summer day and you pull your CDs from your home stereo, toss them in your bag and head out. In the car, you listen to your music, and when you reach the beach, you slip a CD into a portable boom box.
Most people wouldn't give any of that a second thought. But the simple transfer of music, from home to car to portable device, could soon be ending. Content companies and consumer advocates are waging a vicious battle in Washington, with the future of consumer rights -- and what you can do with products you have purchased -- at stake.
...Mandating technology solutions, or locking down what people can do with technology, could have devastating effects on future innovation.
When DigitalConsumer.org advocates say the personal computer revolution wouldn't have happened under today's copyright laws, it's easy to write their comments off as a paranoid. But it might not be far from the mark. From the labs at MIT in the late '50s to the free software and open-source programmers in the '90s, hacking has historically relied on an open and available flow of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has curtailed that flow of information.
"When Hollywood releases a DVD in London, that DVD will not play in a U.S. DVD player," Perens explained. That is, unless you know how to hack your DVD player, which is exactly what Perens plans to demonstrate during his presentation. Perens purchased on eBay a player that had been modified, using a software application available on the Internet, to play DVDs from various regional zones. "I'm going to explain how the player was modified," he said. Technically, under the DMCA, Perens' explanation of the technology makes him liable for a fine of US$500,000, he said. And although his presentation might seem like a frivolous crime, tempting the DMCA has been a risky endeavor by those who have tried similar protests before him.
"When Hollywood releases a DVD in London, that DVD will not play in a U.S. DVD player," Perens explained.
That is, unless you know how to hack your DVD player, which is exactly what Perens plans to demonstrate during his presentation. Perens purchased on eBay a player that had been modified, using a software application available on the Internet, to play DVDs from various regional zones.
"I'm going to explain how the player was modified," he said.
Technically, under the DMCA, Perens' explanation of the technology makes him liable for a fine of US$500,000, he said. And although his presentation might seem like a frivolous crime, tempting the DMCA has been a risky endeavor by those who have tried similar protests before him.
A GW student writes "The George Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Science along with the Cyberspace Policy Institute are sponsoring some kind (hasn't really been decided yet) of debate between Stanley Pierre-Louis, Vice President Legal Affairs for the Recording Industry Association of America and Professor James Boyle of Duke Law School. Remember, Prof. Boyle just received an anonymous $1 million to fight the DMCA. The event is open to the public. It will take place on Tuesday October 8 in Washington, DC on GW's campus. The abstract and other details are here. Stick around, and the next day you can go to the Supreme Court to see Lawrence Lessig argue Eldred v. Ashcroft."
The Wayback Machine (aka Archive.org, The Internet Archive) has, with little fanfare, removed entire domains from its archive in accordance with a request from Scientology's lawyers: Lawyers for the Church of Scientology contacted the Internet Archive, asserted ownership of materials visible through the Wayback Machine, and those materials have been removed from the Wayback Machine. [email to LawMeme] The problem is not that the Internet Archive received such a request from the Church of Scientology 's lawyers, or even complied with the legal portions of the request, but that the Internet Archive has not taken minimal steps to defend free inquiry and access to information. LawMeme reveals the sordid details...
The Wayback Machine (aka Archive.org, The Internet Archive) has, with little fanfare, removed entire domains from its archive in accordance with a request from Scientology's lawyers:
Lawyers for the Church of Scientology contacted the Internet Archive, asserted ownership of materials visible through the Wayback Machine, and those materials have been removed from the Wayback Machine. [email to LawMeme]
The problem is not that the Internet Archive received such a request from the Church of Scientology 's lawyers, or even complied with the legal portions of the request, but that the Internet Archive has not taken minimal steps to defend free inquiry and access to information. LawMeme reveals the sordid details...
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