From rms at computerbytesman.com Tue Nov 19 12:56:34 2002 From: rms at computerbytesman.com (Richard M. Smith) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE ACCEPTING COMMENTS ON DMCA Message-ID: <002701c2900e$255478b0$6401a8c0@rms2> U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE ACCEPTING COMMENTS ON DMCA The U.S. Copyright Office today begins accepting comments on possible additional exemptions within the DMCA. The focus is on how the law might be restricting research or the marketplace. Comment period is open until December 18th. http://www.copyright.gov/1201/comment_forms/index.html From rms at computerbytesman.com Wed Nov 20 08:20:19 2002 From: rms at computerbytesman.com (Richard M. Smith) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] Yet more legal troubles for Adobe Message-ID: <001a01c290b0$b81da6b0$6401a8c0@rms2> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=581&u=/nm/20021120/tc_n m/tech_adobe_lawsuit_dc&printer=1 Adobe Photoshop Sued Over Trade Secrets - Plaintiff CARPINTERIA, Calif. (Reuters) - Adobe Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:ADBE - news) was sued for an alleged misappropriation of trade secrets by the principal developer of Kai's Power Tools, a rival to Adobe's popular Photoshop image editing software, the plaintiff said on Wednesday. In a statement, Shell and Slate Software Corp. and the company's founder, Ben Weiss, said they filed suit on Monday against Adobe in the U.S. Federal District Court, Central District of California, in Los Angeles. A spokesman for Adobe was not immediately available to comment. The suit contains numerous allegations, including misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of contract concerning the "Healing Brush texture-cloning tool" included in Adobe Photoshop 7.0, according to the press statement. A copy of the lawsuit was not immediately available. Texture cloning is a feature that allows graphic artists to manipulate images such as removing wrinkles from a picture of a human face. Shell and Slate, which was founded in November 2000, makes two-dimensional graphic software. Weiss is the software architect who was the prime developer of the Kai's Power Tools and Kai's Power GOO computer graphics product lines. MetaCreations, now known as Viewpoint Corp. (NasdaqNM:VWPT - news), sold off Kai's Power Tools to Corel Corp. (Toronto:COR.TO - news) and Kai's Super GOO to ScanSoft Inc. (NasdaqNM:SSFT - news) nearly three years ago. Shell and Slate is represented by Gary Hecker of The Hecker Law Group, a Los Angeles-based intellectual property firm specializing in high technology and entertainment litigation, and Stephen W. Tropp, of Orlando, Florida. Hecker has represented clients including Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer, Pixar, Macromedia and Netscape. Shares of Adobe traded was up 12 cents at $27.51 in early trading on the Nasdaq market on Wednesday. From rms at computerbytesman.com Wed Nov 20 13:04:23 2002 From: rms at computerbytesman.com (Richard M. Smith) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] Yet more DMCA madness Message-ID: <004601c290d8$6742ec50$6401a8c0@rms2> http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=18 &threadid=126042 We have been given DMCA notices regarding the posting of "Black Friday" sale prices from the following companies: Wal*Mart Target Best Buy Staples While we believe that sale prices are facts and can not be copyrighted, We have made the business decision to comply with the dmca notifications. Our reasoning for this is very simple - Our mission is to serve consumers - If we were to choose to fight this battle, It would require more resources than are available - and we would no longer be able to serve consumers. I fully expect this story to be making news sites as early as today. Part of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions state that in order to qualify for safe harbor protection, we must have no knowledge of the infringing activity. If we become aware of the removed content being reposted on our site, We have no choice but to remove the content, or forfeit our safe harbor provision. I respectfully ask your cooperation on this matter. On a further note - We have been, and will be in further contact with the EFF, as well as ChillingEffects.org. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://frotz.zork.net/pipermail/free-sklyarov/attachments/20021120/d6dce937/attachment.htm From rms at computerbytesman.com Thu Nov 21 07:52:43 2002 From: rms at computerbytesman.com (Richard M. Smith) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] DMCA misuse hurts consumers and news reporting Message-ID: <000001c29175$6e17a640$6801a8c0@rms2> Hi, Attached is a list of articles about the attempt by Walmart and other US retailers to suppress news from being posted on shopper Web sites about prices for upcoming sales. Quoting prices from sales circulars hardly qualifies as copyright infrigement. The use of the DMCA to suppress protected speech is particularily alarming here. If Walmart or the other retailers don't want this kind of information to get out prematurely, then they need to work with employees and vendors to keep it under wraps. Unfortunately it appears that these companies are attempting to take the easy way out by sending out DMCA demand letters rather than getting their own houses in order. This action by Walmart and others illustrates yet again why the DMCA is a very problematic law. I also wonder now about other cases of the news been suppress by the misuse of DMCA. DMCA demand letters to Web sites and hosting services are very common nowadays. Thanks, Richard M. Smith http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com =============================================== Internet Sites Delete News of Sales by Big Retailers http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/21/technology/21COPY.html 'Prices are trade secrets' - stores unite to make DMCA look stupid http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28223.html Web-Savvy Shoppers Get Sneak Peak at Holiday Sales http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1037818929298686028,00.html Big Retailers Squeeze FatWallet http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56504,00.html Retailers Wield Copyright Law Against Shopping Sites http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17253-2002Nov20.html From rknop at pobox.com Thu Nov 21 10:09:15 2002 From: rknop at pobox.com (Robert A. Knop Jr.) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] DMCA misuse hurts consumers and news reporting In-Reply-To: <000001c29175$6e17a640$6801a8c0@rms2> References: <000001c29175$6e17a640$6801a8c0@rms2> Message-ID: <20021121100915.B1763@sonic.net> On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 10:52:43AM -0500, Richard M. Smith wrote: > Retailers Wield Copyright Law Against Shopping Sites > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17253-2002Nov20.html AAAAAUUUUGGGHHH! This article contains the capsule description of the DMCA: Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams said the company's actions were justified, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 1998 statute that extends traditional copyright protections to the Internet. That is so wrong that it's frightening. Misconception #1: the Internet had previously been exempt from copyright law. Very wrong! We didn't need a DMCA to make violation of copyright illegal over the internet. Violation of copyright is violation of copyright wherever it happens, and part of reason the DMCA is so damaging is that there is a popular perception that "new laws were needed for this special case". Misconception #2: the DMCA didn't just bring traditional copyright protections to the internet. It extended them in the sence of making them much more than what traditional copyright protections were. It gave copyright holders new clubs, and outlawed actions previously legal (irrespective of whether the Internet is involved or not). Foo. With soundbytes like these in the popular press, the citizens at large will never understand why some of us get so worked up about the DMCA. (Everybody has explicit permission to distribute this post anywhere for any reason.) -Rob -- -=-=-= Rob Knop =-= rknop@pobox.com =-= http://www.pobox.com/~rknop =-=-=- Help the EFF protect basic freedoms online: http://www.eff.org Playwrights & theatre types, see The Dramatic Exchange: http://www.dramex.org From rms at computerbytesman.com Mon Nov 25 15:12:15 2002 From: rms at computerbytesman.com (Richard M. Smith) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] Major test of copyright law set to start Message-ID: <002e01c294d8$1820ba40$6401a8c0@rms2> http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975280.html?tag=fd_top By Lisa M. Bowman Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 25, 2002, 2:35 PM PT The first big courtroom test of a U.S. law that makes it illegal to offer software for cracking digital copyright protections should finally begin next week, after visa delays for two of the case's main players. Dmitry Sklyarov, a programmer at Moscow-based software company ElcomSoft, and Alex Katalov, the company's CEO, have been granted special permission to come to the United States for the court proceedings. "They are ready to go," ElcomSoft attorney Joseph Burton told a judge at a hearing Monday in federal court in San Jose, Calif. In a widely publicized case, ElcomSoft faces charges that it violated criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by offering software that could be used to circumvent the copyright locks in Adobe Systems' eBooks digital books. The DMCA makes it illegal to disseminate technology that can be used to circumvent copyright protection. The case is the first of its kind since the act passed in 1998. Katalov is scheduled to represent ElcomSoft during the jury trial, which is expected to last 4-5 days. Sklyarov may be called as a government witness. The trial date already had been pushed back six-and-a-half weeks after the U.S. government denied the Russians their visas amid more stringent entry requirements. However, the U.S. Attorneys Office intervened, and landed a special "parole" visa for both men. Sklyarov obtained his last week, and Katalov received his Monday morning. The pair is booked on a flight that arrives in the United States over the weekend. Jury selection is scheduled for next Monday, and opening statements and witness testimony is expected to start the following day, Dec. 3. The case began when FBI agents, acting at Adobe's behest, arrested Sklyarov last summer at a Las Vegas conference after he gave a speech about the code-cracking software. The move created an uproar among security professionals and civil liberties groups, causing Adobe to publicly back down. U.S. prosecutors, though, continued the case but dropped the charges against Sklyarov in exchange for his testimony in their case against ElcomSoft. At Monday's hearing, the lawyers spent much of the time wrangling over how the DMCA should be interpreted for a jury. The criminal provisions of the act may be especially perplexing because they outlaw cracking copyright protections--or offering tools that will do so--even if the person cracking the protections plans to use the material in a way that traditionally has been legal, such as making a backup copy. "There isn't any law in this area," Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Frewing told the judge. Burton, the ElcomSoft attorney, argued that in order to convict the company of wrongdoing, the jury should have to find that company representatives were acting with an "evil-meaning mind" or for a "bad purpose," not just helping people crack copyright protections. He also argued that the jury should be instructed on what constitutes "fair use," a legal theory under copyright law that allows some copying of material for education, criticism and other purposes. But Frewing disagreed. "Fair use is irrelevant and improper," to bring into the instructions, he said. The judge said he would decide those issues as the case proceeds. From erc at pobox.com Mon Nov 25 15:35:04 2002 From: erc at pobox.com (Ed Carp) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] Major test of copyright law set to start In-Reply-To: <002e01c294d8$1820ba40$6401a8c0@rms2> Message-ID: > At Monday's hearing, the lawyers spent much of the time wrangling over > how the DMCA should be interpreted for a jury. The criminal provisions > of the act may be especially perplexing because they outlaw cracking > copyright protections--or offering tools that will do so--even if the > person cracking the protections plans to use the material in a way that > traditionally has been legal, such as making a backup copy. > > "There isn't any law in this area," Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott > Frewing told the judge. This is absolutely untrue - I refer you to Sony v. Betamax, one of the most famous copyright cases in history. Traditionally, higher courts have looked at the intent, or meaning of the law, not just the words on paper. What was the intent of Congress when they passed the DMCA? Was it to outlaw any and all avenues of making a copy of a copyrighted work? Clearly not - it was to attempt to stop piracy. But is the attempt to stop piracy to be at the expense of the right of the individual to protect his investment in software products? Certainly not. The next question to be answered is, was Elcomsoft's product legitimate, or a subterfuge to get around the provisions of the DMCA? There are other issues to consider, ones that probably weren't brought up at the hearing. What right does the United States have in enforcing it's laws outside it's territorial boundaries? What right does the United States have in enforcing the DMCA against someone who is obviously not in a position to make policy, but is just a coder, and in any event when the code in question was written outside the US? -- Ed Carp, N7EKG http://www.pobox.com/~erc 214/986-5870 Licensed Texas Peace Officer Computer Crime Investigation Consultant Director, Software Development Escapade Server-Side Scripting Engine Development Team http://www.squishedmosquito.com "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed-- and thus clamorous to be let to safety-- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H. L. Mencken From sethf at sethf.com Mon Nov 25 16:46:57 2002 From: sethf at sethf.com (Seth Finkelstein) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] Fwd - IT: How To Win (DMCA) Exemptions And Influence Policy Message-ID: <20021125194657.A29133@sethf.com> Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 12:02:34 -0500 From: Seth Finkelstein To: Seth Finkelstein's InfoThought list Subject: IT: How To Win (DMCA) Exemptions And Influence Policy Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 08:07:11 -0800 From: Lee Tien Subject: guide to DMCA "exemption" process -- 3 weeks left To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications EFF is pleased to present a guide to the DMCA "exemption" process. http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/finkelstein_on_dmca.html Under this process, the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress must make a triennial inquiry regarding adverse effects of the DMCA's prohibition on circumvention on "certain classes of works." If adverse effects are shown, the office can "exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works." The exemptions only last 3 years. The author, Seth Finkelstein, is one of the very few people who succeeded in arguing for an exemption (for the act of circumventing access/copy controls on censorware blacklists) in the last round (2000). [The Copyright Office received many comments and rejected the overwhelming majority of them; I think in the end only 2 or 3 exemptions were created.] The upcoming round is the next one, for 2003. "Written comments are due by December 18, 2002." This is about the only part of the DMCA that can mitigate its fell sway, so if you have any interest in the topic at all, it's well worth reading. Lee -- ********************************** Lee Tien Senior Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 436-9333 x 102 (tel) (415) 436-9993 (fax) tien[at-sign]eff.org _______________________________________________ Infothought mailing list Infothought@sethf.com http://sethf.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/infothought -- Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer sethf@sethf.com http://sethf.com Anticensorware Investigations - http://sethf.com/anticensorware/ Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html From rms at computerbytesman.com Tue Nov 26 08:00:50 2002 From: rms at computerbytesman.com (Richard M. Smith) Date: Fri Jul 8 22:09:58 2005 Subject: [free-sklyarov] Straining digital copyright law, junior paper exposes protection flaws in CDs Message-ID: <003201c29564$fddc80f0$6401a8c0@rms2> http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/11/21/news/6433.shtml Straining digital copyright law, junior paper exposes protection flaws in CDs By JOSHUA TAUBERER Princetonian Senior Writer Photo by Gabriel Fossati As senior computer science major Alex Halderman '03 was presenting his junior paper to a room of scientists Monday, he was thinking about his future career. Being sued by the music industry was further from his mind. Halderman said he could possibly be sued for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by presenting his spring JP at the ACM Conference on Computer & Communication Security in Washington. Halderman's paper explains how some companies have protected CDs from being copied by computers. Concern over a DMCA lawsuit until now has been reserved for just some of the University's faculty, notably computer science professor Edward Felten. But what separates Halderman even from the professors - in the unlikely event that he is sued - is that the University might provide him with legal defense, Halderman said. "I've been given assurances that the University would help me if I were sued for breaking the DMCA," he said. This would be an unprecedented and controversial move for the University if it were to happen. The DMCA prohibits circumvention of copy-protection technologies, such as encryption and digital watermarking. The copy-protection system that Halderman examined is an exploit of existing flaws in computer software. Because those technologies constitute a major focus area in computer science, some say the DMCA prohibits legitimate academic research. "That makes the DMCA problematic for universities and other institutions," Wilson School professor Christopher Eisgruber said in an email. The DMCA is the same law that put peer-to-peer file sharing programs - such as Napster, Gnutell and Kazaa - on the judicial radar. Also as a result of the DMCA, the University's radio station WPRB will face higher royalties for webcasting. Halderman - a 'Prince' associate photo editor - said he would have written his JP differently if there were no DMCA. In the past, to show the weaknesses in a security system, one would write a program to break it. "That would be a proof," he said. But since the DMCA was passed in 1998, creating such a proof can be illegal. Instead, Halderman said he was careful to explain why the CDs' copy-protection system is inherently weak, without providing a recipe for circumventing it. In 2001 Felten received a letter from the music industry allegedly threatening a DMCA lawsuit in response to research he and others had done. The threatening letter never became a lawsuit. But following Felten's troubles, the University faculty voted to establish a committee on threats to academic freedom by legal intimidation, chair of the committee and physics professor Edward Groth said in an email. Groth said the committee will be finalizing a report to the dean of the faculty's office next month. The University has provided indemnification - legal defense - for students and faculty in the past, when they were performing a certain function for the University, such as serving on the Honor Committee, General Counsel Peter McDonough said. Indemnification was originally designed only to protect the highest officers of the University from suits related to their roles, he said. Protecting researchers for the sake of research is more than just rare, he added. "It is unheard of." McDonough's office recommends cases of indemnification to the president, who holds the authority of granting indemnification. "Once you get indemnification and once the University controls your defense, all of the sudden the decisions . . . are not necessarily the individuals," he said. McDonough added that he would not want to see his office become the de facto clearinghouse for research papers. If his office were to deny a researcher recommendation for indemnification, McDonough said, then some might see the office as censoring the student or faculty member. Groth said, "Technology has completely changed the landscape." The DMCA was created to prevent technology from making copyrights moot. But the law itself is unusual. Halderman's JP adviser, Professor Andrew Appel '81, said the DMCA gives "a hook on which to hang a reasonably credible threat" - even if that threat would be unlikely to hold up in court. "One has to explicitly be prepared to deal with the possibility of these threats of lawsuits," he said. Without a team of defense lawyers at a researcher's disposal, facing a threat may not be feasible. Some researchers might be forced to choose a less risky path by not doing the research at all. Halderman called that the "chilling effect" of the DMCA. Though Halderman said it is unlikely that he would be sued, he said he plans to continue his research, which could cause more conflict with the act.