EFF Files First Anti-DMCA Lawsuit

The first direct legal challenge to the DMCA was filed at 9 a.m. EDT today by EFF-sponsored attorneys at the United States District Court in Trenton, New Jersey on behalf of Princeton Professor Edward W. Felten and others who helped crack a series of digital watermarking schemes as part of an SDMI Challenge sponsored by the RIAA. Named defendents include the RIAA, SDMI, Verance Corporation (producer of one of the cracked watermarked schemes) and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

If this were a movie, it might be called "Saving Professor Felten" and would open with thunder and bombast. In real life, filing a civil suit in a federal court is one of the most boring activities imaginable, even though it's a necessary first step in the process of overturning the DMCA.

Gino J. Scarselli, Outside Lead Counsel for EFF on the case, says, "We got to the courthouse at 8:30, filed around 9, and made motions to seal exhibits to the complaints." As explained in the Complaint itself, EFF filed several of their Exhibits with requests for them to be sealed, because they believe publication of them may invite a lawsuit. The Exhibits to be sealed are Professor Felten's completed paper for the upcoming USENIX conference, and two documents written by Princeton post-grad Min Wu about the investigation performed by Felten's team against the SDMI watermarks.

It was an overcast day in Trenton. Scarselli, along with local (New Jersey) attorneys Grayson Barber and Frank Corrado, and two of the plaintiffs, Princeton residents Bede Liu and Min Wu, went through a metal detector just like anyone else (aside from staff) who enters a courthouse these days.

Scarselli says, "the only person we talked to was a law clerk." Neither the defendants nor any lawyers representing them were present. There will be plenty of conflict later, but the opening round of this drama was so low-key that it was a total yawner for all involved parties. The whole thing was over by 9:45 a.m.

The Complaint Itself, Very Briefly

Prof. Felten and others, mostly professors and graduate students from Princeton and Rice Universities, accepted the SDMI challenge to crack a specific set of digital watermarks, but instead of turning their results over to SDMI in hopes of winning the $10,000 prize offered for a successful crack, they chose instead to publish their findings in the form of an academic paper, and to present that paper at the Fourth International Information Hiding Workshop [IHW], held in Pittsburgh on April 25-27, 2001. Felten and crew believed they had every right to present their research in this public, peer-reviewed scientific forum even though they had accepted a "click through" agreement before taking on the SDMI challenge, in large part because the license to which they agreed with their click contained these words:

"You may, of course, elect not to receive compensation, in which event you will not be required to sign a separate document or assign any of your intellectual property rights, although you are still encouraged to submit details of your attack."

Despite this, SDMI threatened Felten and the other involved parties, including IHW organizers, with legal action under the DMCA. After a long series of emails between Felten, his fellow researchers, IHW people, a representative of Verance Corp., and an attorney who works for both SDMI and RIAA, the original paper, "Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge," was first modified, then finally withdrawn.

Now Felten and friends plan to present the same paper at a USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C. on August 13-17, and are asking the court to tell the defendants not to sue or threaten legal action over this new publication or any other publication, and to tell the U.S. Department of Justice, run by Attorney General John Ashcroft, not to file criminal charges against USENIX or anyone else over this matter under the DMCA. As it says in the complaint:

68. In chilling publication, the DMCA wreaks havoc in the marketplace of ideas, not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information -- the right to learn. The main mission of USENIX is to organize forums where scientists and researchers learn from each other. By intimidating the individual plaintiffs into withdrawing their paper from the IHW, however, the private Defendants prevented people from learning. If the source of Defendants' power to threaten, the DMCA, is not dispelled, Plaintiffs will not be the only victims. Without full and open access to research in areas potentially covered by the DMCA, scientists and programmers working in those areas cannot exchange ideas and fully develop their own research. As a consequence, the DMCA will harm science.

69. By imposing civil and criminal liability for publishing speech (including computer code) about technologies of access and copy control measures and copyright management information systems, the challenged DMCA provisions impermissibly restrict freedom of speech and of the press, academic freedom and other rights secured by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

This is just a brief "taste" of what the complaint says. Full text is available here.

The Press Conference

It was held at noon Eastern time, in person simultaneously at EFF headquarters in San Francisco and at a room borrowed from Princeton University. A few reporters were at EFF headquarters in person, but most of us dialed in and participated by phone. The media turnout was impressive; reporters from the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, AP, NPR, Reuters, Wired, and other major news outlets showed up, which was nice to see; Slashdot has been rather lonely in covering many DMCA matters and complaints. It was nice to see so many "mainstream" pressies finally paying attention.

Felten was in San Francisco. So was most of the legal crowd. USENIX Board member Avi Rubin was on the conference call telephone. The Princeton contingent was tiny, composed only of the people who had been at the court house earlier. EFF legal director Cindy Cohn opened the show from San Francisco with a rehash of the events leading up to the suit, most of which I recapped above. (You can find more information here.)

Felten spoke briefly. The basic thrust of his prepared speech can be summed up thusly: "We are asking the government to let us do what scientists have always done -- share the results of our research."

The USENIX people noted that they hold many conferences and may be subject to both civil suits and criminal prosecution if they publish papers DMCA legal threateners (like SDMI and RIAA) don't like, and view this suit as an attempt to maintain their First Amendment rights to freely distribute technical and scientific information to USENIX members and other interested parties.

Then the press questions began. The first dozen covered ground that is familiar to most regular Slashdot readers. There is no point in rehashing these questions when a Slashdot search for "SDMI + DMCA" or just "DMCA" will give answers to every one of them.

Then Hiawatha Bray, a tech columnist for the Boston Globe, wanted to know if the case would be dropped if the SDMI and/or RIAA decide to stop hassling Felten and USENIX. The attorneys said "No." Their point here is to prevent both private companies and the DoJ from bringing DMCA threats not only against the SDMI crack researchers but against anyone who might go through the same sort of ordeal in the future, so a settlement that affected only this case would not cause the EFF to drop it. Other questions and answers followed, but again, long-time Slashdot readers already know most of them, so we won't repeat them here.

Follow the Money

Ms. Cohn says the cost of this suit, "if fully litigated," could easily reach $2 million. She estimates that the EFF-sponsored 2600 DeCSS defense has already cost nearly $1.5 million, and that suit is still cranking up the appeals chain. She also says -- yes, this is a plug -- that Slashdot readers who want to donate money to help fund all this expensive legal action can check out the EFF Web site.

(Here's the EFF membership/donation page if you'd like to whip out your credit card and pop a few bucks their way; they need all they can get!)

This is Just the Beginning

Now, basically, we sit and wait. The lawyers do lawyer-dances involving lots of paperwork. Discovery motions pass back and forth. Amicus briefs get filed. A hearing date gets set, then there's a hearing, and another hearing, and so on.

The 2600/DeCSS case has been going on for a year and a half and still isn't over. This one is likely to drag out even more. Even if Prof. Felten, his associates, and USENIX win all the relief they seek, chances are high that the RIAA, SDMI or at least one of the other defendants will appeal -- and keep appealing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

For more info, read the EFF Press Release

Re:Cracks in the DCMA?

The Attorney General of the United States is always sued when the plaintiff is trying to enjoin enforcement of a given law. Look up * v. Janet Reno and you'll see what I mean.

Re:They must be stopped

The difference is simple: I own a book. You cannot take this book away from me . It is in my house; to try to get it from me is against all sorts of other laws.

The only basis of the laws is custom. Not all cultures have the idea of provate property (as I already mentioned, I assume your read the whole post?)

I have a certain obligation, not to sit down and type it, word for word, into the computer. This is possible, but difficult.

So you support IP rights?

IP is an idea that floats around in your neurons. There's a concrete difference there.

Not really. A house has a function: to give you a place to live. An encryption algorithim also has a function: to protect IP. Just as it is wrong to destroy your home with a wrecking ball (defeating the function of the house), is it not wrong to defeat the purpose of the algorithim?

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

How the hell can the RIAA call itself nonprofit?

Quite easily. RIAA is an industry representation organization. It charges membership dues sufficient to pay for its expenses: office space, staff, office equipment and supplies, operational expenses (lobbying, lawyers, power, etc). It does what it does on behalf of its membership, which DOES consist of profit-making organizations. The RIAA itself is not profit-oriented.

Most companies are members of at least one such organization, even if it's only the local Chamber of Commerce. Yes, the organizations exist to help their membership make money, but the organization doesn't make money itself.


...phil

Re:Not the first lawsuit, the ONLY lawsuit

>>>
What do I think the chances are? I would say they are about the same as the chances of me dating Sarah Michele Gellar next week; realistically as close to zero as anything can be.
>>>>

This calls for nothing less than an all-out letter writing campaign: write to Sarah Michelle Gellar and beg her to please, please, please go out with Veteran this weekend! (And no, Sarah, you don't have to put out at all.)

A transparent attempt at a strawman argument

The opinion that all property is a lie is not a logical consequence of the view that information cannot be treated as property, and the claim to the contrary is little more than a transparent attempt to set up a strawman*.

What is property, and why is it important? Property is important because if you have some property, and someone else takes it from you, then you can no-longer benefit from it. Yet information doesn't work like that. I can give a piece of information to someone else without taking that information away from anyone. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it better:

"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement, or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813.

* A "strawman argument" is advancing your opinion by arguing against a false definition of your opponent's view in the hope that nobody will recognise the difference.

--

Riiight...

DMCA exists for one and only ONE reason- to CONTROL "intellectual" property.

Current patent and copyright law protects that already.

DMCA makes it illegal to own, make, or teach someone else how to make tools to exercise your fair usage rights. You're entitled to make copies of the content you've purchased for your own personal use (meaning for you and you alone). Doesn't matter what form the media is or the content- you're allowed that. DVDs don't let you play disks that are from different regions and if you've got a player that the DVD cartel didn't sanction (i.e. got a license from the DVD CCA to use CSS descrambling) then you don't get to play anything. The disk itself is not locked out (i.e. I can make an exact image copy with a DVD press and expect it to work, implicitly- if it were "protection" as you claim, it wouldn't work out that way).) and CSS is only there to prevent re-encoding to a new format or to play disks not in your region- it doesn't really protect anything

That, sir or madam, is content control not protection. It is there to keep people from making portion copies (fair use right) for personal projects, re-encoding to a lower bandwidth format (space/time shifting- another fair use right), and to keep them purchasing a disk in some other part of the world (Say, I buy in Singapore to watch on a DVD player there, but I live in the US- unless it's a region 1 disk, it's not going to be playable in a region 1 player...).

Re:Clearly stated threat.

Good Heavens! That's over the course of what span of time???

About a half a year before I pay up. It's cds and movie rentals, and rock concerts, but mostly movies in the theatre. US$8.50 a pop for me and my girlfriend up fast. :)

I suppose those boycotting will have already done their part under your system....

I thought about boycotting, but our culture in the USA and in NY where I live is ripe with movie refrances and song quotes. I'm afraid I would fall out of touch and become even more stange to the unaware.

I want to watch DVD's on a Linux laptop with GPLed programs, that is what I am after. Why this should be illegal boggles my mind. (2600 and Judge Kaplan are here too.)

Clearly stated threat.

The MPAA and the RIAA are now offically the enemy of the constitution (copywrite not impeading progress/science clause)

I have donating dollar for dollar to the EFF for every product I buy from the RIAA or MPAA member companies. My last donation was about US$130 and I excpect my next to top US$150.

It feels great, I suggest tring it. I watched some good movies too.

Corporate Matching of Charitable Donations

I posted this below on it's own thread, but it's important, so I wanted it to get some instant visibility

before you donate, check your HR benefits if you work at a decent company. Many companies have policies of matching employee donations to charitable organizations up to a certain dollar amount. My last company would match up to, IIRC, $500, and my (hopefully) next will match $150.

It doesn't cost you anything more, and hey, it gives them another write-off. Make sure you get the forms you need and check to see how you have to make the donation to get the extra money to your causes.

This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U

Charitable Donations and Corporate Matching

For those of you who work for big companies, look into your benefits you may find that your company will, up to a certain dollar amount, match any donations you yourself make to qualifying charitable organizations. I would suspect that the EFF would qualify.

If you want to donate, make sure you get the paperwork or forms you need to get your company to match your donation. My last company would match, IIRC, $500 of my donation. That's $1K to EFF for the $500 you might have given them anyway.

This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U

Re:Not the first lawsuit, the ONLY lawsuit

Are you sure you posted this to the right article? I don't buy any of these arguments, and some of them just don't make sense.

• Are you saying that in a battle between a collection of large, faceless corporations and a small group of scientists at top-flight research institutions, the corporations have the respectability edge? Said scientists are "scruffy malcontents"? Come on. Academic speech is one of the most clear-cut instances of first-amendment-protected speech there is. The SDMI et. al. have a huge task ahead of them just avoiding looking like the goon squad- interfering with academic publication isn't a very pretty picture. Besides, who's this "we" you're talking about? The plaintiffs aren't hackers- they're academics. In the eyes of most judges, there's a world of difference.
• The fight isn't really over technical issues at all- it's over whether or not some scientists can publish a paper. The technical details of the paper are pretty much irrelevant. Besides, cases of this nature are seldom handled by a jury, and judges tend to make a good-faith effort to understand the technical issues they are confronted with.
• This argument is too ridiculous to be rebutted. Felten et. al. will loose the case because it would be a horrible miscarriage of justice? You make it sound like Hon. Justice Snidely Whiplash has been appointed to the case. A few ugly cases do not make a legal system which thrives on miscarriage.
• Erm, the government (U.S., state, or local) is a party in every criminal case in the country, yet somehow accused crmiminals are occasionally found innocent. The U.S. Government has been on the losing end of any number of major court cases, including many more important than this one (yes, there is such a thing). Besides, the U.S. government is not a defendant- the attorney general is, and he is a defendant only in a rather formal sense- nobody's accusing him of a crime. They need to include Ashcroft as a defendant in order for the case to have the scope necessary to get an order preventing possible future prosecutions of USENIX and others. In short, they need to get the government involved, even though the case is not a DMCA prosecution, in order for the case to have the necessary scope.

Re:They must be stopped

The difference is simple: I own a book. You cannot take this book away from me . It is in my house; to try to get it from me is against all sorts of other laws.

I have a certain obligation, not to sit down and type it, word for word, into the computer. This is possible, but difficult. In the same category are things like building your own car (from scratch, not a kit), and so forth.

IP is an idea that floats around in your neurons. There's a concrete difference there.

Re:Have I missed something?

You've missed paragraph 3 of the plaintiffs' complaint, where they quote Japan Gas Lighter Ass'n v. Ronson Corp., 257 F.Supp. 219, 237 (D.N.J. 1966):

The Declaratory Judgment Act was designed to relieve potential defendants from the Damoclean threat of impending litigation which a harassing adversary might brandish, while initiating suit at his leisure -- or never. The Act permits parties so situated to forestall the accrual of potential damages by suing for a declaratory judgment, once the adverse positions have crystallized and the conflict of interests is real and immediate.

--

Driving Force of the Case

What's interesting about the document written by Felten and his associates is the fact that it goes into no details on how to actually circumvent SDMI, but just details the inherent weaknesses in the system.

This will be a very important verdict for free speech as a whole, and the case is being fast-tracked because the USENIX conference is quickly approaching (and because matters of this nature are usually treated in this fashion).

I found out about the teleconference through the 2600 web site, but I was shocked to hear some of the things that the EFF's Cindy Cohn said about 2600's lawsuits. According to her, the EFF has a better chance of winning this case because colleges are who the laws are "meant to protect", insinuating (at least to me) that 2600 has lost its cases because they're seen as hackers and subversives. That didn't leave a very pleasant taste in my mouth.

Cohn does make a very good argument for the case against the DMCA, saying that the RIAA needs to "stop interfering with the scientific process."

The conference was quite interesting, however. I really regret not recording it. There was definitely a good news media turnout. Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe, NewsBytes [newsbytes.com], NPR, AP, and a whole slew of independent radio and newspaper reporters that Roblimo completely has failed to mention.

Very informative. You all should have called in.

Re:Driving Force of the Case

It is absolutely worth listening to. To hear about the case in the EFF's own words was quite enlightening.

I suppose part of me is unhappy to find out about the recording, though...

At about 12:10PM EST, I called in and got an operator who asked me for a whole slew of information, which I gave. Before she tossed me into the mix, I asked her if callers were muted by default and she told me that they were. So, I put the conference on my work speakerphone and a few people begin gathering around, listening and talking about the case while Felten is going into details about the report that started all of this.

All of a sudden, the whole conference erupted into a chorus of people telling us to shut up. It was around this time we realized that the call was not muted at that everyone on the conference could hear us.

You would think the friggin' EFF would moderate their conferences a little better, but obviously not.

Embarrassed, I cover the mouthpiece and start to kick myself for making an ass of myself in front of reporters from about twenty major news organizations.

But then I realized, there are people who go through life without ever even having the chance to make an ass of themselves on such a grand scale, and I quickly began feeling an awful lot better about myself.

I never really liked the Associated Press or NPR much anyway.

Re:They must be stopped

Just as it is wrong to destroy your home with a wrecking ball (defeating the function of the house), is it not wrong to defeat the purpose of the algorithim?

If there was a DMCA-style law against house-destroying, you would now be guilty. You just described how to destroy a house. You didn't actually destroy a house, approve of someone else doing so, but the act of description is itself a crime.

That's what Professor Felton did. He didn't hack anyone's data. He just said, "here's how to do it."

So, you going to turn yourself in now, thought criminal?

-jon

EFF Press Conference mp3 now available

This morning's press conference is now available [eff.org] on EFF's web site.

mp3 format, open audio licensed [eff.org].

Re:They must be stopped

Physical property is a limited resource. There are only so many acres of land, so many barrels of oil, so many bushels of grain, and so many tons of steel.

Ideas are limitless in quantity.

Limited items require more protection than unlimited items. Which requires more protection: the Hope diamond or 1000 tons of coal?

I have not decided whether or not I agree that IP is a legal fiction. Regardless, your arguments are not convincing.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

I've been in the mood to feed the trolls today:

Felten is doing what is right and proper in the United States to change things: he is using the courts.

At least there is *something* here. Frequently, these type of suits are brought before there is ANY issue.

I don't give two shits whether this case is about money. If it means the DMCA is dumped like it should be, so be it.

This suit has a better chance of success than Corley's.

First, Corley is a bit of a wanker. Sure, Felton may look smug, but Corley IS smug.

Second, Felton and the gang are researchers, trying to publish their original work. There must be some legal terminology, but I have no doubt that the originator has greater rights than a reporter.

Third, Corley ignored (or intelligently skirted) an injunction.

Fourth, Corley's case had some weirdness involving to what extent code is speech. This case is much clearer.

Finally, Corley was/is a defendant, using the problems of the DMCA as a defense. Felten being a plaintiff changes the way the game is played. Much like the MPAA set the rules in the decss case, Felten et al. get to set the groundwork in this case.

It's clear that Corley's case is going poorly, and so now it is time to open up the second front. In addition to the reasons mentioned above, the EFF has learned from that experience, and will apply those lessons to this case.

So, of course this lawsuit is a setup. That's the way the US legal system can work.

Re:OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

I should also point out that one of the biggest achievements in the fight against Church power was the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther gave the people an alternative to the Church, and that opened the floodgates of pent-up frustration and dissatisfaction. Suddenly, there were choices that had never existed before.

Absolutely correct. The Reformation followed two huge changes in society:

• literacy - people could read the Bible and other works in their own language for the first time without having it dispensed to them from the (often corrupt) pulpit; and
• trade. The vast quantities of money extracted by Rome could be better used for economic gain once people could make up their own minds whether compulsory church taxes were a noble cause or not.

But I would say that the enabler for the Reformation was technological. It was the printing press that allowed people to read the Bible and commentaries on it in their own language and decide for themselves instead of letting Rome decide for them. I read somewhere that Martin Luther himself was responsible for nearly half of all sales of published works in Germany during his lifetime.

The modern parallel to the printing press is of course the Internet. To follow your example, it's easy to see what the most popular activity is on the Net: communicating with other people directly. Whether it's IRC or e-mail or chat forums or Slashdot, people prefer to use the Net to interact with other people more than they do to buy stuff or interact with corporations. But that's another topic altogether...

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

The RIAA has been very clear [riaa.org] in communicating to everyone that they have no intention to sue Professor Felten.

The Secure Digital Music Initiative Foundation (SDMI) does not - nor did it ever - intend to bring any legal action against Professor Felten or his co-authors.


Right. They waved a big baseball bat in his face and then said "Oh this? We weren't going to hit you with it. Honest."

The RIAA realized in hindsight that the threat made them look bad and backpedaled. I'm with the smartass on this one.

Re:They must be stopped

DMCA exists for one reason: to protect intellectual property.


No. Intellectual property was already protected; if Disney can show that you're infringing on its copyrighted material, they can take you to court. That has nothing to do with the DMCA.

EFF is poor!

According to the EFF web site [eff.org], their yearly budget is only $2M, which is less than nothing compared to the giant bullies they're fighting. So if you have any money to donate, they do count!

Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketbook

The RIAA's power comes from the money they amass from the music-buying public. Without money, they are dead in the water. There is only one way to defeat them, don't buy their products. If you like an artist's work, send him/her a personal check instead.

Don't let them take away our remaining liberties a little bit at a time until there is none left. The internet is our weapon of self-defence. We must use it to fight all would-be enslavers. We must do everything we can to keep it free. Send them a message they will not soon forget. Show them who is really in charge.

Download it all and copy it all!

Demand liberty! Nothing less!

A thought: Right to bear arms.

I just had a random thought. The 2nd Amendment says that people have the right to bear "Arms". Dictionary.com, other than the normal definition as a part of one's body, has one definition of "arms" as weapons. Given the MPAA's recent comparisons of DeCSS to a crowbar, which is a weapon, I wonder if DeCSS could be argued under right to bear arms? While the 2nd Amendment does say that the purpose of the Amendment is to allow militias, which are "necessary to the security of a free state", hasn't it also been interperted to allow firearms to prevent against tyrany if necessary. Of course, this opens up the whole can of worms of gun control laws and regulation, but it's something I'd love to hear some feedback on.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

Oh really?

A sI remember the original issue is that they DID threaten to sue him. It was only AFTER he came out, withdrew the paper, and made statments hinting at this lawsuit comming that they "changed their tune" and said they "never intended to sue him"

If they never intended to sue him, then why did they threaten him with legal action? Is harrassment a standard policy of the SDMI lawyers? An accepted legal practice?

The fact is, they expected him to back down and shut up - just like everyone else that they are used to comming up against. They had no intention to sue him, because they never expected him to publish the paper after the first letter.

I applaud Felton. He got them to make the mistake he needed them to make. So what if he is risking less? Its fighting smart.

The RIAA is like all the other scaremongers. They go after the weak with threats of lawsuits and stop the opposition by scaring them into backing down. They would never let an issue get to court unless they knew they could win.

Felton is fighting back, forcing the issue into court. I think thats great.

-Steve

Framing the context is everything

Generally whoever frames the argument wins. The MPAA framed the DeCSS case as "evil hackers stealing movies". Felder frames his case as "scientists being censored in the pursuit of knowledge". Basically there is no way he can lose.

The DMCA hinges on the concept of a circumvention device. If the DeCSS case was framed similarly, with heavy emphasis on scientific analysis the weakness of CSS [dvd-copy.com], with emphasis on abstract mathematical algorithms, it would have won. Unfortunately DeCSS was just a hack tool. Without the larger context there was no way it could possibly win.

Re:Clearly stated threat.

I have donating dollar for dollar to the EFF for every product I buy from the RIAA or MPAA member companies. My last donation was about US$130 and I excpect my next to top US$150.

Excellent idea! These people are modern patriots and they deserve all of the support they can get. I wish people would turn off the TV, get off their sofas and donate at least $20 (the cost of one DVD or a little more than one CD) to the EFF. I don't know why so many of us have fairly decent (high tech) jobs, but few of us take the time just to send a few dollars to support some of our strongest beliefs. I hope people don't get there and see all of the suggested amounts and decide against donating just because it's more than they can afford (or are willing to spend). Send whatever you can, but at least send something!

The way our government has become, the only way you can get any action is to form a large group and speak with one loud voice. These guys are on our side. I've heard complaints that an individual person is too small to affect change in the government, but you can do so indirectly by supporting an organization that will be heard.

I joined the EFF about a year ago. I guess I'm due for another donation. I really like Odinson's idea; I'm going to start doing the same thing. It certainly will help me to feel better about the few purchases that I do make that wind up inadvertently supporting the [MP|RI]AA.

--

Re:Clearly stated threat.

... I haven't missed out much on not listening to popular music. And I haven't watched anything other than some sports on TV in the last year, and I haven't missed out at ALL in that area.

Disclaimer: I'm going to spend a few karma points here to get a strong point across, though it might be just a little bit off-topic. Hopefully our kind moderators will be a little leniant here.

I've been doing the same thing (no popular music, no television). The only thing that seems to regularly put me outside the norm is when someone walks up to me and asks "Hey did you see that funny new TV commercial?". However, I can proudly say, "No". As a matter of fact, I despise television even more now that I've been away from the stench for a while. If I even try to watch a short 30-minute show, I'm immediately reminded of how inane and insulting most of television is to the public (Take a laugh track for example: we need to be told when to laugh?).

Besides that, it's my personal theory that television is the reason why so many people in our country are apathetic. It's great for me, because it empowers me with so much more freedom to do so many productive things. I feel like I've found a way out to a much greener pasture, while the rest of the herd are kept "safe" inside the fence, appeased with tasty but poor-quality fodder, and happy in their ignorance but unaware of the upcoming slaughter.

I know it's nearly impossible to drop out of television in our modern culture, but if you really care a lot for your sanity and independence, just try to give TV a break for a week. I guarantee you might feel a bit withdrawn, but when you get back to it, you'll probably find it's much worse than you previously thought; meanwhile you'll find you suddenly had a lot of free time to catch up on things which are more important. Just remember when you're life is nearly over, do you want to say you spent 20% of it wasting your time and your mind on spoon-fed crap fed to you by large corporations to sell you to the highest bidder, or do you want to have spent that 20% exploring new and different things and advancing relationships with great people.

Remember: with television, you are the product, not the consumer.

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Re:Hit them where it hurts the most, the pocketboo

While I agree that boycotting may help the cause in a very very minor way. I think a little more active response would be in order. Giving a few dollars to the EFF will be *FAR* more effecitve than NOT giving a few dollars to the RIAA.

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OT: Reminiscent of the dark ages

The RIAA and SDMI are acting like the church in the dark ages. In the old days, attempting to perform research or disseminate scientific ideas led to excommunication or death. Today, the corporations sue you out of existence.

Story on NPR

This evening's All Things Considered [npr.org] features a long (4:30) story on the lawsuit.

Audio will be posted online [npr.org] at 10pm ET tonight, or you might be able to catch it on the radio-- it's the next to last piece in the program.

(oh yeah-- right now, it's titled "Napster." ignore that; someone was smoking crack.)

Re:Rock on!

An interesting addendum to all this is this RIAA response [riaa.com] to the legal filing. RIAA basically says that they do not plan to sue Professor Felten, so the reasoning behind the lawsuit is "inexplicable".

IIRC, the timing of the "clarification [riaa.org]" of the original "threat [princeton.edu]" was such that once the time slot was gone and the talk would no longer fit into the Information Hiding Workshop conference schedule, then RIAA decided to mention that they aren't really going to sue the Prof and they aren't really the enemy of scientific research.

Re:This lawsuit is a total setup.

Don't let Felten distract you from the real DMCA issue. Newspaper headlines translate directly into departmental funding at major universities. This isn't about freedom of speech, it's about grant money.

You're right... newspaper headlines are certainly free publicity to the university. The road runs both ways, however... a university bringing a frivilous lawsuit forward would just result in an academic backlash, to say the least.

This suit has merit... it directly challenges the DMCA's ability to surpress the free release of information regarding how to defeat a copyright protection scheme. This directly relates to 2600's lawsuit, which is for, fundamentally, the same thing.

Can we speak freely about how to defeat a copyright protection scheme? The first amendment says yes, the DMCA says no.

So what if the university gets some free press... this could be the weapon against the DMCA we've been waiting for.
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Re:be realistic here.

The Justice League, God, Jesus, and Satan himself will also be siding with the EFF in this case to halt the DMCA's reign of terror. Yeah, right. I highly doubt anything will ever come with this. Call me a cynic, but ever since the DeCSS case, I've lost all faith in the government using common sense when working on technology oriented legislation.

So you've lost faith, does that mean you give up? It's attitudes like this that will help the RIAA and MPAA take over our lives. If your favorite sports team is losing badly do you stop cheering them on?

I won't call you a cynic, I'll call you a quitter.

Re:They must be stopped

This is NOT about Intellectual property, it is about free speech. It is about the rights of artists (thats right, artist). Let ME tell YOU why copy control will ruin culture.

Picture it, all Media and Media creators have copy control built in. Not only that, but it uses a similiar strategy that DVD uses: Licensed keys. Now, what makes you think that some kid working on an album in his basement will be able to create that media so that it plays on standard players? If he could, then the very nature of the key system has been broken.

They don't want to make it illegial to copy media, it has already been illegal for a VERY LONG TIME to do that. They don't want to "protect intellectual property", its already legally protected. They want to control who can create the players and who can create the content. GIven them full control over what is publish and what is not published. A monolopy based of a mutual agreement not to compete based on price or artisitic contractual obligations (RIAA anyone?).

The government should have absolutly no vested interest limiting the free exchange of ideas. Any ideas. No matter how absurd they are, no matter what they can be used for. Without that guarantee, we all might as well be slaves.

If i can publish a book detailing how to make bombs, why can't Fenton publish a paper on how SDMI is full of crap? There is no difference.