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Friday, April 25, 2003 |
Lessig: have you sent your check to EFF today?.I have just finished reading the opinion by Judge Wilson dismissing MGM's suit against Grokster and Streamcast. The opinion is testimony to great lawyering. The key to the decision is the difference between the architecture of Napster and the architecture of Morpheus. To get a judge to understand that completely takes an extraordinary skill. This was not a case I worked on at all, so I am free to say this: EFF deserves a great deal of credit in this case. As Kapor said at its founding, "Architecture is politics." Now it also law.
8:35:33 PM 
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Judge:
File-swapping tools are legal. A federal judge in Los Angeles has
handed a stunning court victory to file- swapping services Streamcast
Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie
studios' lawsuit against the two companies. By John Borland, CNET
News.com.
In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the
record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled
that Streamcast-- parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not
liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software.
The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman
Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry.
Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and
do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends, Wilson wrote
in his opinion, released Friday. Grokster and StreamCast are not
significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or
copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights.
. . .
We feel strongly that those who encourage, facilitate and profit from
piracy should be held accountable for actions, MPAA spokeswoman Marta
Grutka said. We're hoping that people aren't taking this as an
invitation to continue along the path of what is clearly illegal activity.
We are reviewing the decision, and we intend to appeal, said a
representative for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
. . .
[T]he judge's surprise ruling marked the first validation of an argument
that file- swapping supporters have been making since Napster's first
controversial arrival. Peer-to-peer file-trading is a technology that can
be used for activities well beyond copyright infringement, and the
technology should not be blocked altogether to stop solely its illegal
uses, these backers have said.
In making that argument, the judge looked back to the landmark 1984 Supreme
Court ruling that upheld the legality of Sony's Betamax videocassette
recorder. That decision helped establish the doctrine of "substantial
noninfringing use," which protects technology providers that distribute
products--like the VCR or photocopier--that can be used for both legal and
illegal purposes.
We are absolutely very proud of this judge for having the unusual
capacity to be able to grasp the technology and its future benefit to
taxpayers and shareholders around the world, said Wayne Rosso,
president of Grokster. Technology is usually way ahead of courts and
legislature. The fact that judge was able to acutely comprehend (this
technology) is a credit to the legal system.
You can also read the
summary judgment order.
4:14:40 PM
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You can vote for
Benjamin
Mathes, of Webster University, to win CBS' ''Soap Star of Tomorrow''
contest.
2:14:24 PM
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Two kinds of ''regime change playing cards'' now available:
- The most-wanted Iraqi leaders cards, available for small fees on
eBay and the like, or downloadable
here in pdf, but also
- a
playing card deck for US
regime change (pdf, too) from
GATT.org, which says:
The TRO, estimating that the U.S. governing regime is no longer
consistent with world peace or prosperity, hopes that the playing cards
will show the way to regime change and, eventually, large- scale war crimes
proceedings.
. . .
Many of those featured on the "55 most wanted" cards are in government, and
removing these people from power would go a long way towards making the
world a safer place.
Others include corporate CEOs; in those cases, the corporations themselves
must be dissolved or otherwise rendered incapable of further harm.
If one day the people on these cards are indeed brought to justice,
'just following orders' or 'supporting our troops' will be no excuse for
the rest of us, said TRO spokeswoman Hedwig Ixtabal-
Mono.
2:14:20 PM
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I just did an interview for
KMOV television (CBS affiliate, channel
4) on spam e-mail, especially the
"local boy
made
good" being prosecuted by the FTC for sending deceptive, unsolicited
commmercial e-mail. The story, in which I may say something terribly clever
for five seconds, or not, is slated to air on the fice- or six-o'clock
newscasts here in St. Louis this evening. So, St. Louisans, set your VCRs
and ReplayTVs.
12:14:02 PM
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DirecTV
mole to plead guilty, by Kevin Poulsen,
SecurityFocus (in The Register).
A 19-year-old University of Chicago student accused of leaking the
secrets of DirectTV's most advanced anti-piracy technology to hacker
websites has agreed to plead guilty to violating the rarely used 1996
Economic Espionage Act.
Igor Serebryany is scheduled to appear Monday in federal court in Los
Angeles to enter a guilty plea, as part of a plea agreement reached
between defense attorneys and prosecutors last week, lawyers for both
sides confirmed Wednesday. The plea deal does not stipulate a
sentence, which will be governed by federal guidelines, according to
the prosecutor in the case.
. . .
Serebryany's job gave him access to the internal technical secrets of
the newest version of the smart card, the so-called "P4" card, that
DirecTV had begun distributing to subscribers, and which satellite
hackers were nowhere near conquering. As described by the FBI, the
company closely guards those details with security procedures that
rival a defense contractor -- confidentiality agreements, high-power
encryption, "need to know" access, and an air-gapped computer network.
Whenever a writing references DirecTV's P4 technology, it must be
printed on specific colored paper so it can be easily identified on
sight, thereby decreasing possible theft of that writing, wrote the
FBI of one of the company's precautions.
According to court records, the student began smuggling digitized
copies of the papers out of the law firm on CD ROMs, and e-mailing
them pseudonymously to the underground. Only a small percentage of the
stolen data made its way to public websites, and none of it has yet
inspired a successful hack against the cards.
My personal feeling was he was just kind of a young kid,
impressionable, that made a mistake, says "Risestar," a British
Columbia man who runs the satellite hacking site PirateDen.com, which
received, but apparently did not publish, some of the documents. He
thought he was helping people out and he didn't weigh into account the
results of his actions.
(thanks, ISN!)
10:13:42 AM
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SARS Scare in Toronto. While caution is advisable, there is no need yet to close down the city of Toronto, W.H.O. notwithstanding.
. . .
. . . . Our own sense is that while there is a plausible rationale for W.H.O.'s recommended travel ban, the C.D.C. has taken the more sensible approach in simply urging caution. At least for now, it looks safe for Americans to travel to Toronto without fearing that they will come into contact with SARS patients. That judgment could change, of course, if epidemiologists find the disease spreading deeper into the city. [New York Times: Opinion]
6:18:09 AM
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Verizon Must Reveal Song Swappers. A federal judge rejects a constitutional challenge Thursday by Verizon Communications. Barring a reversal of an earlier ruling, Verizon will have to turn over names of two Internet subscribers suspected of illegal file trading to the Recording Industry Association of America. [Wired News]
6:09:41 AM
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