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Still in DMCA Prison
Posted by
michael
on Wed Jul 25, 2001 12:00 PM
from the you-can-get-a-good-meal dept.
from the you-can-get-a-good-meal dept.
Let's go over the Sklyarov situation. Sklyarov is still in jail. In fact, he's still in Las Vegas, where he is being held without even a bail hearing, much less bail. The excuse given for not having a bail hearing when he was arrested on July 16 was that he was being immediately transferred to San Jose and would get a hearing there. Anyway, a recap of the protests: San Jose, more San Jose, New York, Seattle, Chicago writeup and Chicago pictures, Moscow writeup and Moscow photo and news coverage: New York Times, Business2.com. Wired has Washington's viewpoint - Representative Coble says "there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders". Well, duh. Linuxplanet has an opinion piece exploring the Digital Millennium Rape Act. Finally EFF has written a letter to U.S. Attorney Mueller, asking for the U.S. to drop the charges against Sklyarov. It seems pretty doubtful that he will, since he won't want to be seen as soft on crime during his Senate confirmation hearings.
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Protests... (Score:2)
That aside, my run-ins with the public suggest it is easier to explain to them that a russian who (questionably) committed a crime in another country and who came here only to give a speech about how it was done is in jail here seems easier for people to grasp than copyright issues. I suggest we focus on that instead.
~ Signal 11
Turn off the world. (Score:2)
We are the geeks. We are the administrators, the scientists, the engineers, the technicians.
We keep the modern world running. We have the power to make a statement.
Other workers have work slowdowns, sickouts, and slowdowns. Why don't we?
We have the power to bring down the internet, stop the email, interupt phone service, turn off power grids, and many other things. and we should do it.
On August 1st, shut down the US. Give Congress, the President, and the Corporations something to think about.
Posted anonymously to keep from being arrested in Amerika
Re:Militant branch of the EFF? (Score:4)
-E
Are you responsible? (Score:2)
Who is responsible? If you asked Adobe's CEO, he would say: "I'm just doing what the shareholders want me to do; I have to maximize the return on their investment. DMCA may be ugly, but it sure is good for the profit prospects of us IP companies. My owners tell me to maximize profit, that's what I'm being paid for, and that's what I do."
And he's right: the ultimate culpability lies with the owners. The buck stops with the shareholders, nowhere else. Ultimately, owners are responsible for what is perpetrated in their names and with their money.
Do you own Adobe stock? Have you checked the holdings of the funds in your retirement accounts lately? Maybe you yourself are responsible for this mess?
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Re:The best way to expose a bad law is to enforce (Score:2)
They are doing that already. Here in MN, oral sex between consenting (even married) adults is illegal, and the penalty is higher than that for prostitution. Still, the police does not have undercover operations in single bars with offers for oral sex. Plenty of undercover operations with offers for sex for sale though.
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Talk about missing the point... (Score:2)
I do admit to taking issue with the article's promoting the horrid misconception that only men can commit rape, however; the subjects of the DMRA should have been anyone with a set of genitals, or a mouth or rectum (if you consider forced anal or oral sex to be forms of rape, which most do).
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Faster than sending a letter, but more expensive: (Score:2)
On the positive side, it's just $9.95 (for 1000 characters), is delivered to your recipient's address rather than just showing up in that day's mail, and you can send it over the net. However, telegrams of today are not what they were in the fifties. Apparently, Western Union just prints your message out on telegram stationery and sends it next-day on Airborne Express. And if you're sending it to a congressperson, they may regularly get several telegrams a day anyhow.
I've never sent or received a telegram -- this is all gleaned from Western Union's site. But that's the thing, although just about everyone knows what a telegram is, they're quite rare in this country these days (even in Washington, D.C. when compared to a generation or two ago). They used to be common before affordable long-distance calling, but now they're a surprising curiosity. Most people in the US under the age of forty or fifty have probably never gotten a telegram in their life. So this looks like a possible way to register your opinion with some impact without ever having to leave your computer.
Anyone have experience sending or getting telegrams with WU's current system?
Held without bail (Score:3)
I know it's l4m3 to talk about Kevin Mitnick and I'll get modded down for it, but even if you're with the "He stole millions of dollars by copying source code" camp you still have to agree that being held without a bail hearing for four years is a bit fishy.
Now it's starting to happen to a legitimate software developer. Who's next...
--
Lies, dammed lies and statistics (Score:3)
But what is not clear to me is the relation between the gun-banning law and this number. You see, if you ban guns doesn't possessing a gun become a "gun related-crime"?
If so, and if gun-possession crimes are included in the mighty 40% increase (making all this wonderfully circular), we are just seeing a FUD campaign, cortesy of our ever present friends, the gun-nuts.
Re:yet another irony (Score:3)
I'm sorry. I feel that the crocodile tears were just that, and no more to be believed. Have they offered to pay for the defense? Have they offered to meet whatever bond is demanded? They set him up, so unless they take effective action to redress their wrong, I won't believe their public speech is anything other than a PR ploy.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:It is called Habeas Corpus (Score:5)
You: Do Something (Score:3)
Americans do not think about copyright, Americans would rather not think about people in prison. Americans have a tendency to think circularly: people arrested must be criminals. All laws passed by congress are legitimate. We have an uphill battle convincing them that Dmitry has done nothing wrong, and that the DMCA is unconstitutional.
Don't accept "the Supreme Court will handle it." Who says they will? Why wait for the justice system? Once a sufficient number of Americans are informed about the existence of the DMCA and the erosion of their rights, we can make congress uphold their oaths and protect the constitiution like they should have done in the beginning.
The system is being challenged in court. Fine. But that is not justification for twiddling our thumbs in the mean time. Action now makes it easier for the judges to strike down the DMCA. Action now makes it easier for shy, right-thinking congress people to speak out about what a travesty the DMCA is.
Tell 3 people today about the DMCA. Join a protest next week, and tell 1,000. Make people think, encourage people to reason.
Free Dmitry.
Repeal the DMCA.
Why wait?
Re:It is called Habeas Corpus (Score:4)
Kintanon
More protest coverage: (Score:5)
Re:a contrary view (Score:5)
Boston Globe:
Adobe shifts, urges hacker's release [boston.com]
CBS News:
Hacker Held Under New Law [cbsnews.com]
ABC News:
Russian programmer arrested at hacker convention for alleged violation of copyright law [go.com]
MSNBC:
Adobe seeks release of Russian programmer arrested at Def Con [msnbc.com]
New York Times:
U.S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator [nytimes.com]
Arrest Raises Stakes in Battle Over Copyright [nytimes.com]
Protesters Target FBI Nominee Over Russian Arrest [nytimes.com]
Adobe Opposes Prosecution in Hacking Case [nytimes.com]
Those all seem pretty mainstream to me.
--
Re:to quote... (Score:3)
to quote... (Score:4)
-Thomas Jefferson
And ill probably be arrested for quoting him.
Re:Habeus Corpus? (Score:3)
First, from the U.S. Constitution, Article I Section 9:
"The Privilege of the writ of habeas ccorpus shall not be suspended, unless, when in cases of reballion or invasion, the public safety may require it."[Emphasis added]
Notice that it says nothing about applying only to citizens.
A writ of habeas corpus is a court order demanding that the person of the imprisoned be brought before the court, and that the authority who holds him justify itself, usually by filing charges. Habeas corpus is latin for "give us the body!" The privilege of the writ has only been suspended once in US history, by Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. It doesn't say in the constitution who may suspend it, but legal scholars up until that point had always assumed that it was up to congress, for two reasons:
1) Under British common law, from which much of US law is taken, only parliament may suspend the privilege of the writ
2) The above quote is in Article I, which details the congress.
Hope this helps ease the confusion.
Re:a contrary view (Score:3)
The problem with this is that it is not Dmitry's battle to fight. He is Russian. It is the responsibility of Americans to fight for the freedom of Americans, not Russians or anyone else.
Re:a contrary view (Score:3)
I don't think so. Not in my case.
I do think that I would go to a high degree of pain for the cause, but in this case there may be better avenues. Eating this much crap to just hopefully get a little press is a little much. I personally would bow out and focus my time and energy on a more controlled campaign.
That being said, just to add my little opinion to the thread, I think what the authorities are doing here is just plain horrible. They're ignoring the constitution on one hand, while referencing and hiding behind it on the other.
More race stuff in one place,
It's already been done (Score:3)
Microsoft was the true source of the Red Worm virus in an attempt to remind the Whitehouse who REALLY is the world super power.
Luckily their planned attack went through the same beta testing and forethought as the rest of their software.
Developers Have a Louder Voice than Speech (Score:5)
But why are we playing by their rules? If we really want to be heard, we should use our abilities to make ourselves heard. America needs the developers, techies, and computer savvy people who oppose the DMCA to function as a country, to remain economically viable, and to remain internationally competetive.
Personally, I think we should show the nation just how much power they've inadvertantly given us. We should strike, or perform some equivalant that cripples the software and internet infrastructure that runs this economy. We should make a statement that shows that unless America listens to the very people who have created this Digital World, we're not going to give it to them anymore.
Sure, we'll get initially labeled as "evil hackers" and social miscreants, but we're educated enough to know that that's the price of freedom. And we're also the only people who can bail the country out of a technical catastrophe. The fact is that America needs us much more than America needs bogus laws that protect the wealthiest of companies. And we're everywhere, in every industry, and influencing every aspect of life.
Like the Patriots who threw tea overboard in Boston Harbor to protest unjust laws, we shall show that without the foundation technology upon which the Nation depends, no law prohibiting it's advancement and the open table research thereof shall survive or be tolerated.
Re:Developers Have a Louder Voice than Speech (Score:3)
Maybe some open-source software that corporations rely on could change their licenses so they only work for open-source purposes. Like apache could include a mod by default that would make it so that commercial browsers wouldn't server the correct pages. Or the various server programs.... make the stuff that is already free "crippleware" if used for certain purposes. That's not illegal, right? They're freely available. Corporations rely on services we give them for free. No reason we can't hold them for ransom, payable in guaranteed rights.
tune
Write your congressman (Score:3)
Type or handwrite(if you still remember how) to your "friends" on the Hill and express your outrage. Tell them what you think as a voter and as one of the most in demand workers on the planet (its true) on how these laws are not helpful to the US.
A couple of words of caution for those of you in the thros of rage.
Do not swear
Do not threaten to kill them if they do not comply
Do not include c4 or other explosives "to get your point across"
EFF Taking fight to US AG (Score:3)
The EFF has moved to targeting the US Attorney [eff.org] on the case. Further action against Adobe, while perhaps deserved, would be fruitless.
We need to move on to the next step in getting Dmitry released, and in continuing to fight the DMCA. If we do this right, we might be able to get the entire law overturned.
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
Coble translation for the reality-impaired (Score:5)
When Howard Coble says:
"The law is performing the way we hoped... As far as I know there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders."
what he means is
"My customers are very happy with their purchase."
TheFrood
Here's the root of the problem.. (Score:3)
'Geektivist's' simply don't have the cash to compete with corporate lobbyist. There is no money in being morally right. Money buys laws.
Re:Your Rapes Online (Score:3)
Yes, I'm making the bizarre counterintuitive suggestion that movements in the British crime statistics since 1997 are not relevant to the question of whether it should be illegal to reverse engineer Adobe's ebook document format.
I may be wrong, but you're going to have to spell this out for me.
Your Rapes Online (Score:4)
- Analogises the crime of copyright infringement with the crime of rape.
- Analogises the prosecution of people for copyright infringement with the wholesale massacre of Jews.
- Wastes half of its length on a boring anti-gun-control rant utterly unrelated to the topic, and
- Destroys the entire case for freedom of information by claiming that hackers should be seen as analogous to mobs killing each other in Chicago (I am not making this up -- the fool's argument is that if hackers want to break the law they will do no matter what the law, therefore they should be allowed the tools to do so)
Quotes like "It's impossible to favor gun regulations and oppose computer regulations and remain philosophically consistent. " are calculated to get half the reasonable people in this country thinking that the DMCA must be a good thing after all, and the linked article's author is a prick of the worst kind for trying to hijack a genuine issue of liberty for his own half-assed political program. Even Eric Raymond has always had the common sense not to stoop this low.I always wondered whether there was a site out there with worse journalistic standards than Slashdot. Michael's found it, and he's linked to it [linuxplanet.com]. Congratulations.
Adobe (Score:3)
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
Habeus Corpus? (Score:4)
Perhaps someone should file a Habeus Corpus petiton?
Re:Write your congressman (Score:3)
I was planning on writing to my Congressman this past weekend. Since he's a Republican, I thought I'd point out how Adobe's customers for this product are mostly corporations, and show how much their profits are being hurt by paying $3000/doc for lame encryption (tailor your message to the audience, and all that). I figured I'd end with a write-up explaining just how lame Adobe's encryption was, complete with simple examples even a non-geek could understand. Then I realized that by doing so, I could find the FBI knocking on my door.
I don't have my copy of "1984" handy, but I seem to recall a statement along the lines of:
This is the real problem with the DMCA; no one can meaningfully protest it without running afoul of it.
Re:a contrary view (Score:3)
a contrary view (Score:4)
Join EFF's Blue Ribbon campaign (Score:5)
For those of you who are webmastering (and who isn't, at least on the side), think about placing EFF's blue ribbon [eff.org] on the front page of your site. Besides being really cool, it helps get out the message that the DMCA is curtailing OUR freedom of speech and keeping an innocent man in jail.
Steve Magruder
An Intellectual Property Owner Complains (Score:4)
Re:a contrary view (Score:3)
Here's an excerpt:
To the average mainstream American, what does this look like? A bunch of hacker kids, out to disrupt orderly society, who get off on the adrenaline rush of hacking into systems. Not exactly apt to inspire sympathy in the Heartland(TM).It's also interesting to note that abcnews.com's top story this morning is a piece on resume padding, by the way.
- Firedog
The best way to expose a bad law is to enforce it (Score:4)
I say, enforce the bad law, expose it for what it is, and get it ruled as unconstitutional. Or, get congress to change the law, in light of the bad ways it is required to be enforced.
It's just sad that some poor sod has to sit in jail while this process goes on.
Just keep in mind, the folks who made the law are to blame, not the folks mandated to enforce it.
Off topic: Your Rapes Online (Score:3)
Back to Sklyarov: The DMCA obviously violates the first ammendment, but there may be arguments that it violates the second, fourth ("the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers") and eighth ("excessive fines") too.
Regardless of the DMCA, Sklyarov's imprisonment definitely violates the sixth ("an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed", ie. Russia) and the eleventh ("the Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to...Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.")
Re:Your Rapes Online (Score:3)
Re:Your Rapes Online (Score:5)
So you're saying that the proven fact that gun crime in Britain jumped 40% in one year after enacting laws to ban regular citizens from owning guns is not relevant? The fact that enforcing a law that is fundamentally foolish and flawed (DMCA kills fair use copyright law already in place) is therefore a good thing, just because it is now law? That's ridiculous! The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The British didn't remember that, and today they've got a 40% increase in gun crime (not just crime overall, specifically crimes involving guns). I find that quite relavant considering the DMCA flies in the face of our own Constitutionally granted freedoms.
Re:It is called Habeas Corpus (Score:4)
You can't be charged with a Federal Felony without a grand jury determination that :
a) a crime has been committed
b) you are the person that likely committed that crime.
This little thing called the US Constitution requres this.
If you want to know more of the rules do a findlaw search on federal criminal procedure.
How do you justify that? (Score:3)
If we try and take away Sklyarov's freedom to make a point, how are we better than Adobe and the Feds? Isn't that what they did?
Don't make an unwilling martyr out of Sklyarov. Let him go home!
The U.S. needs to take care of their own problems.
'crow
Re:Here's the root of the problem.. (Score:3)
Don't get me wrong. I think that the DMCA sucks. I have made monetary contributions to the EFF. I don't like MS. But it is far too easy to take the path of least resistance. 50% voter turnout in presidential elections means that the "dedicated" minorities get their way. Geeks just don't seem to be dedicated enough to the real world.
Re:a contrary view (Score:5)
Picture is Not Getting Any Prettier (Score:4)
The CHIPs plan to hold illegal sites and post "a warning that the site has been seized by law enforcement" and present a "clear message that cybercrime carries real penalties for offenders."
The article further states that current EFF Executive Director, Shari Steele, addressed a letter to Ashcroft requesting the release of Sklyarov. Ashcroft had no comment regarding his ageny's charges against Sklyarov.
It looks DMCA will soon accrue an army or firm of brand new federal government attorneys under the Bush administration.
No, Not with Dmitry. This is Our (US) Problem. (Score:5)
Let DMCA be tested by Americans. This nation we live in is responsible for this damn law; we should be the ones who deal with it; who correct the wrong.
Re:a contrary view (Score:5)
yet another irony (Score:5)
I find it ironic that the current chairman and former CEO of Adobe [adobe.com] was quoted as saying that one of the worst parts of being kidnapped [mercurycenter.com] is the forced separation from ones family. Isn't that what he has ( in part ) done to Sklyarov ?
Re:to quote... (Score:5)
Unfortunately, instead of an American patriot, we arrested a foreign national, a man with a family, who is paying the price for the Law purchased by big business in our country.
Sadly, the people responsible for this law will probably never suffer for their abrogation of duties, and they obviously don't qualify as patriots, at least from my perspective.
I know we don't have the votes to really hurt the politicians who voted this law into effect, but we should generate as much attention as we can, and remind people that the Chinese government isn't the only one that detains foreign nationals without due process, as this case shows!