Intellectual Property Law

Key Internet Censorship Law Struck Down Yet Again

Posted on July 24, 2008
The ACLU, EFF, and a coalition of plaintiffs achieved yet another victory for online free speech this week when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed [decision, PDF] a district court's decision [decision, PDF] granting a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA), a federal law that would violate the First Amendment by imposing civil and criminal penalties on commercial website operators that publish sexually explicit material without also using credit card authentication or other technological measures to verify viewer age and block access by minors...

Here We Go Again: Yahoo! Music Throws Away the DRM Keys

Posted on July 24, 2008
Just over a month after consumer backlash caused MSN Music to rescind its decision to deactivate the digital rights management ("DRM") servers that allowed MSN Music purchasers to "reauthorize" music files after upgrading operating systems or buying new computers, Yahoo! Music has decided to deactivate its own DRM servers...

Three Ways to Fight Immunity

Posted on July 23, 2008
It?s been two weeks since the Senate?s cowardly vote to pass the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), caving in to the president?s demands. With this vote, Congress gave the president virtually all of the spying powers he has sought for so long, and delivered the one thing he demanded above all else: Immunity for his telecom buddies for their role in his illegal spying program...

Salon's New Revelations on Illegal Spying

Posted on July 23, 2008
Salon today published a new article in it's series of investigations into the Bush administration's illegal spying programs: Exposing Bush's History Abuse of Power (log-in may be required). The article describes how some in Washington D.C. are discussing the idea of a new and sweeping investigation into the White House's surveillance programs, one inspired by the famous Church Committee investigations of the 1970s...

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EFF Opposes MPAA's Selectable Output Control FCC Petition

Posted on July 22, 2008
Public Knowledge, joined by EFF as well as the Consumer Federation of America, the Digital Freedom Campaign, the Media Access Project, the New America Foundation and U.S. PIRG, yesterday filed an opposition [PDF] to the MPAA's FCC petition seeking a waiver of the ban against selectable output controls (SOC) (we have an explanation of what a "selectable output control" is on our Digital Video issue page)...

U.S. Patent Office Rejects All Ninety-Five NeoMedia Patent Claims

Posted on July 18, 2008
EFF's Patent Busting Project, continues to march forward, this time with more good news about the petition that EFF, in conjunction with Paul Grewal and James Czaja of Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder, filed last April seeking reexamination of the NeoMedia bar-code lookup patent...

More ISPs Decide to Filter Usenet Newsgroups

Posted on July 18, 2008
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo recently succeeding in pressuring AOL and AT&T to join the ranks of Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner Cable in limiting access to many or all of the Usenet newsgroups hosted on their servers. This tactic will hinder free speech and the access to information in Usenet communities, without deterring the child pornographer...

Library of Congress on DMCA, Copyright Law Troubles

Posted on July 17, 2008
The chorus of voices criticizing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) has just gotten a bit louder with the addition of a new and authoritative voice: The Library of Congress. In a new report, jointly released with the U.K.'s Joint Information Systems Committee, Australia's Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law Project, and the Netherlands' SURFfoundation, the Library of Congress' National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program points out that the work of preserving, documenting and archiving the nation's intellectual output is made unnecessarily difficult by antiquated copyright law exceptions and limitations, and TPM (technological protection measure) laws designed to restrict the making of digital copies...

minilinks for 2008-17-07

Posted on July 17, 2008
Apple Sues PsystarThe Psystar OpenMac has incurred the wrath of the "Closed Software Movement." Prosecutor Flagged by US Terror Watch ListAir travel is difficult for Assistant Attorney General Jim Robinson, who has been put on a secret list by mistake...

Why the VPPA Protects YouTube and Viacom Employees

Posted on July 16, 2008
Monday?s stipulation between YouTube and Viacom did not ?extend to records reflecting the business activities of the parties? employees and agents.? Instead, as we noted yesterday: The parties will meet and confer within 14 days of the execution of this Stipulation concerning records reflecting the business activities of the parties? employees and agents...

Viacom Letter to EFF re Google/YouTube Data Privacy

Posted on July 15, 2008
Today Michael Fricklas, Viacom's General Counsel, sent EFF a letter in response to the concerns we raised regarding the user viewing data controversy over the past week. The letter, arriving on the heels of the stipulation entered between Google and Viacom last night, helps assuage a remaining concern: what if the parties changed the stipulation at a later time? To address this concern, Viacom's letter promises: that we will notify you [EFF], in advance, if, for some unforeseen reason we believe that these protections need to be modified in a way that reduces the level of public privacy protections so that you have an opportunity to discuss any concerns you may have or lodge any appropriate objections with the court...

You Bought It, But You Don't Own It

Posted on July 15, 2008
In a devastating blow to user rights, an Arizona federal court has ruled that consumers can be guilty of copyright infringement if they violate the end user license agreement ("EULA") that comes with the software--even where the so-called "violation" is specifically excluded from copyright liability...

Friday Court Hearing in YouTube Video Battle

Posted on July 15, 2008
San Jose - On Friday, July 18, at 9 a.m., the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will urge a federal judge in San Jose to protect the free speech and fair use rights of mother who posted a home movie of her son dancing to Prince on YouTube. EFF represents Stephanie Lenz, who uploaded a 29-second clip of her son dancing in the family kitchen to the Prince song, "Let's Go Crazy," which is playing on a stereo in the background...

Viacom Narrows Request for YouTube Information

Posted on July 15, 2008
Yesterday, Google/YouTube and Viacom reached a stipulation agreeing to anonymize information about most YouTube users prior to production. As YouTube's blog put it, "Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information...

Tiffany v. eBay: Court Rejects Tiffany's Expansive Trademark Infringement Theories

Posted on July 14, 2008
In a decision that surely will be cited many times in coming years, Judge Richard Sullivan today sided with eBay in his decision [sixty-six page PDF] in the Tiffany v. eBay trademark trial. In so doing, the judge confirmed that trademark law is about consumer protection, not about squelching speech, and also rejected an attempt by Tiffany radically to expand the reach of contributory infringement...

FCC Chairman Hints at Order Against Comcast

Posted on July 11, 2008
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin sent a signal today that the FCC may issue an order against Comcast in the wake of the scandal over their use of packet forgery to interfere with BitTorrent, Gnutella, and other Internet protocols. EFF worked with Robb Topolski to run the first controlled tests of Comcast's RST forgery practices last year...

The ?Repeal Immunity? Movement Begins Today

Posted on July 11, 2008
Today, EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston was invited to guest-blog at The Hill.com's Congress Blog on EFF's plans in the wake of the recent surveillance law overhaul: Our long war against warrantless wiretapping has only just begun, and we will not stop until we get that legal ruling we?ve been fighting for...

Sixth Circuit Dodges Constitutional Question on Email Privacy; Warshak Case Dismissed on Procedural Grounds

Posted on July 11, 2008
Today, the full panel of Sixth Circuit judges dismissed [opinion] on procedural grounds the case of Warshak v. US, a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of no-notice, warrantless searches of email stored by an email provider. A three-judge panel of Sixth Circuit judges had previously held [PDF], based in part on briefing by EFF [PDF], that the federal statute that authorized such searches of remote email accounts — the Stored Communications Act — violated the Fourth Amendment on its face...

Looking Back, Moving Forward: The Continuing Fight Against Telecom Immunity

Posted on July 10, 2008
The debate over telecom immunity has now spanned almost two years. When the first proposal to grant immunity to the telecoms was introduced in Congress, in September of 2006, no one thought the fight would last this long. As we ponder the bizarre spectacle of a Congress that has willingly and repeatedly rolled over on the Bush administration's expansive claims of executive power, it is worth remembering that at one time it appeared that there would be hardly any resistance at all to the question of whether to grant immunity to the telecoms that participated in Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping program...

Help EFF Continue the Fight Against Warrantless Wiretapping

Posted on July 10, 2008
In a move that I can only describe as cowardice, Congress just passed legislation meant to immunize telephone companies for their illegal, disloyal, and irresponsible behavior. EFF has been fighting against telecom immunity, and we need your help to bring the fight to the next level: http://secure...

Senate Joins House in Caving to White House Immunity Demands

Posted on July 09, 2008
Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Senate this afternoon passed the FISA Amendments Act, broadly expanding the president's warrantless surveillance authority and unconstitutionally granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president's illegal domestic wiretapping program...

Senate Begins Final Debate on Retroactive Immunity

Posted on July 08, 2008
The final Senate debate on the dangerously flawed FISA Amendments Act began this morning. Senator Feingold spoke at length in favor of Senator Dodd's amendment to strip retroactive immunity from the bill: ...Granting retroactive immunity under these circumstances will undermine any new laws that we pass regarding government surveillance...

Bush: Telecom Immunity More Important Than Surveillance Powers

Posted on July 07, 2008
Today the Bush Administration released a letter threatening to veto the upcoming FISA legislation if it included the Bingaman Amendment, which puts both telecom immunity and the court cases on hold until after the Inspector General reports about the warrantless wiretapping program...

Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on FISA

Posted on July 07, 2008
Former intelligence officer Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who in the early 1970s released the Pentagon Papers, has spoken out against the Senate's version of FISA reform and warrantless wiretapping. In this video posted on Boing Boing Gadgets, he reminds viewers that all members of Congress have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution...

A Real-Life Orphan Works Dilemma

Posted on July 07, 2008
Though the orphan works problem can seem arcane, the New York Times provides a clear, real-life example of the orphan works problem. A history teacher and part-time book publisher wanted to use two photographs from the archives of the Brooklyn Historical Society -- and was willing to pay for the rights to use them...

Viacom's Statement on YouTube User Data Controversy

Posted on July 03, 2008
Viacom released the following statement today in response to the YouTube user data controversy (first reported on this blog): "It is unfortunate that we have been compelled to go to court to protect Viacom's rights and the rights of the artists who work with and depend on us...

Court Rejects Attempt to Expand the DMCA

Posted on July 03, 2008
Yesterday, a district court dismissed several claims in the case Coupons, Inc. v. Stottlemire, in which we had, in March, filed an amicus brief. Coupons offers online coupons that consumers can access and print using software provided by Coupons. The software tries to limit the number of times a user can print each coupon...

minilinks for 2008-07-02

Posted on July 03, 2008
Is the Gov't Tracking Us Through Our Cellphones? Lawsuit Seeks AnswersA lawsuit brought by EFF and the ACLU seeks to force release of documents on cellphone tracking. RIAA requests internet filtering in international treatyThe ACTA treaty is too secret for the public to see, but the RIAA has been able to make suggestions -- including gutting "safe harbor" provisions that protect ISPs...

Cartoon: The Return of Snuggly, the Security Bear

Posted on July 03, 2008
A few months back, SF Gate cartoonist Mark Fiore introduced his character Snuggly, the Security Bear, with a brilliant take on telecom immunity. Now, Snuggly is back, and he has a few words to say about "compromise."

What The New NSA Spying Decision Means for the Immunity Debate

Posted on July 03, 2008
As we reported yesterday, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California has just issued a key ruling in Al Haramain v. Bush, one of the cases challenging the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. Judge Walker is also overseeing the consolidated litigation against the telecoms...

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