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ACM vs. RIAA
Posted by
Hemos
on Fri Aug 31, 2001 09:50 PM
from the battle-to-the-last dept.
from the battle-to-the-last dept.
stinkbomb writes "The venerable Association for Computing Machinery has posted a legal brief on it's site regarding Felten vs. RIAA. The ACM position is: 'ACM believes that the application of any law to limit the freedom to publish research on computer technology will impose a cost not only on ACM's members, but also on the academic community, the process of scientific discourse, and society in general.'"
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The surgon general... (Score:5, Funny)
WARNING:
The RIAA's surgeon general has determined that process of scientific disclosure can be detrimental to the health of your bottom line, and your chances of re-election.
Sorry... (Score:1)
Science and the useful arts (Score:5, Informative)
Someone explain to me how outlawing science and research in order to protect overextended copyrights (life+70 only helps Disney...) "promotes the progress of science" or the useful arts.
It's in the plain language, kids. Someone else want to try to explain that to Congress and the Supreme Court?
Note: a good history of Copyright is available at http://netizen.uoregon.edu/documents/ethics.html (I have nothing to do with that page, but found it and it's pretty good)
RIAA promoting MP3's (Score:1, Insightful)
Felton would do nothing but help the RIAA better thier security by being a white hat. Like there aren't thousands more people out there who can hack security - and about 99.999% of those people wouldn't be nice enough to tell the RIAA about it like Felton.
Look into the future ... (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, we all know that no business can see past the end of it's wallet, so it's unlikely they'll suddenly grow the foresight to recognize that laws they have sponsored or are pursuing will hurt them in the long run. Ah, ya gotta love cycles.
It's much like the oil and gas industry; what exactly do you expect to be selling when you're inadvertantly being detramental to the very thing that makes you money?
History doesn't teach us anything, it seems. It teaches us about 2 or 3 heros and villains, and usually with a better ending. And you can quote me on that.
um...hemos? (Score:3, Insightful)
Last time I checked, the RIAA was in the business of copyright enforcement.
Perhaps
Sincerely,
Vergil
DMCA is being used to squelch non profit websites (Score:4, Informative)
I know this is somewhat offtopic, but oh well...
Whether you agree with the politics of these websites or not, it is pretty repugnant that the law is now being used to squelch criticism. The story is HERE. [salon.com]
Also here is a rough draft [indybay.org] of something I am writing to address the DMCA and to explain the problems with this law to Joe and Jane sixpack. Please suggest changes, criticize and flame etc.. and also feel free to use it. Thanks.
SIGCSE (Score:1)
What About Research That IS Computer Technology? (Score:5, Interesting)
(That code of conduct is, generally, in my opinion, excellent, and well worth reading and abiding by, to the extent it's possible.)
Unlike most any other industry, the computer industry is one in which research on the technology is often presented as the technology itself. In that sense, even well-established, free, "production" software like GNU Emacs, GCC, and the Linux kernel can be reasonably considered "research" as well -- they're distributed as source code, and everyone is encouraged to study it, learn from it, modify it, and distribute what they learn and/or their modifications.
Since the existence of software patents directly infringes peoples' individual rights to distribute research in that form (free source code), I found the ACM's requirements, as much as I agree with the basic ethical, moral, and practical basis for them (that is, it's generally ethical, moral, and practical to obey existing laws), to be too much for me in the case of software patents.
So, while I'm happy to see the ACM recognize the specific new threat, I wonder how they view software patents today, since software patents can easily render much practical research either infeasible (can't be distributed as free software without authors losing their houses and other property in court due to patent-infringement lawsuits) or illegal?
For example, without things like the DMCA, software patents can be used to prevent (or punish for) distributing things like DeCSS and other "IP-security" softwarez. (I used that term on purpose; "warez" denotes illegal software, it should perhaps also denote immoral, self-delusional, or tyrannical software as well. ;-)
True, ideally, software patents make an invention's nature plain enough for all (adequately schooled in the arts) to understand, and what the ACM's complaining about here is the "security-through-obscurity" approach presently used by certain companies enjoying an artificial, and ultimately too-fragile, legal fence built around it, known as the DMCA.
But, in practice, software patents are not used by typical programmers or computer-science researchers as a source of information on how stuff works; and, further, the lawyers who help write them up apparently try to make sure they are as inscrutable as possible (while still passing muster with the Patent and Trademark Office, or whatever it's called), so as to provide the least useful information, while carving out the most intellectual "property" possible.
So, even absent the DMCA, it seems to me that a much broader problem, including much of what the ACM is presently worried about, is posed by software patents, which too-often amount to inscrutable, unhelpful "explanations" of just what a person (or even a computer program) might, on its own, be doing, that is illegal, because the owner of the software patent a) says so and b) can afford expensive lawyers.
I guess what I'm asking is, given that the DMCA and software patents do exist:
-
-
- not publishing software that even might infringe
- not publishing research papers that describe patented properties, if it's fairly straightforward to convert any pseudocode or descriptions in the papers into software (in languages ranging from assembly code to Haskell, ML, Prolog, and so on)
- spending so much time researching the constant stream of software patents which they might otherwise infringe that they have little or no time to actually research and publish computer technologies?
-
Of course, these are really general questions of ethics, but since the ACM is making a statement, one which I support, I'd like to see them continue to think through issues like these, so their members have appropriate guidance from them regarding ethical issues, and so they serve as an ethically-consistent "voice", for computing professionals, to be heard by those who take on the responsibility of authoring and enforcing human laws.Does the ACM expect its members to abide by the legal restrictions of the DMCA, even if the result (not publishing weaknesses in a timely fashion) might be loss of property or even life of innocents?
Similarly, does the ACM expect its members to strive to avoid infringing software patents, by:
And does it expect its members to do these things even if doing so prevents them finding and/or publishing security flaws, again, even if the result of withholding such information might include the loss of property or life?
Beyond specifics such as the DMCA and software patents, does the ACM generally expect its members to abide by legal restrictions when the result of doing so could have severe moral repercussions, such as loss of life or property due to inadequate, or even hostile, computing technology being deployed by companies using "intellectual-property" law to protect such deployments against ACM members dutifully informing the public?
Why is the topic 'patents'? (Score:1)
Just wondering why we have the "patent pending" icon for this article. I would think that the right topic would be YRO or something like that, as that's what the DMCA is all about. The DMCA doesn't really have anything to do with patents, which with software are a whole other evil thing.
CE companies dilemma ! (Score:2)
The ACM has done a right thing in espousing the cause of research in understanding content encryption technologies.
Uncle Sam: the book (Score:1, Informative)
Get a copy of this magnificient comic [ninthart.com] by Steve Darnall (of "Empty Love Stories" fame). A cynical and eye-opening exploration of the US of A, it takes us on a disturbing ride, from its inception on ideals of freedom and equality, to the present day where corporations have the government and the law in their hands.
Its relevance is all the more strong with the advent of lopsided laws such as the DMCA [educause.edu] and the UCITA [arl.org].
Expect to see this publication banned in the near future.
Riaa is the ultimate loser (Score:1)
If people like Felton don't present their results then that'll stagnate the industry
someone should try explaining to them that this is for their good ! and if they stop it then they stand to lose a lot. Imagine if the thing "leaks" out and all the script kiddies start distributing code to bypass their security.
Ah, science... (Score:1)
Not safe to say this in the US of A? (Score:2)
From the declaration:
Comment would be superfluous, wouldn't it?
Nice of ACM now (Score:1)
RIAA = Millions of dollars in campaign contributions
ACM = Bunch of egg heads that have no effect on getting re-elected.
This sums up the situation in a nutshell.
Re:How much sway does the ACM have though? (Score:3, Insightful)
WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN. All the EFF has is money. The ACM has people who can reasonably explain whey they, as a voter, think the congresscritter needs to do something. Believe it or not, as idealistic as it sounds, enough people writing letters can still overcome large amounts of money in deals like this.
Are you kidding? (Score:2, Insightful)
I am a proud member of UPE and ACM.
Re:I'm sorry (Score:3, Insightful)
When you talk to *your* PHB.... (Score:2)
But if you can cite position papers from the ACM and IEEE, it's a lot harder for them to brush off your concerns as ill-informed ramblings of a bunch of geeks with no grasp of business or the law. If it comes down to it, you can even use this as the basis for a resignation if they insist on proceeding with something that you feel strongly about. If you do it for your own reasons, unfortunately, a lot of PHBs will just call you a flake. If you do it while citing an ACM "Code of Ethics" and position papers, it should be a wakeup call to them. It's hard to implement and maintain a program if the most knowledgeable workers resign over it!