Intellectual Property Law

Innocent Customers Potentially Dragged Into Legal Battle Over Satellite TV

Posted on August 18, 2008
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked a federal court Friday to reject efforts by Echostar to get the names and addresses of every customer that purchased a free-to-air satellite receiver. Echostar claims that the receiver can be modified to pirate DISH satellite TV programming...

DRM for Streaming Music Dies a Quiet Death

Posted on August 15, 2008
Yet another nail has been driven into DRM's coffin, this time for streaming audio (PCPro has a nice overview of the state of DRM for digital music). Two of the leading on-demand streaming music sites, iMeem and LaLa, are not using DRM on their audio streams, instead sending the music as MP3s dusted with a dash of obfuscation...

MBTA Transit Official Supports MIT Students' Story

Posted on August 15, 2008
Today, Richard Sullivan, a Sergeant Detective in the Transit Police of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (and the liaison to the FBI), filed a Supplemental Declaration. In his declaration, Det. Sullivan said: the MIT Undergrads reiterated that they did not exploit the supposed vulnerabilities that they had identified in the MBTA's computer system, they promised that they would not do so in the future, and they promised that they would not teach others how to...

minilinks for 2008-08-14

Posted on August 14, 2008
Oops! FBI Sorry For Spying on Journalists FBI Director Robert Mueller called the NY Times and the Washington Post to express regret for a breach of reporters' phone records. Google Comes Clean On Targeted AdvertisingThe Internet giant confessed to using DoubleClick cookies to deliver targeted advertising to users...

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MIT Students Still Gagged by Federal Court

Posted on August 14, 2008
A federal court judge in Boston Thursday refused to lift an unconstitutional gag order against three students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who uncovered vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system. In an editorial today, the Boston Globe wrote that Judge O'Toole "ought to lift it...

Condition or Covenant, and Why Should You Care?

Posted on August 13, 2008
Imagine that you write some code, and offer it to the public under an open source license that requires that if someone distributes modified versions of the code, the modified versions also be open sourced. Now assume someone distributes modified versions of your code, but fails to open source the modified code...

Olympic Committee Takedown Shows Risks of Ill-Timed Take-Downs

Posted on August 13, 2008
It?s never OK to use improper copyright claims to take down legitimate, non-infringing content, but such takedowns are particularly galling when they are timed to directly interfere with the impact of a political message. That?s what happened this week to the Free Tibet movement, and the situation illustrates the risks of a ?shoot first, ask questions later? approach to copyright policing...

Wikipedia Wins Dismissal of Baseless Defamation Claims

Posted on August 13, 2008
In a victory for free speech and user-generated content, a New Jersey judge has dismissed baseless defamation claims against the operator of Wikipedia. In a recent ruling, the judge correctly found that federal law immunizes the Wikimedia Foundation from liability for statements made by its users...

EFF Urges Judge to Lift Gag Order on MIT Students

Posted on August 13, 2008
Boston - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal judge Tuesday to lift an unconstitutional gag order issued to three students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) whose academic research uncovered vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system...

MIT Students' Response to MBTA Statements

Posted on August 12, 2008
Yesterday, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority issued a statement to CNET that misrepresents the facts leading up to the MBTA's lawsuit against three MIT students. The statement said: A week ago, the MBTA learned about the presentation to be made at the conference, and immediately contacted MIT...

Universities Quietly Fighting Back Against RIAA Tactics

Posted on August 11, 2008
Students that receive notices from the RIAA accusing them of illegal filesharing don't have many options. Innocent or not, their choices are limited to either paying the $3000-$5000 settlement, or going to court — where the RIAA's deep pockets guarantee an outrageously expensive legal battle...

MIT Students Gagged by Federal Court Judge

Posted on August 09, 2008
Las Vegas - Three students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were ordered this morning by a federal court judge to cancel their scheduled presentation about vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system, violating their First Amendment right to discuss their important research...

Public Pressure Mounts Against Invasive Border Searches

Posted on August 08, 2008
Random, invasive laptop searches and other digital privacy violations at the U.S. border are facing increasing pressure from the public and Congress. One of the big complaints EFF and others have had is the lack of information and accountability about the intrusive examination of computer files, cell phone directories, and other private information -- and the indiscriminate copying of that data -- as Americans come back home from overseas...

EFF Launches Coders' Rights Project at Black Hat Conference

Posted on August 06, 2008
Las Vegas - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today launches its Coders' Rights Project -- a new initiative to protect programmers and developers from legal threats hampering their cutting-edge research. In conjunction with the project's launch, EFF is staffing an "EFF Is In" booth at Black Hat USA 2008 in Las Vegas on August 6 and 7...

minilinks for 2008-08-06

Posted on August 06, 2008
DHS Issues Policy on Laptop SeizuresRules released by Homeland Security say agents can seize laptops and their contents without suspicion of wrongdoing. Privacy Group Spies on Google The National Legal and Policy Center used Google's street view to virtually stalk a Google executive...

EFF Battles Dangerous Attempts to Circumvent Electronic Privacy Law

Posted on August 05, 2008
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in two key electronic privacy cases that threaten to expand the government's spying authority. In the first case, Bunnell v. Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), EFF filed a brief with the 9th U...

FCC Rules Against Comcast for BitTorrent Blocking

Posted on August 04, 2008
On Friday, the FCC voted, 3-2, to punish Comcast for its surreptitious interference with BitTorrent uploads (a practice that EFF helped uncover and document in October 2007). The Commission adopted an order (text of which hasn't been released yet) finding that Comcast violated the neutrality principles set out in the FCC's 2005 "Internet Policy Statement...

Victory for DVRs in the Cloud

Posted on August 04, 2008
Twenty-four years ago in the Sony Betamax case, the Supreme Court declared that using a VCR to "time-shift" - to record a television program for viewing at a later time - was a fair use. Today, the Second Circuit rejected [PDF] an attempt by the content industry to change the rules of the game if your video recorder is stored "in the cloud" on the Internet...

MySpace Criminal Charges Risk Dangerous Ramifications for Consumers

Posted on August 04, 2008
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of academics and public policy groups are urging a judge to dismiss computer crime charges in a case with dangerous ramifications for millions of people who use the Internet. The defendant in the case, Lori Drew, is charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by using a fictitious name and age on a MySpace account and using that account to make hurtful comments to a teenage girl...

Congress Bows to Big Content, Scapegoats Higher Ed

Posted on August 04, 2008
Last week, after months of intensive wrangling, the House and the Senate finally agreed on a final version of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Buried in this massive bill, which touches on virtually every aspect of education, is a little provision requiring campuses to develop ?plans to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents...

Sapient and Explorologist Settle Lawsuit

Posted on August 04, 2008
Explorologist Ltd. and an online critic have settled their legal battle over a YouTube video challenging Uri Geller's claims about his mental powers. EFF and Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, LLP, represent Brian Sapient, who uploaded an excerpt from a documentary that critiqued Geller's performances and abilities to YouTube...

EFF Releases "Switzerland" ISP Testing Tool

Posted on August 01, 2008
San Francisco - Hours before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to take action against Comcast for violating the FCC's net neutrality principles, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is releasing "Switzerland," a software tool for customers to test the integrity of their Internet communications...

minilinks for 2008-31-07

Posted on July 31, 2008
Kansas Sentator Outraged by Chinese SpyingSenator Brownback objects to dragnet surveillance — when it is done by other countries. Networks Sue RedlassoFox and NBC made good on a threat to sue Redlasso, the popular service that allows users to clip and post TV shows...

Senators Announce New Intellectual Property Enforcement Bill

Posted on July 29, 2008
Last week, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced S. 3325, the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008," a bill that proposes a number of alarming changes to copyright law. The bill is the Senate's gift to big content owners, creating new and powerful tools -- many of which will be paid for by your tax dollars -- for the entertainment industry to go after infringers...

In Memoriam: Ed Foster, 1949-2008

Posted on July 29, 2008
Ed Foster, the journalist and consumer advocate behind InfoWorld's GripeLine column and GripeLog blog, died of a heart attack this weekend. He was 59. It's no exaggeration to say that Ed was one of the preeminent consumer rights activists of the digital age...

Yahoo! Offers Refunds to Customers Who Bought DRM-Crippled Tunes

Posted on July 29, 2008
Last week, Yahoo! faced a predictable backlash when they announced that they would be ending support for the DRM that came with music sold through it's Yahoo Music service. EFF and others criticized the decision, saying Yahoo should either continue to support the DRM or compensate their customers with refunds and/or replacement mp3s...

Paper Catalog + Computer Database = Patent? Um, No.

Posted on July 29, 2008
Last week, the patent office agreed to reexamine a patent it granted in 1994 on a "Computer-assisted parts sales method." Orion IP (later renamed Clear with Computers) has filed many, many lawsuits asserting infringement of this and related patents by many, many defendants...

Fair Use Prevails Over Michael Savage's Copyright Claims

Posted on July 28, 2008
On Friday, a U.S. District Court granted the motion for judgment on the pleadings we and our co-counsel Tom Burke of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP filed in a copyright infringement suit brought by talk show host Michael Savage against the Council on American-Islamic Relations...

minilinks for 2008-25-17

Posted on July 25, 2008
Parents to Be Punished For Children's Net Piracy Households that are suspected of illegal downloads will be blacklisted and have Internet access curbed under new rules in the UK. Senate Bill Asks Attorney General to Investigate Piracy Senators Leahy and Specter have introduced a new bill that would allow documents and records to be seized in civil copyright-infringement suits...

When the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Principle Doesn't Apply

Posted on July 25, 2008
When I was a kid, it seemed that every third commercial I saw was for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. In these commercials, a chocoholic would collide with a peanut butter lover, quickly followed by the memorable exchange of "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" and "you got chocolate in my peanut butter...

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