Law | Science Addiction

October 27, 2008

Ten Years of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act

On the 28th of October, 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in to law. And the technology industry was never the same. This week, it turns 10.

The Anti-Circumvention Provision
The purpose of the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA was to prevent copyright pirates from defeating copy protection (DRM) mechanisms. In reality, neither the DMCA nor DRM have done nothing to stop piracy on the Internet. The DMCA has had an effect though- a chilling one. An effect on innovation, fair use, competition, expression. Read the rest of this entry »

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October 20, 2008

FBI Fakes Cybercrime Forum, Nets 56 Arrests

This is pretty awesome. The FBI ran a cybercrime forum called DarkMarket for two years, silently watching hundreds of “cybercriminals” walk in to their trap.

DarkMarket allowed buyers and sellers of stolen identities and credit card data to meet and do business in an entrepreneurial, peer-reviewed environment. It had 2,500 users at its peak, according to the FBI.[…]

The leader of the site, know online as Master Splynter, was in fact FBI cybercrime agent J. Keith Mularski, part of an elite seven-agent cybercrime unit based at the National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance in Pittsburgh. DarkMarket members believed the site was operated from Eastern Europe, despite a 2006 warning from uber-hacker Max Ray Butler, known then as Iceman and Aphex. Butler cracked the site’s server and announced that he’d caught Master Splynter logging in from the NCFTA’s office on the banks of the Monongahela River. […]

It remains unclear whether Mularski took over the identity of a real cyberscammer, or if Master Splynter was his invention from the start.

You can’t make this stuff up! The always brilliant Threat Level blog has many more details.

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October 20, 2008

EFF Challenges Constitutionality of Telecom Immunity in Federal Court

No Such Agency...

EFF, fighting the good fight–

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Thursday challenged the constitutionality of a law aimed at granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president’s illegal domestic wiretapping program.

In a brief filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, EFF argues that the flawed FISA Amendments Act (FAA) violates the federal government’s separation of powers as established in the Constitution and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law. Signed into law earlier this year, the FAA allows for the dismissal of the lawsuits over the telecoms’ participation in the warrantless surveillance program if the government secretly certifies to the court that either the surveillance did not occur, was legal, or was authorized by the president. Attorney General Michael Mukasey filed that classified certification with the court last month.

The constitutional challenge is set to be heard on December 2. EFF has more information on the NSA spying issue.

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October 18, 2008

The Intellectual Property Enforcement Bill

Mickey Mouse politics

While (still) President Bush signed the sorry Intellectual Property Enforcement Bill in to law last week, EFF reminds us of a few victories we won over the past few months that stripped it of things like:

Higher damages for filesharing.
A vast government IP enforcement bureaucracy.
The Attorney General’s office will no longer become “pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders regardless of their resources.”

We should always celebrate the small victories (and, in this case, thank Public Knowledge for fighting the good fight). There will still be a “Copyright Czar”, but that position will be appointed by the President. And all indications are that we might get a President who takes a bit more nuanced position on these issues. Wired’s Threat Level blog is taking votes on who should be appointed to that position. My vote is with Lessig.

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October 15, 2008

White Spaces Update

Media and internet legal scholar Susan Crawford has an update on white spaces on her blog:

Today, with Congress in recess, leaving less room for last-minute-Lucy-with-the-football lobbying gambits, the FCC appears to be poised to release a report saying the white spaces can be used without necessarily causing interference to existing broadcasts.

If you’re unfamiliar with the issue, she has a brief introduction to white spaces in the article. A few weeks ago, we also had a video from the People’s Production House that described the issue in non-technical terms. In short- there are a lot of frequencies that will become available when the digital television transition occurs next year and there is a lot of interest from certain entities with deep pockets in keeping them locked away. This report from the FCC is potentially a step in the right direction.

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July 17, 2008

Science Addiction Referenced in a Law Paper

No kidding. The paper (by Gary Pulsinelli) is about the ownership rights of artistic works among goblins in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Last year, I had noted that they sounded a lot like the RIAA/MPAA/ MAFIAA. This paper has a different take, but tips its hat to this blog post and the reader comments. If you read the paper, it is in footnote #29 on page 5.

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