Slashdot Log In
Interview with DMCA-challenger
Posted by
michael
on Fri Aug 02, 2002 08:21 AM
from the next-contestant dept.
from the next-contestant dept.
BrianWCarver writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interview with Ben Edelman, the Harvard law student and internet researcher who is bringing suit against the DMCA with the ACLU. Slashdot covered the announcement of this legal challenge. To refresh your memory, Edelman wants to be able to research the lists of sites blocked by internet filtering software, and to be able to publish his research. He's no lawyer yet, but he responds quite well to several objections to the case."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
He's no lawyer... (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean, your superficial understand of the law?? (Score:5, Funny)
While you're being stupid, why don't you lecture us on how not all black people like rap, or you don't have to be an auto mechanic to have in-depth knowledge on auto repair! Stop! You're blinding me with insight! Ahh!!!
Parent
Re:You mean, your superficial understand of the la (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You mean, your superficial understand of the la (Score:2)
My argument was not that I am (or anyone else is, for that matter) an expert in law, physics, cryptography, biology, etc, but simply that this attitude that all things in the realm of law are exclusively in the domain of lawyers is ludicrous.
This is exactly the same attitude I refer to. Everyone seems to thing that they are the masters of their domain, and no one outside it could possibly be reasonably competent in it.To quote Mel Gibson, "Let's just say I'm agreeing with you in a totally unusual way."
Re:You mean, your superficial understand of the la (Score:2)
Re:You mean, your superficial understand of the la (Score:2)
- Only the Slashdot Reader has the ability, mental stamina and strong stomach to discuss the finer points of how great Slashsdot Readers think they are (with the exception of the Slashdot Reader that's actually doing the discussion which is naturally the exception)
Not that i disagree with you
This kinda reminds me of a survey of car drivers:
- 90% thought they were good drivers and that most other drivers were bad drivers.
Yeah, but this is an ad hoc response baby!!! (Score:2)
Hey wait a minute...
Re:He's no lawyer... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it may imply the former, but not the latter. People are paid high salaries for the benefit of their expertise.
To put it into a perspective which may carry more weight on Slashdot, many people can understand the principles behind routers and firewalls, but rather fewer are able to competently configure same when complex scenarios are involved. Consider, for example, how many people fail their first run of the CCIE lab portion.
One may argue the semantics behind the formalization and/or certification of the knowledge required for a specialized task, but why be so demeaning? How many Slashdotters would leap to the defense were the above statement to be modified to read:
This implies that one must be a { systems engineer / network engineer / pick your label } to understand { WAN configurations / how to configure a firewall / pick your prized specialized skill }.
There's a difference between understanding something and knowing how to apply knowledge in an expert fashion. Don't demean skills that you don't understand or appreciate.
Parent
Re:He's no lawyer... (Score:3, Interesting)
While not a lawyer myself (nor would I like to be), I do have significant experience in successfully managing legal affairs, lawsuits, etc without the benefit of law school, or even college for that matter. The resources are available for anyone to school themselves in procedure and nomenclature relating to legal matters.
Much of what makes a lawyer effective is *NOT* their knowledge of the legal system. Laws, technicalities, etc... that can all be dug up by a minimum-wage intern with access to a decent law library and the Internet. What makes a good lawyer effective is their communication skills and being able to articulate their position.
Re:He's no lawyer... (Score:2)
Re:He's no lawyer... (Score:3, Informative)
Should it be that way? Hell no. I've often proposed that the entire legal code an individual be subjected to be readable and roughly memorizable by "the average non-college educated person". So IMHO the legal code should be no longer than a reasonable read for a grade-12 student, use no words they aren't likely to have seen, and not be so complex as to confuse them. This does mean a very simple legal code, but it also means lawmakers would have to pick and choose.
(The "exception" would be that the description of the spirit of the law wouldn't have to be included, just the actual rules you have to follow.)
There is some legal precedent for this. Many judges are finding that ignorance *is* an excuse, at least in contract law with one uninformed party and one informed party where the uninformed party is shown a 20-page contract that they have to sign if they want a job/healthcare/a house/etc.
In a system where the legal code was required to be understood by the majority of the people they'd either have to simplify it, or increase the level of education of the people and include legal classes as standard curiculum (this really should be, even now).
Re:Putting the point in pointless are we??? (Score:2)
Re:He's no lawyer... (Score:2)
Kintanon
Re:He's no lawyer... (Score:2)
I think the major issue here is what kinds of cases are managable by an intelligent, well informed layperson, and which are better left to professionals. My original point (which has been completely lost to those who want to take EVERY point to it's not so logical extreme) was that you do NOT have to be a lawyer (or law student) to effectively utilize the legal system, up to and including representing yourself against professional lawyers.
Lawyers certainly have their place... it's not however, as most of you would have us believe, a necessity to have your services to prevail in any legal context. In as much as the automotive oil industry would have us believe that changing our oil every 3000 miles is critical (which, BTW, sells a LOT more oil than is truly necessary), so too would the legal profession have us believe that we cannot manage our own legal affairs.
Liklihood of legal completion? (Score:5, Interesting)
What set of criteria do you feel must be present in a challenge to the DMCA that will give us our best hope of it being overturned, and do you feel your challenge meets these criteria?
Re:Liklihood of legal completion? (Score:2)
Seems like a very good strategy to me.
-S
Re:Liklihood of legal completion? (Score:2)
DMCA! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DMCA! (Score:2)
Website filter lists (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Website filter lists (Score:2, Insightful)
This is by far the most frightening aspect of website and SPAM filters. Institutional filters, like N2H2, serve only the political or righteous interests of those who employ them. How can naive rules about what is and isn't pornography, for example, actually accomplish anything good? This is no different than choosing which books to burn, which people to take off the air, or what topics newspapers can publish. Internet filters are censorship; there is no excuse that can change this fact. For this reason, we should question the motives of any organization that uses them.
Excellent. (Score:2, Funny)
I for one.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have asked it before and do it again. (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe I'm missing something but why the hell isn't the police busy searching all the napster clones and gnutella? No matter how much it's encrypted in the end you still connect to another machine and download the material so it IS traceable.
We are talking about several houndred thousands of people commiting crimes every day, why not trace them down and drag them to court? Why are new laws needed?
Re:I have asked it before and do it again. (Score:2)
The polatitions would have to spend the rest of tyhe time with their constituants and most would be away from the capital where all the parties and free lunch^W^W lobiests are.
Hell they might miss out on some jucy bri^H^H^H corperat hospitality.
Re:I have asked it before and do it again. (Score:2)
The real users of filtering? (Score:4, Insightful)
A. There are a few different problems with that argument. First is that the people who are buying the filtering are not, by and large, the people who are subject to the filtering. The person in a particular library who is buying the filter, for example, is likely the network administrator of the filter, probably a pretty savvy computer user who can figure out a way around the filter. If anyone can do it, it's the person who's in charge of putting it in. He's the expert in computers, after all. ... So the person who's making the decision is, oddly, not all that affected by the filter, as I think about it.
I thought the biggest users of filters were clueless parents who heard some horror story of the internet, bought a filter and installed it just so they could be 'hands-off' parents. Parents don't want the responsibilly of monitoring the net usage of their kid.
I think putting the computers where everyone can see them, and actually discussing! what's out there is a far better answer than filtering, which is trivial to get around for even the dumbest of kids/adults. Go to a friends house or other computer (unfiltered), download the QNX internet browser floppy disk [qnx.com] for instance.
Actually, unless OSS is filtered (Goddless heathens! Communists! Child Molesters!) you could do that right there.
Re:The real users of filtering? (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot the part about clueless parents telling their kids to install the software.
Older Brother: What password should we use?
Younger Brother: Fr33P0rn
Re:The real users of filtering? (Score:2, Insightful)
Even then, they're not really affected by the filter, because they can just enter a password to bypass it. Still, with state (and attempted federal) laws sometimes requiring the filters in certain places (such as libraries as he stated), and those places certainly seeing more users than the average home computer, it's likely that the libraries and similar places are among the biggest sources of income for the people creating and selling this software (not to mention that one good-sized library will buy more licenses than they're likely to sell to the home users of the neighborhood that library is in).
The big parts of the problem as specifically related to libraries are that:
1) the people using the library computers to access the internet may not have another way to gain access (though this also means they may not be very adept at determining whether or not the information they find is correct and/or useful)
2) public expectations of a library vary from one neighborhood to the next (in some areas it's quite possible that a certain level of censorship is not only practiced in a library, but also expected by the people that utilize that library)
3) many libraries do not have a really good computer staff, and therefore do not know how to manage the software well (to reduce overblocking and extend the filter to block unwanted sites), and even if they wanted more information, there's really not much information available until/unless you log complaints about overblocking / underblocking (and this goes for the parents trying to take the hands-off approach as well as libraries, schools, and other institutions)
Obviously, when it comes to parents and their kids, I believe that discussion is always the best answer for dealing with ethical and moral issues, as well as just dealing with any questions the kids may have (rather than dodging the issue), and that parents should be more aware of what their children are doing. Still, parents should be able to make informed decisions about this kind of software, and with laws preventing recovering the lists of blocked sites from these types of software (because of defeating encryption), and the software publishers/developers themselves unwilling to publish the information, they're being prevented from getting the information needed to really make an informed decision. This tends to leave them with either the option of overblocking (and underblocking) and possibly limiting their children (especially teen-agers) from important information that they may simply be uncomfortable discussing with their parents (and therefore may not discuss with their parents, especially if a piece of software their parents installed blocks them from the information), using other means to block them out entirely (which probably wouldn't be very effective since the kids usually know more about the computer than the parents eventually), or leaving it open and unmonitored.
Re:The real users of filtering? (Score:2)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
ummm no. I have NEVER met a computer expert that maintained the filters used at public libraries. they are NOT experts and even clued-in people that are carelessly throwing these terms out there are hurting the matter further.
If he wasa a computer expert it would be a server that was running a realy proxy/filter like Squid or the commercial counterpart. that allow you to block with PLAIN TEXT FILES and easily add/remove without having to reboot/etc...
No they are installing crap like net-nanny and the other low-quality/poorly written commercial software that has encrypted block lists to fight against their competition from stealing their list.... Why? because if it was up to the quality and speed of the actual software they would fall flat.
Besides, any law or government should be be required to use or try to use an OSS or free option that is not going to give any company an instant monopoly.
Re:The real users of filtering? (Score:2)
Sucks, but it happens.
Kintanon
It works the other way too (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, the filter is designed that way. If it allowed you to see the content and judge for yourself whether it should have been available, it wouldn't be working, would it?
Re:The real users of filtering? (Score:2)
Or, as I heard it put once, the parents buy the filter, but their children won't show them how to install it.
Re:The real users of filtering? (Score:2)
I DO have issues when filtering software goes onto publically funded computers, because that limits the scope of public discourse and inquiry into a field whose bounds are (secretly) maintained by a private entity. That's bad.
Computers at home or in an office setting can and should have whatever software the purchaser wants to put on them. Computers funded by the public, on the other hand, have a different set of requirements. Makes sense?
Best Defense is a Good Offense (Score:3, Insightful)
We need something that throws a spotlight on the huge potential of this law to do harm to fundamental freedoms that most people take for granted.
Suppose we could enlist the cooperation of one of the major book publishing houses to bring an offensive and egregious suit against a library (for example) that accuses the library of theft of so-called "intellectual property" by allowing people to consume their product without compensation to them as the copyright holder.
When the headlines start blaring about how the DMCA is being used to make libraries illegal then non-technical people might understand what's really wrong with this law.
IANAL (but lawyers are good, despite the corporate "tort reform" rhetoric intended to smear lawyers and limit our access to the only branch of government left that hasn't been closed to the citizens.)
Re:Best Defense is a Good Offense (Score:2)
1) If he does win any of his "$50,000 per incident" copyright infringement cases, and if the DMCA is later overturned, will he be required to pay back any "winnings"?? Or must the publishers then sue him to recover it?
2) He claims that while the first provision is junk, the other three major provisions are sound. But as I understand it, if ANY part of a law is deemed unconstitutional, the ENTIRE law is then overturned -- *unless* it has a severability clause, in which case only the part(s) deemed unconstitutional is done away with. Anyone here who has read all the find print remember if the DMCA *has* severability??
Hollywood, government, and academia (Score:3, Insightful)
It kinda reminds me of the situation when the NSA tried to stop academic cryptographers from continuing or publishing their results, slapping them with secrecy orders and citing national security concerns--however, they were beaten pretty soundly in court. Somehow, though, intellectual property seems more important to this government than national security. Say what you will, but the NSA had a much more legitimate interest in maintaining the breakability of codes than in protecting the rights of companies to obtain security through the combination of weak codes and obscurity.
In the end, the NSA's arguments were found to be less than compelling when it came to restricting academic freedom. It's shocking that Hollywood's interests are not patently irrelevent in the same arena.
It took a while for the courts and congress to stop being scared away from 'crypto anarchy' by NSA spooks, and to side with researchers. My hope for the current crisis is that these same bodies will stop being frightened off by the cries of doom and gloom from spookier spooks like Jack Valenti before academic (and even personal) research is further crippled in this country.
telekon
Hollywood's three leading products: Fear Uncertainty, and Doubt.
Any other geeky lawyers? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hold the phone... (Score:2, Interesting)
Websense does ... (Score:2, Interesting)
New acronym (Score:2, Funny)
Is there some way to contribute fund? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a rich man but i'd definately fork over us$40 towards such a fantastic and important cause.
Re:Is there some way to contribute fund? (Score:2)
Librarian of Congress vs DMCA (2000) (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that the Librarian of Congress reported a couple years back (as required by the DMCA) on specific exemptions to the DMCA that should be allowed. I believe two exemptions were recomended...
One of them was specifcally to allow decryption of the list of blocked sites in censorware packages. Has this researcher or the ACLU considered this before mounting their "challenge" to the DMCA?
Censorship (Score:2, Interesting)
A perfect case for open source (Score:2, Interesting)
And with that, they extracted from the CyberPatrol program a full and complete list of all the Web pages blocked by CyberPatrol. And they published it on the Internet ... The fact is, this has happened before, and I'm sure it's unpleasant for the filtering company. They'd rather not have this happen. But to say we're going to go out of business -- well, I don't know.
Well, it seems to me that although the companies can survive a "blip" such as the cited incident where a snapshot of their blocking list is published, I doubt they would survive if their lists were all forced permanently into the open.
It seems to me that these companies are selling the effort that's gone into compiling their lists, and compiling these lists is no doubt the bulk of their ongoing development costs. Any competent system administrator can block a list of sites at their proxy without purchasing this additional software, provided they have a list of URLs. Obviously then, it's this list of URLs and the organization/accuracy of said list that's really of value, not the blocking software itself.
Why should I spend money on them if I already have a list of sites I want blocked? I'll concede that I have never used third party blocking software, so I may be missing something here-- perhaps they also have real time filtration by context-filters rather than just "evil" URL lists.
So, yes, the companies have a lot to worry about--they could easily get pushed out of the market if their lists are forced public, but to me, this doesn't seem to me to be such a bad price to pay in the grand scheme. So what if a handful of people lose their jobs or get pushed into other areas. That's a small price to pay when you think about all the problems that open-source lists can solve. Errata or questionable blockages could be challenged and removed or re-categorized. A broader selection of blockage categories could be maintained (and selected from by parents/schoolboards/sys-admins who want to use a subset of the list). A vast army of concerned parents could be enlisted to help keep the list current by contributing new block candidates if there was a universal list.
Let the existing companies change their focus to develop more accurate context-filtration for when naughty bits get past the list, and leave the list to the global community, because the blockage list itself is an ideal case for open-source.
Re:He's a... (Score:2, Informative)
I was under the impression that Mr. Edelman was the plaintiff in this case.
(Following is a short excerpt from the article.)
Did you actually read the article? The above is from the second paragraph, for crying out loud.
No wonder you post anonymously.
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of these filtering programs use fairly simple (read: stupid) decision-making trees to determine whether a site is banned or not. Sure, it's real easy to see that most pr0n sites are banned, but guess what... they haven't gotten them all.
And quite frankly, with the idea of "government mandated" filtering software, as a tax-paying citizen, I should have the right to know what sites and/or topics will be banned should I decide to use any of the computers that have these filtering programs on them.
Kierthos
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, it brings me to tears to force a company to be accountable for it's actions. It produces a software that claims to filter web-sites. We cannot judge how accurate that claim is because of the DMCA. Therefore, as far as we, the consumer, knows, we are buying the program blind. And with government mandated filtering software, we're paying for it with our tax money. We deserve to know if that money is being spent effectively and productively.
Are libraries forced to provide lists of all the books they decided against carrying?
Been in a library much? All the ones around here, it's fairly easy to tell what they do and don't have. It's either listed in a card catalog or listed in a computer index (or both). If it's not listed, I go ask a librarian, and they can tell me whether they can get a copy through library-sharing programs. If they can't get a copy, guess what, they also tell me that. Therefore, a list can be generated, by brute force methods, if nothing else. Hell(tm), most libraries would probably be willing to provide lists of materials they never plan on acquiring, just to make things simpler for the people who would routinely ask. Your arguement lacks wang.
Fact of the matter is this. The filtering software promises to filter out "offensive" sites. However, because most filtering software does not easily allow the easy access to the criteria judging whether any given site is filtered, we have no idea whether it's doing a proper job, under-performing, or over-reacting.
While I don't like the idea of Johnny 4th-grader seeing pr0n from his school's computers, I also don't like the idea of those same children being "protected" falsely from sites that should not be filtered out because the designers of the software set the program up to filter out too much.
Kierthos
Re:Umm... (Score:2)
This would allow the slow process of unfiltering sites that the user should be able to access.
EFGearman