The tyranny of extreme copyright

From an article by Robert S. Boynton in today’s New York Times Magazine:

“Last fall, a group of civic-minded students at Swarthmore College received a sobering lesson in the future of political protest. They had come into possession of some 15,000 e-mail messages and memos — presumably leaked or stolen — from Diebold Election Systems, the largest maker of electronic voting machines in the country. The memos featured Diebold employees’ candid discussion of flaws in the company’s software and warnings that the computer network was poorly protected from hackers. In light of the chaotic 2000 presidential election, the Swarthmore students decided that this information shouldn’t be kept from the public. Like aspiring Daniel Ellsbergs with their would-be Pentagon Papers, they posted the files on the Internet, declaring the act a form of electronic whistle-blowing.

Unfortunately for the students, their actions ran afoul of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (D.M.C.A.), one of several recent laws that regulate intellectual property and are quietly reshaping the culture. Designed to protect copyrighted material on the Web, the act makes it possible for an Internet service provider to be liable for the material posted by its users — an extraordinary burden that providers of phone service, by contrast, do not share. Under the law, if an aggrieved party (Diebold, say) threatens to sue an Internet service provider over the content of a subscriber’s Web site, the provider can avoid liability simply by removing the offending material. Since the mere threat of a lawsuit is usually enough to scare most providers into submission, the law effectively gives private parties veto power over much of the information published online — as the Swarthmore students would soon learn.

Not long after the students posted the memos, Diebold sent letters to Swarthmore charging the students with copyright infringement and demanding that the material be removed from the students’ Web page, which was hosted on the college’s server. Swarthmore complied. The question of whether the students were within their rights to post the memos was essentially moot: thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, their speech could be silenced without the benefit of actual lawsuits, public hearings, judges or other niceties of due process.

After persistent challenges by the students — and a considerable amount of negative publicity for Diebold — in November the company agreed not to sue. To the delight of the students’ supporters, the memos are now back on their Web site. But to proponents of free speech on the Internet, the story remains a chilling one….”.

CDs a dying breed — according to Forrester Research

Reuters report:”Music downloads will render the ubiquitous compact disc all but obsolete in the next five years, yet half of all companies that begin selling digital songs online will fail by year-end, a researcher warned on Saturday.

By 2008, one third of music sales in the United States and nearly 20 percent in Europe will come in the form of downloads and streaming music over the Internet, building a multi-billion dollar business for the battered music industry, according to a new study by consultancy Forrester Research.

“The industry is going through a complete change in the way people consume music,” Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst told a gathering of music and technology executives at the annual MidemNet conference.

He said the U.S. market alone for downloads and subscriptions to online music stores will top $300 million this year from a virtual standing start a year ago.

“By 2007 or 2008, CDs will be something only old people have,” Bernoff said.”

The ethics of downloading

The NYT asked Aaron Schwartz to contribute a piece defending downloading. He wrote the piece, but apparently the Times chopped it (presumably the notion of someone arguing that downloading music was not unethical was a bit strong for that venerable organ). Anyway, Aaron’s unexpurgated piece is interesting. And it has some useful stats and references.

Knobbery

My friend Quentin went to the CES in Las Vegas but encountered so much ridicule for coming back without a cool gadget that he went out and bought a knob! Actually, it’s a “USB Multimedia Controller & Input Device”. If you like jog-shuttle controls, then it’s just the thing. It can be a volume control one minute, and a scrolling controller the next. And it glows in the dark with an eerie blue light. All he needs now is a new PowerBook to go with it.

SOTU annotated

I’ve always found found Presidential State of the Union (SOTU) addresses too cloying to watch. They’re all so fantastically complacent, somehow. So it’s nice to know that there are critical intelligences out there who can supress nausea and analyse the bombast. Like James Fallows, who has produced an annotated version of Dubya’s latest effort.

Is Howard Dean a dot-com?

Governor Dean came third in the Iowa caucus/primary. Given that I had hitherto been convinced that he was now a certainty to win the Democratic nomination, this is an uncomfortable result. There was an interesting article in Salon asking whether people like me had been fooled by Dean’s campaign the way the media were fooled by the irrational exhuberance of the dot-com boom. Maybe we were. I don’t know. I just found Dean’s campaign to be attractive and superbly intelligent, and assumed that would communciate itself to voters. Was I wrong?

In that context, MIT Technology Review’s Blogger, Henry Jenkins, has an insightful take on it. He argues that “candidates have to campaign in a hybrid media environment and right now, what plays well on the internet is almost exactly opposite from what plays well on television. Part of what happened to Dean was that complex ideas which could be developed through a post in his blog were reduced by his opponents into ‘sound bytes’ which could be used against him on television, forcing him perpetually on the defensive. We can add to that the fact that he looks awkward in some televised contexts — most people seem to think he looked really awkward the other night in Iowa — and this adds to the perception that he has a ‘temperament’ problem. Yet, that passion, the ‘heat’ he generates, is what pulls his cyber-supporters to him and to some degree, his supporters read that awkwardness as a sign of authenticity.”

These you gotta see

The winning ads in the competition to produce hard-hitting anti-Bush 30-second TV spots.

New Credit Card Scam

From Bruce Schneier.

“This one is clever. You receive a telephone call from someone purporting to be from your credit card company. They claim to be from something like the security and fraud department, and question you about a fake purchase for some amount close to $500.

When you say that the purchase wasn’t yours, they tell you that they’re tracking the fraudsters and that you will receive a credit. They tell you that the fraudsters are making fake purchases on cards for amounts just under $500, and that they’re on the case.

They know your account number. They know your name and address. They continue to spin the story, and eventually get you to reveal the three extra numbers on the back of your card.

That’s all they need. They then start charging your card for amounts just under $500. When you get your bill, you’re unlikely to call the credit card company because you already know that they’re on the case and that you’ll receive a credit.

It’s a really clever social engineering attack. They have to hit a lot of cards fast and then disappear, because otherwise they can be tracked, but I bet they’ve made a lot of money so far.”

FBI Exclusive: Old Moore may be a Terrorist!

Excerpt from FBI Information Bulletin No.102 dated December 24, 2003:

“ITEM II: POTENTIAL TERRORIST USE OF ALMANACS

Investigation has revealed that terrorist operatives may rely on almanacs to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning. Almanacs, available both in print and online, provide comprehensive information on a variety of topics, including government, geography, vital statistics, the economy, health matters, science and technology, weather trends, and tourism. Information commonly found in almanacs that may be exploited for terrorist use includes profiles of U.S. cities and states and information on geographic and structural features such as waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings, and landmarks. This information is often accompanied by photographs and maps.

The use of almanacs or maps may be the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities; however, when combined with suspicious behavior or other information such as evidence of surveillance activities, these indicators may point to possible terrorist planning. The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning.

During the course of authorized searches, traffic stops, and other contacts, law enforcement officers should be alert to the potential terrorist use of almanacs for pre-operational activities. Indicators of the use of almanacs for this purpose may include suspicious notations concerning high-profile locations such as tall buildings or landmarks and references to specific dates. Agencies should report any suspected use of almanacs in this manner to their nearest FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force…”

If I put this in a novel people would think it far-fetched. Thanks to Cryptome for the link.

That Eolas suit — and its implications…

Eolas, a company with an intriguing name (‘eolas’ is Irish for ‘knowledge’) has successfully sued Microsoft for $521 million for infringing a patent Eolas holds on how plug-ins link into Internet Explorer (and browsers generally). Given that the patent applies to most browsers, people have been wondering what it might mean for them. Here’s a report which suggests that Eolas boss Michael Doyle (now there’s a good Irish name!) is a supporter of Open Source and is likely to be constructive. Phew!