Intellectual Property Law

EFF Releases Interim Report on the Automated Targeting System

Posted on August 03, 2009
EFF today released an Interim Report on the Automated Targeting System (ATS) through which the Department of Homeland Security monitors and assigns risk assessment scores to Americans and others who cross into or out of the United States. The data reviewed under the ATS system includes seven large government databases, plus the Passenger Name Record data from the airlines (which includes data like whether you've ordered a Muslim or Hindu or Jewish special meal)...

Cars.gov Terms of Service: What Glenn Beck Gets Right and Wrong

Posted on August 03, 2009
There's an entertaining clip from Glenn Beck's Fox News program making the rounds on the Internet lately, featuring this language from the Terms of Service for the "Cash for Clunkers" program: This application provides access to the [Department of Transportation] DoT CARS system...

EFF Defends Wikipedian's Right to the Public Domain

Posted on August 03, 2009
As has been widely reported, the National Portrait Gallery of London (NPG) recently sent a legal threat to an American Wikipedian, Derrick Coetzee, over his posting approximately 3,000 photos of public domain paintings to Wikipedia. Because of the importance of this issue for the public domain and the Internet generally, EFF has taken Mr...

FCC Opens Investigation on iPhone App Discrimination

Posted on August 03, 2009
The FCC has sent a trio of letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google seeking information about Apple's recent decision to block Google Voice apps from Apple's iPhone App Store. We're pleased that Chairman Genachowski's FCC is taking wireless competition seriously, and hope that it also looks into similar discriminatory treatment that has affected iPhone apps from others, such as Skype, Mozilla, and Sling Media...

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The Book vs. The Kindle

Posted on July 30, 2009
San Francisco bookstore Green Apple Books has put together a series of humorous videos that point up the advantages of paper books over Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Round 1 takes a look at how the Kindle fares for buyers who might want to resell their book (the so-called first sale doctrine): Round 2 compares the difference between buying a digital book and buying a paper book — it's all about the fine print: It's great to see a bookstore remind us of the advantages that paper books still have over digital ones...

The Future of Book Banning?

Posted on July 28, 2009
Farhad Manjoo over at Slate has written the best summation to date on Amazon's 1984 scandal, in which digital versions of the Orwell classic were surreptitiously removed from users' Kindles without their permission. Amazon has apologized and promised never to delete books in this fashion in the future...

BayFF on August 3: Iranian Protests and Digital Media

Posted on July 27, 2009
Iranians protesting the results of the recent election found an outlet and a means of organizing with the Internet, and showed that new digital media can help free speech and fight repression globally. But what happens now the headlines and the Twitter trends have died down? If you're in the California Bay Area, join us in San Francisco's PariSoMa on Monday, August 3, from 7pm - 9pm as we discuss the lessons of Iran and other global protests, what's happening now, and how to make the digital media we create serve netizens in authoritarian regimes...

Don't Let Google Close the Book on Reader Privacy!

Posted on July 23, 2009
If you suspect you may have a serious disease, you can go into a bookstore and browse for books about your illness, find one that's useful, and buy it with cash. And you can rest assured that your insurance premiums won't increase as a result, because there is no way your insurance company can find out about your choice of reading material...

SF Chronicle: Obama Position on Wiretapping is "Mind-Boggling"

Posted on July 22, 2009
Calling the Obama administration's position on warrantless wiretapping "mind-boggling," the San Francsico Chronicle ran an editorial Monday calling for a federalcourt not to dismiss EFF's Jewel v. NSA, which seeks to bring an end the illegal spying program...

Apple Withdraws Threats Against Wiki Site

Posted on July 22, 2009
San Francisco - Apple has retracted its legal threats against public wiki hosting site Bluwiki, and, in response, EFF is dismissing its lawsuit against Apple over those threats. The skirmish involved a set of anonymously authored wiki pages in which hobbyists were discussing how to "sync" media to iPods and iPhones using music library playback software other than Apple's own iTunes...

Apple Backs Down On Bluwiki Threats

Posted on July 22, 2009
Apple has retracted its legal threats against public wiki hosting site Bluwiki, and, in response, EFF is dismissing its lawsuit against Apple over those threats. The skirmish involved a set of anonymously authored wiki pages in which hobbyists were discussing how to enable recent-vintage iPods and iPhones to "sync" media with software other than Apple's own iTunes (e...

EFF Demands Intelligence Agencies' Reports About Possible Misconduct

Posted on July 22, 2009
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit today against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a half-dozen other federal agencies involved in intelligence gathering, demanding the immediate release of reports about potential misconduct...

A Practical Guide to Internet Technology for Political Activists in Repressive Regimes

Posted on July 21, 2009
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released "Surveillance Self-Defense International" (SSDI) today, a practical guide to help activists from around the world use the Internet safely under repressive regimes. It is available at: http://www...

President Lula and the Brazilian Cybercrime Bill

Posted on July 17, 2009
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Da Silva, popularly known as Lula, announced during the recent Fórum Internacional de Software Livre (FISL) that "No one is more creative than we are. What we need is an opportunity. This law here... it doesn't aim to fix the abuse of the Internet...

Orwell in 2009: Dystopian Rights Management

Posted on July 17, 2009
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the protagonist Winston Smith labors in obscurity to make information appear and disappear at the whims of the Ministry of Truth: This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance...

Nominate a Pioneer for EFF's 2009 Pioneer Awards!

Posted on July 16, 2009
The EFF Pioneer Awards were established to recognize leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology. Each year we field nominations from the EFF community ? now is your opportunity to nominate a deserving individual or group to receive a Pioneer Award for 2009! How to Nominate Someone for a 2009 Pioneer Award: You may send as many nominations as you wish, but please use one email per nomination...

minilinks for 2009-07-16

Posted on July 16, 2009
NSA Cyber OverkillAn LA Times op-ed piece questions the Obama administration's plan to use the National Security Agency to screen government computer traffic on private-sector networks. Court: IP Addresses Are Not 'Personally Identifiable' InformationA federal judge in Seattle has ruled that Microsoft did not violate it's user agreement not to collect personally identifiable information when it collected IP addresses...

News Round-Up: Jewel v. NSA Hearing

Posted on July 16, 2009
On Wednesday, EFF argued in federal court against the government's motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF's case seeking to end the dragnet government surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. EFF lawyers told federal judge Vaughn Walker that the lawsuit cannot be dismissed based on the government's blanket secrecy assertion, as made clear in previous court decisions concerning NSA spying and the CIA's special rendition program, and that the government is not immune against suit for violating federal wiretapping statutes...

Pay As You Drive ?Black Boxes? Threaten Driver Privacy

Posted on July 15, 2009
The California Department of Insurance (DOI) is considering regulations that would enable insurance prices to depend on the precise number of miles a car is driven in a given billing period. But in implementing these "Pay As You Drive" regulations, the DOI appears poised to empower insurance companies to require customers' cars to be outfitted with "black-box" devices that could transmit back to the insurance companies all sorts of data about car motion (acceleration, braking, and so forth) as well as driver behavior (steering and seat-belt wearing)...

Facebook and the Phone Companies Try to Lock You In

Posted on July 15, 2009
What does Facebook have in common with wireless phone companies like AT&T? Both companies try to lock customers in, even if we'd rather take our business elsewhere. Facebook is suing Power.com, a company that gives users a tool to pull copies of their own friends lists, postings and other information out of Facebook so that they can aggregate it with their other social networking platforms...

Wednesday Hearing in Government Fight to Silence Warrantless Wiretapping Case

Posted on July 13, 2009
San Francisco - On Wednesday, July 15, at 10:30 a.m., a federal judge in San Francisco will hear arguments in the government's motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) challenging dragnet government surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans...

Inspectors General Report on Warrantless Wiretapping

Posted on July 10, 2009
Today, the Inspectors General of five government agencies released the unclassified version of a report on the Bush Administration?s warrantless domestic surveillance program. The report was required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008, which was signed into law one year ago today...

Unclassified Version of Report to Congress on NSA Program is Available Now

Posted on July 10, 2009
A classified report to Congress on the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program was submitted today -- as required by the FISA Amendments Act, passed one year ago today -- by the Inspectors General of the Justice Department, the NSA, and other agencies involved in the program...

ASCAP Makes Outlandish Copyright Claims on Cell Phone Ringtones

Posted on July 02, 2009
New York - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal court Wednesday to reject bogus copyright claims in a ringtone royalty battle that could raise costs for consumers, jeopardize consumer rights, and curtail new technological innovation...

Judge Overturns Lori Drew Misdemeanor Convictions

Posted on July 02, 2009
A federal district court judge today threw out the misdemeanor convictions of Lori Drew after the judge determined that the federal anti-hacking statute under which Drew was prosecuted was inapplicable to the allegation that she violated MySpace's terms of service...

Help Protesters in Iran: Run a Tor Bridge or a Tor Relay

Posted on June 29, 2009
As turmoil over the disputed election in Iran continues, many techs are trying to find ways to help Iranian citizens safely communicate and receive information despite the barriers being established by Iranian authorities. One tactic that even moderately tech-savvy Internet users can employ is to set up a Tor relay or a Tor bridge...

miniLinks for 2009-06-26

Posted on June 26, 2009
Surveillance in Iran vs. Surveillance in the US Iran has an Internet monitoring center built by Nokia and Siemens AG -- what kind of domestic spying is happening in the US? Data Shows Music Fans Are Willing to Buy TopSpin and Nettwerk have experimented with premium discs, free albums, and free shows, and have found that fans are still more than willing to pay...

Several Facts about Google and HTTPS

Posted on June 25, 2009
Three simple facts about Google and HTTPS: One: as we posted last week, we're very pleased to hear that Google is trialling full HTTPS encryption of all Gmail pages. Two: if Google's trials are successful, and the company does indeed make HTTPS encryption the default protocol for reading and writing Gmail messages, it will have taken a two-step lead on its competitors in the free webmail and social networking spaces...

EFF Demands Public Release of FBI Surveillance Rules

Posted on June 24, 2009
Washington, D.C. - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Department of Justice today, demanding the public release of the surveillance guidelines that govern investigations of Americans by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)...

ASCAP and Copyright Doublespeak

Posted on June 23, 2009
Just a few days ago, we pointed out that ASCAP is arguing in federal court that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by "publicly performing" it without a license. Now ASCAP has fired up its spin control machinery and issued a statement to Billboard, including this talking point, doubtless meant to be reassuring: To be completely clear, ASCAP?s approach has always been to license these businesses ? not to charge listeners/end-users...

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