ACLU Files New DMCA Challenge

joeblowme writes "Finally, someone is stepping up to the plate to challenge the DMCA. The ACLU is filing a lawsuit on behalf of a 22-year-old programmer claiming that the law hinders the ability to effectively test internet filtering software. The story can be found here at CNet. Hopefully this will lead to one victory in reducing the scope of the DMCA." The ACLU's press release is available, as is their complaint.

Test internet filtering software?

[SpanishInquisition]

You mean that guy is paid to download porn all day?

Re:Test internet filtering software?

[SquadBoy]

Funny story from my old ISP days. I was a night tech support supervisor. (My first techie job) One of the services we sold was a porn filter. Well we would get cranks who would "test" the filters and send in list after list of sites they got to. Well we in tech support knew the whole thing was bunk and it is impossible to block everything but management wanted us to verify the filters anyway. So long story short we would get list after list of porn sites and asked to make sure that we could get to them through the filter. I would use the porn lists as a reward for doing things the techs did not like to do, for example doing callbacks. So yea we where paid to surf for porn at least part of the night. :)

Hilarious but true...

[catseye]

Several years ago (pre dot-bomb), I had a friend who worked in Cupertino at Spyglass Software, makers of SurfWatch. While she had a variety of duties, her primary job was to review site-block requests sent in from SurfWatch users, and as time permitted, web surf looking for sites not accounted for in the SurfWatch "blocked" database. She'd sometimes spend four or five hours a day looking primarily for new XXX sites.

I remember she said it was bizarre to walk into an office where everyone was hard at work with hardcore pr0n on their screens.

err, I suppose that was an unforgivable pun. ;-)

-A.

What's the diff???

[Pig Hogger]

"I don't want to go to jail," said Edelman, who graduated from Harvard in June, and who plans to study law there this fall. "I want to go to law school."

So, what's the difference???

But if they win...

[rbgaynor]

...couldn't the lawsuit be considered a circumvention device?

Re:Test internet filtering software?

[Anonvmous Coward]

Hmm I can't imagine getting the full benefit of that from work. I'd be too shy to fully appreciate the porn around other guys. Ahem.

just that much more I have to scroll though

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh goodness me! You have to push the wheel on your mouse two or three more times to get past a posted article. Poor, poor baby!

Someone stop the planet. If there are people like this here, I want to leave.

Which NAMBLA are you talking about?

[yerricde]

Don't you mean NAMBLA?

Before taking up this DMCA case, which NAMBLA organization did the ACLU defend?

• North American Man-Boy Love Association [nambla1.de]?
• Narional Association of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes [geocities.com]?

Re:I did, once

[MAXOMENOS]

I give money to ACLU, Planned Parenthood, EFF and NRA. Of those, the only one *not* to hound me for more and more money was EFF. I get bombarded by appeals for money, not just from these guys, but from other groups that think I might be interested in their causes.

You know what I do with all that crap? I recycle it.

Side note: sometimes the appeals for money get interesting, and I can only assume that the people who send me such solicitations haven't done their homework. Once I got a solicitation from Handgun Control Inc. I was tempted to send them a photograph of my NRA member card and an extended middle finger, but my maturity got the better of me.