Managing Rights Management

Kindle Orwellian Bruhaha Revisited

As noted yesterday, Amazon had deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm and issued a credit to purchasers.

In an  Information Week article, EFF attorney Fred Von Lohmann considers the Kindle EULA:

The incident, he said, highlighted the gap in understanding about rights in the digital world and the real world. "There's an enormous difference between buying a book and buying a tethered media device. And this incident really underscores that fact. Consumers carry with them analog expectations."

Von Lohmann said that it's not clear from the Kindle license agreement that Amazon has the right delete purchased content. "I don't see that many loopholes," he said.

And on Engadget, Amazon explains its logic:

Drew Herdener, Amazon.com's Director of Communications, pinged us directly with the following comment, and now things are starting to make a lot more sense. Seems as if the books were added initially by an outfit that didn't have the rights to the material.

These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances.

MiniTrue: Orwell Unperson

The Ministry of Truth to Records Department: George Orwell unperson; revise immediately. Doubleplusbad 1984 and Animal Farm down "memory hole." 

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.

But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price. [NYTimes here; Gizmodo here]

DRM: Control or Opportunity? The Views of Leading Trade Associations

More than 800 comments have been submitted to the FTC in advance of hearings on the impact of DRM on consumers. Four of the major copyright industry trade associations have jointly submitted useful comments. The four are the the Association of American Publishers ("AAP'),the Entertainment Sofware Association ("'ESA"), Motion Picture Association of America ("MPAA"), and Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA). Their submission provides a good overview of all the different ways in which DRM is being used to facilitate business models and consumer oriented services. This document is well worth a read.

The document begins by considering the definition of DRM offered by the FTC in calling the hearing and how that definition should be improved or augmented (notes omitted, emphasis and paragraph breaks added).

[The FTC] has defined digital rights management, or "DRM," as "technologies typically used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to attempt to control how consumers access and use media and entertainment content." On behalf of the wide range of creators, copyright owners, and U.S. copyright-based industries that are represented by our organizations, we believe this definition is at best incomplete.

DRM should also be viewed as the technologies that facilitate broader consumer access to copyrighted works, and that reflect the parameters of the bargains entered into between owners of content and consumers who purchase access to it.

How To DRM? Byteshield's FTC Submission

ByteShield, the San Francisco-based software and game DRM company, submitted comments in advance of the FTC's hearing on DRM and the consumer. Submitted  by CEO Jan Samzelius, the document provides a terrific list of DRM features, functions, and capabilities that would probably delight game and software publishers and provide a user-friendly experience for gamers and software users.

Samzelius provides a list of what I would call "best practices" at each stage of the relationship between a gamer, the publisher, and the underly DRM system. Here are a couple of excerpts:

The CCIA On Interoperability and DRM

As noted, the Federal Trade Commission will hold a public hearing in Seattle on DRM and it's impact on consumers. More than 800 submissions were received, including several from various vendors and trade associations. Among the latter submitting written comments from the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade association dedicated to open markets, open systems, and open networks.

Among the arguments presented by the CCIA is that legal restrictions on reverse engineering under the Digital Millenium Copy Right Act (DMCA) are too severe and are being used by some vendors to place restrictions on competitors and to prevent interoperability.

FTC DRM Workshop Draws 700 Comments

As noted here, the Federal Trade Commission will hold a public workshop in March on Digital Rights Management in Seattle. At least 700 comments have been file with the commission and have been made available to the public here.

A preponderance of comments seem to have been submitted by individuals. Organizations submitting include the Library Copyright Alliance, The Center For Democracy & Technology, and Oxford Media Works. The time for comments closes later today.

Apple Drops DRM, Norway Drops Law Suit

CNet and other outlets report that Norway's consumer watchdog is dropping legal action against Apple now that music from iTunes will be without DRM protection. The legal action complained that Apple's FairPlay DRM prevented tracks purchased from Apple could not be played on non-Apple devices. 

Norway's consumer ombudsman, Bjoern Erik Thon, said Wednesday that he would drop his complaint against iTunes before Norway's Market Council, telling Agence France Presse "we have no reason to pursue them anymore." Norway has been particularly vocal among European critics regarding the way Apple had used DRM technologies on the iTunes store to limit the use of purchased iTunes songs to iPods.

Apple's use of DRM served the dual goals of protecting music tracks and, more importantly, enforcing a business model that tied consumers to the Apple platform. However, given that the record industry business model has been broken for a long time, it's no surprise that the labels and Apple ended the use of FairPlay DRM for music.

Hearing In RIAA Copyright Case Postponed - RIAA Appeals

The hearing previously scheduled for today in the RIAA instigated law suit against Joel Tennebaum (Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum) has been postponed to allow the RIAA to appeal Judge Nancy Gertner's decision to allow the hearing to be webcast.

FTC Publishes Proposed Topic List For March DRM Town Hall Discussion

The Federal Trade Commission has now published a list of proposed topics for the DRM Town Hall to be held (and webcast) on March 25 in Seattle.  The topic outline is both broad and detailed and worth reviewing.

The legal section proposes these topics:

Legal Landscape of DRM:

• The Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• Copyright Office triennial rulemaking
• Impact of DRM on fair use and the first sale doctrine
• End User License Agreements / Terms and Conditions
• FTC Act – Section 5

Hearing In RIAA Copyright Case To Be Televised

The Boston Globe reports that Federal  District Court Judge Nancy Gertner has agreed to allow next week's hearing in the RIAA's copyright suit against BU student Joel Tenenbaum to be televised. Tennebaum's legal defense team includes Harvard Law School professor Charles Nessom.

[Judge Gertner] dismissed as "specious" the recording industry's objections that publicity will influence potential jurors and said she has received assurances that the video stream will be unedited and available to all non-commercial users.

Gertner also said streaming court proceedings online will also serve the recording industry's stated objective of discouraging people from sharing music online.

The video will be streamed from the website of Harvard's Berkmen Center for Internet and Society. The hearing is scheduled for Thursday, January 22nd.

FTC Solicits Comments on DRM

The Federal Trade Commission is soliciting comments on Digital Rights Management technologies. The solicitation is in advance of a FTC Town Hall to address Digital Rights Management Technologies which is scheduled to take place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle.

Digital rights management (DRM) refers to technologies typically used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to attempt to control how consumers access and use media and entertainment content. Among other issues, the workshop will address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations. Interested parties may submit written comments or original research on this topic.

The meeting notice is here.

RIAA Stops Suing Consumers - Not!

The NYTimes and other outlets reported that the RIAA is ending its lawsuits individual music downloaders. Not so, says Slashdot:

According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claims that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits "for months"; according to the Wall Street Journal report the RIAA stopped filing mass lawsuits "early this fall"; and the Associated Press was apparently told that the RIAA had stopped bringing new lawsuits in August.

Being very familiar with the RIAA's penchant for "misspeaking", even when under oath, I investigated the matter a bit, and learned that a large number of suits have been brought by the RIAA quite recently, one as recently as this Monday.

Turning ISPs into the content police won't work either. To repeat: the business model is broken. Unless and until the music industry figures out other ways to monetize, all of these efforts must fail.

To borrow from Pete Seeger, when will they ever learn.

CNET: The RIAA's Letter to ISPs

cnet.com has obtained a copy of letters sent by the RIAA to ISPs regarding P2P downloading of music files.

Please bear in mind that this letter serves as an official notice to you that this network user may be liable for the illegal activity occurring on your network. This letter does not constitute a waiver of our members' rights to recover or claim relief for damages incurred by this illegal activity, nor does it waive the right to bring legal action against the user at issue for engaging in music theft. We assert that the information in this notice is accurate, based upon the data available to us. Under penalty of perjury, we submit that the RIAA is authorized to act on behalf of its member companies in matters involving the infringement of their sound recordings, including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on the Internet.

It's unfortunate that the major labels do not recognize that their fundamental business model is substantially broken and that these rear guard actions will not put humpty dumpty back together again. The money spent would be far better used to work toward thinking through the challenging problems that come with business model change and then implementing a new course.

Judge postpones hearing in key RIAA lawsuit

CNet reports that a hearing regarding the RIAA initiated copyright infringement suit in Rhode Island federal court against Joel Tenenbaum has been postponed until January 6. As reported here and elsewhere, Harvard professor Charles Nesson and Law School students have intervened in Massachusetts Federal Court to get the copyright law under which the RIAA brings suit declared unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner's courtroom in Boston is where most of the action has been taking place; the Rhode Island proceedings are a sideshow to the main event.

One hint at her possible receptivity to the Harvard students' argument can be found in her remarks at a hearing earlier this year: "There is a huge imbalance in these cases. The record companies are represented by large law firms with substantial resources. The law is also overwhelmingly on their side. They bring cases against individuals, individuals who don't have lawyers and who don't understand their legal rights...the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people...At a certain point after 133 cases in my court and countless around the country, the plaintiffs are going to realize this is making no sense and making them look bad."

Prof. Charles Nesson: The RIAA’s prosecution of copyright law is unconstitutional

As noted earlier, Prof. Charles Nesson has filed a suit in Boston federal court alleging that the RIAA's copyright enforcement campaign against music downloaders is unconstitutional. Now Mass High Tech has an article by Nesson in which he explains his views.

The tension remains that our antiquated legal system has not caught up to the social reality of digital natives, a term my colleague John Palfrey coined to describe the generation that grew up immersed in digital technologies and for whom a life fully integrated with digital devices that are, by design, free and open is the norm. Surely, just because the laws of copyright have not yet fully addressed the ubiquity by which protected information is readily — and freely — available on the Internet, it does not make good law moot. But this case illustrates a civil sea change rooted in the transformative nature of technology, of code as law. Better understanding of how today’s generations interact with digital media will help us shape our regulatory and educational frameworks in a way that advances the public interest.

The business model of the music labels is broken and will not be fixed by the RIAA's overly aggressive litigation strategy.

Harvard Professor Fires Back At RIAA

The AP reports that Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson has filed a law suit in Boston federal court challenging on constitutional grounds the RIAA's aggressive legal tactics against individuals.

Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group — the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA — carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court.

Nesson, the founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said in an interview that his goal is to "turn the courts away from allowing themselves to be used like a low-grade collection agency."

Yea.

What Does AACS Teach Us About the DMCA?

My Google Alerts filter found a blogicle on the DMCA penned by Zach Powell, a third year law student at the University of Richmond (VA) School of Law (posted semi-anonymously, I have his permission to use his name).  Written for Prof. Chris Cotropia's copyright law class blog, Powell posted a longish note regarding the AACS encryption scheme for Blu-ray discs (and previously for HD-DVD before its demise).

After providing a decent review of the brief history of AACS and the DMCA, including takedown notices under the latter, Powell concludes as follows:

Norway Pressures Apple to Drop DRM from iPhone

It's now well understood that DRM is being used to enforce business models by protecting content from being used without authorization or on unauthorized devices. Now Norway is being pressured by consumer advocates to force Apple to open their iTunes platform, so says the Romow Science and Technology Blog.

The top Norwegian consumer advocate has pledged to petition the country’s government to demand that Apple open up its iTunes music store to consumers who use media players other than the ubiquitous Apple iPod. Bjorn Eric Thon, a high profile consumer advocate in Norway, contends that it is the right of the consumer to transfer and play digital media content on any device he or she may choose — not just Apple’s own iPod....

Thon intends to submit the case to the Norwegian Market Council, a government ruling body and arbitration court that is empowered by the state to issue legally binding verdicts in cases of market disputes. It is expected that the Market Council will take up the case as presented, and a decision would be rendered by the summer of 2009.

Blu-ray Player Producers Sued For Patent Infringement

The Patent Prospector blog is reporting that patent assertion company Acacia has filed a patent infringement suit in plaintiff-friendly Eastern (federal) District of Texas. According to the report, defendants named in the suit include Samsung, Best Buy, Denon, Funai, LG, Matsushita, Panasonic, Phillips, Pioneer, and Sharp. Apparently missing is Sony. The blogicle notes that the suit is over copy protection technologies alleged to be incorporated in Blu-ray players.

Selectable Output Control: MPAA, Others Lobby FCC

Ars Technica reports that the MPAA has petitioned the FCC to enable Selectable Output Controls (SOC) on theatrically released movies distributed via cable and satellite prior to their release on DVD.

SOC lets video distributors close down analog or digital output on broadcasts, which could be used to force HD downscaling to SD and/or block output to devices such as DVRs, an option that MPAA says will allow it to more securely distribute early-run studio films on TV. "The Petitioners' theatrical movies are too valuable in this early distribution window to risk their exposure to unauthorized copying," MPAA wrote to the FCC in June. "Distribution over insecure outputs would facilitate the illegal copying and redistribution of this high value content, causing untold damage to the DVD and other 'downstream' markets."

How The RIAA Battles Piracy: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

Reuter's Susan Butler wrote an in-depth account of the RIAA.'s efforts to curb piracy that is well worth reading. Whether their efforts will have any long lasting effect is debatable. By all accounts, the music industry is doing well. It's the record / CD business that's broken. The business model hasn't worked since Armageddon arrived: broadband, high quality compression, and inexpensive storage.

Despite the RIAA's efforts, data suggest that demand for pirated content remains strong. A recent NPD Group report estimates that 19% of U.S. Internet subscribers 13 and older download free music from P2P services, barely less than the 20% reported when the RIAA began its user litigation campaign in 2003.

As noted in these pages, similar efforts by the MPAA are inaccurate. Researchers recently got them to accuse three laser printers of piracy. Perhaps toasters and coke machines are next.

Annals of Privacy Protection: The NGS Genographic Project

A friend mentioned contributing DNA to the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project "which is seeking to chart new knowledge about the migratory history of the human species by using sophisticated laboratory and computer analysis of DNA contributed by hundreds of thousands of people from around the world."

I got curious about the privacy implications of providing genetic materials to the project, whose goals are certainly laudable. Having reviewed the project's privacy page, it was unclear to me whether the DNA would have to be made available in response to a lawful subpoena related to civil or criminal proceedings for personally identifiable genetic information. So I asked them via email. They were kind enough to respond as follows (which I have their permission to publish):

M.P.A.A. Accuses Laser Printers of File Sharing Copyright Violations - Really

Brad Stone's NYTimes blog entry describes research conducted by Tadayoshi Kohno, an assistant professor, Michael Piatek a graduate student, and Arvind Krishnamurthy, a research assistant professor, all at the University of Washington. The research was directed toward understanding  how the M.P.A.A. identifies those who received nastygrams from the trade association. Stone blogicle says:

Supremes Consider Taking MLB Appeal On Fantasy Baseball Licensing Rights

David Savage reports in the L.A. Times that the Supreme Court is considering whether to take an appeal from Major League Baseball concerning licensing rights relating to fantasy baseball. MLB has claimed that it owns the copyrights and thus is exclusively entitled to license baseball names and performance statistics.

The legal dispute arose four years ago when Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which represents the players and owners, signed licensing deals for fantasy games with a few big companies, including Yahoo, ESPN, Fox Sports and CBS Sportsline. At the same time, Major League Baseball ended earlier deals with dozens of leagues, games and websites that had offered fantasy games.

One of the jilted providers, C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing in St. Louis, went to court and last year won a double-header victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals there. The judges ruled that the fantasy game provider had a 1st Amendment right to use the names and statistics of major league players, and it was free to ignore the earlier licensing deal.

MPAA Dangles Early HD VOD Releases - Engadget

Engadget reports that the MPAA is proposing to enable pre-DVD release of HD VOD movies provided that Congress helps plug the analog hole:

The MPAA petitioned the FCC earlier this month to lift the existing ban preventing cable and satellite providers from remotely disabling analog outputs on their set-top boxes via selectable output controls (SOC).

Stay tuned....

FTC on DRM-Disclose, Label It, OR Else

Ars Technica reports on a recent Federal Trade Commission report issued nearly 18 months after the conference that spawned it. Regarding DRM, the report says in part:

As new, proprietary technologies are introduced, consumers will be faced with noninteroperable products. Despite consumers’ general preference for interoperability, which provides the greatest flexibility and range of use for products they buy, such a goal may be elusive in a competitive marketplace where businesses seek to provide unique and innovative products. The challenge for the FTC, then, is not to ensure that products are interoperable, but rather to ensure that consumers are provided sufficient information prior to purchase so that they understand any inherent limitations on the use of the products they buy.

Comcast Capitulates On Net Neutrality

According to this NYTimes article and other sources, Comcast has said that it will move to application neutral network management and disclose publicly its bandwidth management techniques. Tests by the Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (among others) showed that Comcast was disrupting P2P traffic with forged packets.

The company initially veiled its traffic-management system in secrecy, saying openness would allow users to circumvent it. But on Thursday, Werner said the company would ''publish'' the new technique and take into account feedback from the Internet community.

Comcast has been hampering the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, which together with the eDonkey protocol, accounts for about a third of all Internet traffic, according to figures from Arbor Networks. The vast majority of that is illegal sharing of copyright-protected files, but file-sharing is also emerging as a low-cost way of distributing legal content -- in particular, video.

Ad Blocking Poll: Norton Internet Security

It's not clear whether under copyright law consumers can strip advertising from web pages. One legal theory is that the stripped page is a derivative work. Under copyright law, rightsholders can reserve the right to create derivatives for themselves.

As noted, Symantec has dropped the adblocking feature from the 2008 version of Norton Internet Security. The poll results are in:

The number of voters is small--37--but the sentiment is clear: restore ad blocking.

Surprise! MPAA Against Net Neutrality

Ya just have to love Variety-speak: "MPAA topper blasts Net neutrality."

"This effort is being called by its proponents 'Net neutrality,'" Glickman [MPAA's 'topper"] continued. "It's a clever name. But at the end of the day, there's nothing neutral about this for our customers or for our ability to make great movies in the future. Government regulation of the Internet would impede our ability to respond to consumers in innovative ways, and it would impair the ability of broadband providers to address the serious and rampant piracy problems occurring over their networks today ... Government regulation of the Internet would be a terrible reversal of American innovation policy."

Unnecessary alarmist misdirection aimed mainly at P2P file sharing, in my view.

The RIAA: What Can Get You Busted

Writing in CNet, Declan McCullagh exposes the kinds of consumer behavior that can bring the unwanted attention of RIAA's sleuths and law suits. This useful article covers shared folders, large collections of tunes, open wireless networks, and choice of P2P applications:

The RIAA has focused on copyright infringement on the more visible, centralized services such as Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster. It hasn't focused on file sharing through instant messaging or closed P2P networks. The more obscure the P2P network, the less likely it is to be monitored.

Delaying the Canibalization of The Cable TV Business

One of the high level themes underlying today's FCC hearing on net neutrality is what's motivating Comcast to interfere with P2P traffic? Their answer is that they manage the use of a small number of users whose traffic my otherwise degrade the experience of the many more users who are not doing P2P.

Increasingly, P2P is being used to share or deliver video via the Internet. These video providers are increasingly competing with the Cable TV operators for audience, or in the vernacular, for eyeballs. This morning saw a demo and heard a presentation by Gilles BianRosa, CEO of  Vuze which uses P2P to distribute video programming across the net.

Factoid mentioned this morning: more content is downloaded from YouTube than was distributed across the Internet in 2000.

Verizon offers, for example, 20 megabits per second in each direction on its FiOS network and doesn't discriminate against P2P applications largely because of important architectual differences between FiOS and cable-based broadband networks.

So, why does Comcast interfere with P2P traffic? One possible answer is that they are trying to delay competition with its base Cable TV business.

Morning Session Main Points

This morning's session boiled down to whether Comcast and cable operators can manage their network by discriminating against specific applications such as Bit Torrent. Some argued that such discrimination is OK as long as the application discrimination is disclosed to consumers. Others argued that in a duopoly, disclosure isn't sufficient.  Therefore, Comcast and other, mostly cable ISPs, should be prevented from discrimination against specific apps.

It was also noted that the deep packet inspection technologies apparently being used to interfer with P2P traffic can also be used for content filtering and abridgment of speech not that anyone is doing that in the US.

We're off to the engineering session.

Markey's Comments

Congressman Ed Markey's comments include an emphasis on free markets as the foundation for solving bandwidth and pricing issues. This should be No Country For Old Broadband. And Bit Torrent should not be Bit Trickle.

Also, check out the SaveTheInternet.com site and their FAQ on Net Neutrality.

Blogging From The FCC Hearing on Net Neutrality

I'm at the Havard Law School today. Thanks to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the FCC is conducting a public en banc hearing at the Harvard Law School on Net Neutrality (NN) and broadband management. There will be a live audo feed for those interested. I'll be blogging comments from time to time.

UK: ISPs To Be Held Responsible For Piracy - Maybe

The Beeb reports that the government has indicated that ISPs must take steps to curb piracy or face legal sanctions.

The culture secretary said consultation would begin in spring and legislation could be implemented "by April 2009".

Representatives of the recording industry, who blame piracy for a slump in sales, welcomed the proposals.

"ISPs are in a unique position to make a difference and in doing so to reverse a culture of creation-without-reward that has proved so damaging to the whole music community over the last few years," said John Kennedy, head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

I used to think the Brits were a bit smarter. Since the record business is global, the business model is just as broken abroad as it is here in the US.

The RIAA is At It Again-Where Has All The Music Gone?

CNet reports that the RIAA is shooting new threatening letters across the bows of numerous colleges and universities coast to coast in what must be a failed attempt to deter piracy.

Critics charge that the letters are just a scare tactic, and the RIAA has admitting to goofing on identifying copyright infringers in the past. But the music industry still views its prelawsuit campaign as an important deterrent. Without such action, "an emerging legal marketplace...would have struggled to gain traction," spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in a press release.

To quote a Pete Seeger song, "when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn."

The record industry business model is broken. The music industry is alive and well. The labels and their trade association had better figure out something different than alienating the very people who sometimes buy their products.

EU/UK Extension of Music Performance Rights

[Tip o' the Hat to CS]. The BBC reports on efforts to extend the EU copyright period for music from 50 to 95 years.

The European Union's internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy said that "copyright protection for Europe's performers represents a moral right to control the use of their work and earn a living from their performances".

"It is the performer who gives life to the composition and while most of us have no idea who wrote our favourite song, we can usually name the performer," he said.

Samsung Sued Over Defective Blu-ray Players

CNET and Wired (and other sources) are reporting that a class action law suit has been filed against Samsung that  allegedly refused to provide firmware updates to some Blu-ray players that do not play certain titles correctly. The Wired article speculates that the problem(s) may have something to do with firmware that cannot handle correctly the BD+ copy protection technologies.

DRM, Photography, and Public Spaces

Some years ago, the Pebble Beach Association tried to assert that the lone cypress tree could not be photographed without permission since they claimed they used an abstraction as a registered trademark. For a while, the city of Chicago apparently prevented professional photographers from taking pictures of  "the bean" statue. Paris wishes to forbid taking a picture of the Eiffel tower at night. And in the post 9/11 environment, some law enforcement folks have interfered with photographers taking certain pictures, of the ExxonMobil facility in Torrance, CA, for example.

One of the more interesting blogicles I've come across is this one concerning DRM and photography on the "Lady That's My Skull" blog written by a person whose online identity is "Sleestak". The blogicle is worth looking at in part because of the novel ideas and in part because of the way in which photographs have been modified to show an example of how DRM might work when photographing public spaces and other subject matter.

Podcast with Jake Ward, Digital Freedom Campaign

I spent some time during the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with people from the Digital Freedom Campaign, a group of innovators, artists, students and consumers who know that they also have rights in the copyright debate and who want to make themselves heard.

Sponsors and partners of the DFC include the Consumer Electronics Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Home Recording Rights Coalition, Educause, and the American Library Association. 

I spoke recently with Jake Ward, a spokesperson for the Digital Freedom Campaign. Our wide-ranging conversation addressed fair use, CD ripping, network neutrality, the MPAA and RIAA, and legislation pending in Congress.

The podcast can be accessed here.

A time index to our conversation follows:

RIAA: $1.5 Million Per Ripped CD - It Won't Make Any Difference

While I believe that technical means can be useful in reducing piracy (e.g., Blu-ray's BD+ technology acquired late last year by Macrovision), I believe that the RIAA has been using litigation as a way of postponing the day when the major record labels are going to be forced significantly change their fundamental business models.

As reported here earlier, the RIAA has argued that ripping CDs is illegal. Not content to sue individuals for large sums of money, Ars Tecnica reports that the RIAA is now seeking through legislation to create a statutory penalty for ripping a CD that would add up to  $1.5M for a CD with a typical number of tracks.

The change to statutory damages is contained in the PRO-IP Act that is currently up for consideration in Congress. We've reported on the bill before, noting that Google's top copyright lawyer (and the man who wrote a seven-volume treatise on the subject of copyright law), William Patry, called the bill the most "outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US."

I'm reminded of the scene in Aliens when Riply and Newt have the following exchange:

Ripley: These people are here to protect you. They're soldiers.
Newt: It won't make any difference.

Switzerland Warns File Trackers

InfoWorld reports that the Swiss government has warned Logistep, a company that tracks file sharers, that its tactics may be illegal under Swiss law. Identifying file sharers is part of global antipriracy efforts that in the view of some compromises the privacy of individuals.

Logistep, which supplies information on suspected file sharers to law firms around the world for use in copyright violation cases, has until Feb. 9 to respond to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), said Marc Schaefer, the agency's legal advisor.

Under Swiss law, the identity of a subscriber to an ISP can only be revealed during the course of a criminal case, not a civil one, Schaefer said. The IP address of a computer controlled by the subscriber is considered "personal" information.

Snooping on Skype

[tip o' the hat to Digital Freedom Campaign] Jeremy Reimer writes on ArsTechnica that the Bavarian government sought assistance from software vendor Digitask in snooping on Skype conversations. So much for privacy.

The method outlined involved the installation of malware referred to as the "Skype Capture Unit" that would be delivered in an executable file that "can for instance be attached to an e-mail or directly be installed on the target machine." This software would then transfer unencrypted conversations to a remote Skype Recording Server that can record and replay 10 Skype interceptions in parallel. The Recording Server then sends the conversations through to Skype and their intended destination, a classic "man in the middle" attack that is difficult for the compromised user to detect.

MPAA Admits Mistake: College Students Not As Culpable As Previously Asserted

According to this AP news story, the MPAA nows says that there was a computational error in earlier results indicating that college student file sharing was a major source of pirated media. The MPAA said that it

has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.

Canadian Privacy Minister Cautions Against DRM

Privacy is a touchy subject. For nearly 20 years, I have advocated that consumers be informed in advance and "opt in" to any collection of usage information by DRM technologies. The reason is that this information has value. In some business models, it's perfectly reasonable to provide compensation to consumers for access to their usage information. Compensation might be in the form of discounts or free digital goods.

These and related issues are now being discussed in Canada. Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, has sent a letter to Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry, and Josée Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, regarding the privacy implications of proposed changes to Canadian copyright law. Ms. Stoddart is most concerned about the use of DRM implementations that collect user related information without their consent:

If DRM technologies only controlled copying and use of content, our Office would have few concerns. However, DRM technologies can also collect detailed personal information from users, who often do no more than access the content on a computer. This information is transmitted back to the copyright owner or content provider, without the consent or knowledge of the user. Although the means exist to circumvent these technologies and thus prevent the collection of this information, previous proposals to amend the Copyright Act contained anti-circumvention provisions.

Norton Internet Security Drops Ad Blocking For 2008 Version

In November I reported that Symantec had apparently dropped the ad blocking feature of Norton Internet Security, a feature I depend on.

While at the Consumer Electronics Show last week I asked Cecilia Daclan, Senior Manager, Consumer Public Relations at Symantec about the removal of the ad blocking feature. She agreed to look into the matter and in follow up email, here's what Ms. Daclan wrote:

Norton Internet Security 2007 users will find the ad blocking feature in the add-on pack.  However, we did remove the ad blocking feature from the Norton Internet Security 2008 add-on pack.  Therefore, if you have Norton Internet Security 2007 you can take advantage of the ad blocking feature by downloading it for free via the add-on pack.  If you have Norton Internet Security 2008, that feature is no longer available.

We're evaluating the ad blocking feature for future releases of Norton Internet Security.

Here's one vote for Symantec continuing to support the ad blocking feature.

 

RIAA Declares Using Brain to Remember Songs is Criminal Copyright Infringement

[tip o' the hat to Bob Horn] Well, it's only satire, but great satire from NewsTarget.com. Written by Mike Adams, the piece begins:

On the heels of the RIAA's recent decision to criminalize consumers who rip songs from albums they've purchased to their computers (or iPods), the association has now gone one step further and declared that "remembering songs" using your brain is criminal copyright infringement. "The brain is a recording device," explained RIAA president Cary Sherman. "The act of listening is an unauthorized act of copying music to that recording device, and the act of recalling or remembering a song is unauthorized playback."

The RIAA also said it would begin sending letters to tens of millions of consumers thought to be illegally remembering songs, threatening them with lawsuits if they don't settle with the RIAA by paying monetary damages. "We will aggressively pursue all copyright infringement in order to protect our industry," said Sherman.

RIAA Argues Riping CDs Illegal - Institutionalized Stupidity

As readers know, I'm favorably disposed to technical means such as DRM, watermarking, fingerprinting, conditional access, and encryption for protecting digital content provided that the technology is reasonably user friendly and that those who use it to protect content provide full disclosure to consumers.

As reported by Marc Fisher in the Washington Post, the RIAA is arguing in a legal brief in a suit against Jeffrey Howell (and elsewhere) that the mere act of ripping tunes from music CDs and storing those tracks constitutes making illegal copies.

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

David Pogue: The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality

NYTimes columnist David Pogue asked his college audience about various use scenarios for music and video. Few found any moral or ethical problem with violating copyright. Pogue concluded this piece with:

I don't pretend to know what the solution to the file-sharing issue is. (Although I'm increasingly convinced that copy protection isn't it.)

I do know, though, that the TV, movie and record companies' problems have only just begun. Right now, the customers who can't even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?

Is ecomputerblog.com legal?

On Friday I reported that BD+ has attracted additional licensees. I use a number of Google and Yahoo filters to track various DRM related topics that are in the news or that have been discussed in the blogosphere. My filter found a link to ecomputerblog.com with my headline as their headline. They provided no attribution or link back to this site.

Going to their main site indicates that none of the articles noted there have links back to the originating site. So it appears that ecomputerblog.com exists to attract people to their site and to generate page views using news and blog posts that belong to others. When I've been there, the advertising points to Diino, apparently a Swedish company. Slick.

They have obscured owership in the DNS database, and they did not respond to email sent to their DNS registrar per instructions by that registrar.

I'll have to modify my copyright notice to preclude using ANY portion without attribution, even if that portion would be deemed a fair use under US copyright law or fair dealing under UK and EU law.