EFFector Vol. 20, No. 22 June 6, 2007 editor@eff.org
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
ISSN 1062-9424
In the 426th Issue of EFFector:
- Action Alert - Don't Let the Senate Stall the OPEN Government Act!
- Senate Panel Rejects Dangerous Spying Bill, Demands Details of NSA Program
- Major League Baseball Rattles Sabre at Slingbox
- Campus Lawsuits Against P2P != Stopping File Sharing
- iTunes Release Reveals New and Old Problems
- Attention Returns to Orphan Works
- miniLinks (15): Google Street View -- Where's the Pro-Privacy Technology?
- Administrivia
For more information on EFF activities & alerts:
http://www.eff.org/
Make a donation and become an EFF member today!
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effector: n, Computer Sci. A device for producing a desired
change.
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* Action Alert - Don't Let the Senate Stall the OPEN
Government Act!
A single Senator is blocking legislation that would help
protect the public's right to know. Bipartisan open
government legislation has already passed in the House, and
a similar measure was on its way to the Senate floor until
Senator John Kyl placed a "hold" on it. Don't let this
stall tactic stand in the way of government transparency --
take action now:
http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=285
The OPEN Government Act would provide some important
updates to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a crucial
tool used to compel the release of government documents.
This bill will give federal agencies, like the FBI and the
FCC, greater incentive to follow the law and make it easier
for all FOIA requesters to access government documents.
EFF's FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG)
project relies on FOIA to expose the government's expanding
use of new technologies that invade Americans' privacy, and
this bill would greatly help in our and other
organizations' efforts to protect your rights.
Please tell your Senators to help advance this bill to the
Senate floor immediately:
http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=285
For news about Senator Kyl's "hold":
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005283.php
For more on EFF's FLAG project:
http://www.eff.org/flag
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* Senate Panel Rejects Dangerous Spying Bill, Demands
Details of NSA Program
The Senate Intelligence Committee has affirmatively stated
that it will not consider the Bush Administration's
dangerous "FISA modernization" surveillance legislation
until critical details about the NSA spying program are
revealed. Noting that "the Administration's refusal to
satisfy these document requests span over a year," the
Intelligence Committee demanded "the President's orders
authorizing the warrantless surveillance and the Department
of Justice's opinions on the legality of the program."
As you may recall, we were concerned last month that the
Administration's proposal could slip into the Senate's
intelligence budget authorization. The authorization bill
and the Committee's report were made public last week, and
we're pleased to see that it decided against legislating in
the dark about the still-shadowy surveillance program.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to call the Senate
Intelligence Committee to oppose the spying bill.
The Administration isn't about to back down, though, and
it's critical that Congress keeps pushing back and
conducting with vigorous investigations into the program.
Take action now to help stop the illegal spying:
http://action.eff.org/fisa
For this post and related links:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005286.php
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* Latest U.S. Free Trade Agreement Contains New Twist
The U.S. Trade Representative's Office has just released
the text of the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, and
it includes a number of decidedly disturbing features.
Since 2002, the last nine free trade agreements have
required America's trading partners to adopt very specific
intellectual property laws and to provide a higher level of
legal protection than international standards embodied in
multilateral treaties. Like those before it, the U.S.-South
Korea Free Trade Agreement requires South Korea to create
an anti-circumvention law mirroring the controversial
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, extend the copyright term
to 70 years beyond the life of the author, and create a
pre-established statutory damages regime for potential
copyright violations that is likely to chill research and
innovation.
But this trade agreement also includes several new
elements. There are three side letters to the Intellectual
Property chapter, and the third includes the following
statement:
"The Parties agree on the objective of shutting down
Internet sites that permit the unauthorized reproduction,
distribution, or transmission of copyright works, of
regularly assessing and actively seeking to reduce the
impact of new technological means for committing online
copyright piracy, and of providing generally for more
effective enforcement of intellectual property rights on
the Internet."
This language is extraordinarily broad: it appears to apply
not just to websites that are directly infringing
copyright, but also to any site that can be argued to be
"permitting" certain activities.
For more on this trade agreement:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005287.php
For more on the recent history of these agreements:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005278.php
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* Major League Baseball Rattles Sabre at Slingbox
You probably have heard of the Slingbox, the innovative
product that lets you enjoy the TV you've paid for from
wherever you might be. Well, here's what Michael Mellis,
senior VP and general counsel for Major League Baseball
Advanced Media (MLBAM), had to say about the Slingbox in
last week's issue of The Hollywood Reporter Esq., a weekly
newspaper for entertainment industry legal eagles:
"Of course, what they are doing is not legal.... We and
other leagues have formed a group to study the issue and
plan our response. A lot depends on ongoing discussions.
Plus, there's no guarantee that Slingbox will be around
next year. It's a startup."
Apparently MLBAM is upset because a Slingbox might allow
baseball fans to "circumvent geographical boundaries
written into broadcast rights deals." (Read: watch games
that are blacked-out in their areas.) The argument appears
to be that watching games remotely, even games you've paid
to watch and that are not blacked out at home, violates the
contractual fine print that comes with cable and satellite
sports packages.
In other words, MLBAM thinks that it's against the law for
baseball fans who have paid for premium sports packages to
watch while away from home. Once again, the fans that are
paying their bills are treated like the enemy.
This should sound familiar: an entertainment company
targeting an innovator by arguing that otherwise law-
abiding fans who use its products are thieves for doing so.
This same argument was leveled at ReplayTV digital video
recorder and XM's Inno satellite radio recorder. As usual,
the "content owner" here appears to believe that innovation
should be halted until paranoid fears can be allayed.
(Read: until the innovator pays MLBAM and redesigns the
product to its specifications.)
For the original version of this post and related links:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005276.php
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* Campus Lawsuits Against P2P != Stopping File Sharing
The NPD Group's latest music stats provide yet another
reason that the RIAA's war on college students is
misguided:
"The 'social' ripping and burning of CDs among friends --
which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach
of industry policing efforts -- accounted for 37 percent of
all music consumption, more than file-sharing, NPD said."
This data suggests offline sharing is growing, and that's
to be expected. Along with burning CDs and DVDs for each
other, fans can swap hard drives, share USB drives, and use
many other technologies to share music without hopping
online or installing P2P software. It's only going to get
easier to share mass volumes of music in this way -- these
tools are increasingly ubiquitous, with ever-growing
capacity and ever-diminishing price.
Sure does make the RIAA's recent litigation rampage against
college students seem silly, doesn't it? The kinds of
university network surveillance being pushed by the RIAA
won't make any difference, either. After all, even if
university administrators unplugged the student body from
the Internet altogether, that still wouldn't stop students
from walking out of their dorm rooms with a stack of burned
DVDs filled with music. In fact, the more the RIAA attacks
P2P, the more likely fans will simply migrate to these
alternative channels.
So, short of ubiquitous surveillance (including hand-to-
hand swapping), stopping fans from sharing music is doomed
to failure.
Isn't it about time we start focusing on the real question:
how do we ensure that artists and rights holders get
adequately compensated for the unrestrained copying that is
an inevitable fact of digital life?
For this post and related links:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005280.php
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* iTunes Release Reveals New and Old Problems
Apple released its latest version of iTunes last week and
started offering DRM-free music through the iTunes Store.
At the same time, Ars Technica highlighted that Apple is
embedding personal information, such as the name and email
address of the purchaser, in the Store's downloads. This is
true for both the new DRM-free downloads, as well as past
and current DRM-restricted ones:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070530-apple-hides-account-info-in-drm-free-music-too.html
For our commentary:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005288.php
We got curious and wondered whether Apple might also be
watermarking the underlying audio data in these tracks.
Read on to learn what we've turned up so far:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005282.php
Meanwhile, Playlist reports that the latest iTunes breaks
the "buy-burn-rip-to-MP3" procedure that users have long
relied on to convert the DRM-restricted songs they buy from
the iTunes Store into unrestricted MP3s. Apparently, this
is the result of a bug, rather than a deliberate Apple
design decision:
http://www.playlistmag.com/publications/playlist/weblogs/ipodblog/2007/06/itunes72gotcharedux/index.php
Regardless, previous iTunes "upgrades" have resulted in
deliberate "downgrades." Whether it's breaking the Internet
streaming feature, restricting the number of streaming
users per day, or reducing the number of burns permitted
for songs purchased from the iTunes Store, Apple is among
the worst offenders when it comes to messing around with
stuff you've already paid for.
For more related links:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005285.php
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* Attention Returns to Orphan Works
An "orphan work" is something currently protected by
copyright but with an owner who can't be found even with
diligent searching. Currently, making a copy of an orphan
work (say, for archiving or republication) or using it to
create a derivative work (like a compilation or montage)
could put you at risk of huge statutory damages if the
owner ever appears and exercises his or her rights.
Unsurprisingly, many choose not to take that gamble, and
works with potential useful value are left to languish.
This problem got a lot of attention last year, when the
Copyright Office issued a report concluding that "the
orphan work problem is real" and suggesting legislative
solutions. An Orphan Works Act was introduced last May and
eventually incorporated into the problematic Copyright
Modernization Act (CMA). The CMA stalled in September, but
Congressional attention may yet return to this critical
issue.
In the New York Times last week, U.C. Berkeley professor
Hal Varian revives the issue, highlighting the economic
waste it creates:
"The orphan works legislation from the Copyright Office is
still on the back burner in Congress. Let us hope that it
soon gets the attention it deserves. Information plays a
crucial role in today's economy. Making it easy for
creators and users of information to find each other should
be a high priority for policy makers."
Read the whole thing here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/business/31scene.html?ex=1338264000&en=6d008c0f5e0fd16e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
For this post and related links:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005284.php
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* miniLinks
The week's noteworthy news, compressed.
~ Google Street View -- Where's the Pro-Privacy Technology?
Even EFF attorneys get their privacy invaded by street-
watching tech.
http://news.com.com/Cameras+everywhere%2C+even+in+online+maps/2100-1038_3-6187556.html?tag=nefd.top
~ Face Non-Recognition Technology
An example of what privacy-protection in Google Street View
might look like.
http://gregsadetsky.com/ghats/
~ What Google Is Doing With Your Data
The secretive company reveals part of what it does with
your search term history.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html?ex=1370318400&en=8ff05c6562960005&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
~ On the Receiving End
Ron "Electric Slide" Silver talks about his settlement with
EFF.
http://news.com.com/The+copyright+buzz+from+the+Electric+Slide/2008-1026_3-6188297.html?tag=nefd.lede
~ MySpace Seeks Court Order to Release Predator Emails
MySpace asked a Pennsylvania court for advice on how it can
legally provide local authorities with private email info
belonging to convicted sex offenders.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070604/tc_nm/myspace_sexpredator_dc_1;_ylt=AlBXonqH4P0koKnla_qd2xEE1vAI
~ FBI Arrests Filesharer
Government goes after pre-release uploader.
http://www.hollywoodreporteresq.com/thresq/government/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003593677
~ Facebook v. ConnectU
Blogger Eric Goldman on Facebook's suit against ConnectU
for harvesting personal info.
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2007/05/facebooks_lawsu.htm
~ Software v. Software
A software manufacturer claims that an anti-malware system
surreptitiously deletes its innocent application.
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2007/05/zango_claims_sp.htm
~ AP Looks to "Protect Copyright Online"
But what practices and which publishers will be targeted
remains to be seen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/31/AR2007053100039.html?referrer=emailarticle
~ YouTube Snags Another Deal
Gets the last of the four major labels.
http://news.com.com/YouTube%2C+EMI+sign+breakthrough+licensing+pact/2100-1030_3-6187759.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=new
~ FCC Moves in on the Internet
The FCC claims it has jurisdiction to design "social
policy" for anything using Internet Protocol.
http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/5/31/2988994.html
~ Where the Real Advantage Lies
Real finally wises up and provides stream recording software for Windows.
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/05/realplayer_rebo.html
~ ISPs Make Money From P2P?!
IFPI's Ten Conveniently Uncorroborated "Truths" About
Piracy
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20070531.html
~ AACS Sued for Patent Violation
Oh, the irony.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Certicom_Patent_Suit_Against_Sony_Threatens_to_Unravel_AACS/1180557165
~ A Library of Privacy Law
Legal firm Morrison & Foerster produces a free guide to
privacy law inside and outside the U.S.
http://www.mofoprivacy.com
~ Open Shakespeare
The Open Knowledge Foundation is providing the complete
works of Shakespeare in an open form, so that anyone can
use, share, or comment on the Bard's words freely.
http://www.openshakespeare.org/
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* Administrivia
EFFector is published by:
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Editor:
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derek@eff.org
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