-----Original Message----- From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, May 4, 2007 06:42 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key
Because, if everyone else in the world is publishing it and linking to it, and we're running around worrying that the sky will fall if anyone breathes a mention of the Forbidden Number, we're going to look ridiculous. And rightly so, that -is- ridiculous.
We're going to look responsible. Most important, we're going to look like the mob is not in control.
Fred
On 04/05/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen@gmail.com]
Because, if everyone else in the world is publishing it and linking to it, and we're running around worrying that the sky will fall if anyone breathes a mention of the Forbidden Number, we're going to look ridiculous. And rightly so, that -is- ridiculous.
We're going to look responsible. Most important, we're going to look like the mob is not in control.
That's the biggest reason I want to wait a few weeks - to discourage the next wave of memespammers. Because you know this is going to happen again.
- d.
That's not responsibility. As reluctant as I am to use the word, that's caving to censorship. I'm 100% for curbing any attempts to spam the thing all over the place. We don't tolerate spamming campaigns, never have, never should. At the same time, the NYT, Wired, and the like are hardly "the mob". They're reliable sources that we cite across hundreds or probably thousands of articles. And "reliable sources are in control" is, if not stated that way specifically, fully in keeping with our core principles. The real mob (or, in this case, thug) here is the industry organization trying to prohibit mention of a number. The message we send if we cave is "Thugs are in control, if they're potentially big and nasty enough."
On 5/4/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, May 4, 2007 06:42 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key
Because, if everyone else in the world is publishing it and linking to it, and we're running around worrying that the sky will fall if anyone breathes a mention of the Forbidden Number, we're going to look ridiculous. And rightly so, that -is- ridiculous.
We're going to look responsible. Most important, we're going to look like the mob is not in control.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 5/4/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
The real mob (or, in this case, thug) here is the industry organization trying to prohibit mention of a number.
They would call it trying to prevent the distribution of part of a DRM circumvention mechanism. The number involved is largely irrelevant to them other than it's use in trace where the compromise in security took place.
All the "prohibit mention of a number" slogans in the world wont help you if the courts side with the MPAA. You want to fight DRM in this moronic way? Fine go ahead but on your own dime and legal risk.
The message we send if we cave is "Thugs are in control, if they're potentially big and nasty enough."
Pretty much. Summon a halfway credibale legal threat and the foundation folds. The only exception would be some bridgeman art library vs corel corp stuff. O RLY? owl, Jack Thompson, some kind of cross thing (although I'm pretty sure I ran across a copy of that on commons recently someone not paying attention) and the rest of [[WP:OFFICE]] stuff.
The foundation does not need legal bills. If we can dodge legal fights we should do so.
G'day geni,
The foundation does not need legal bills. If we can dodge legal fights we should do so.
I wouldn't go so far as to say we should *always* dodge legal fights if that option is available to us. A better philosophy would be: pick your battles.
There are battles that we will win, battles we should win, and battles we won't win. There are fights we must have, fights we should have, and fights that aren't worth having. At the moment, as many participants here and on-wiki have pointed out, this is a battle we should win; however, it's not a fight we should have.
Ultimately, publishing the key may be worthwhile, or it may not. Either way, it's not something we need to do now. It's not something anti-IP zealots can help by spamming, or indeed by doing anything that doesn't involve not being a zealot for at least a few seconds.
This is a problem --- or rather, a type of problem --- that we have encountered before on Wikipedia, many times. I would venture to suggest the problem is not unique to us, either. We see it on AfD. We see it with BLP issues. We see it in arguments about fair use. We probably see it in places I haven't been known to lurk, but I wouldn't know, not having lurked there.
Wikipedia attracts people who believe in Freedom. That's a Good Thing. I'm bang alongside Freedom all the way, baby. But the minute anyone suggests to such people that we should be responsible with our use of that Freedom --- whether it's "we don't need to risk a lawsuit just yet" or even just "let's approach our editorial decisions by what's best for this article" --- they run into a wall. On that wall is written, in letter fifteen feet high, "Fuck you! We're the greatest encyclopaedia in the world, and nobody is going to tell *us* what to publish! Freedom, baby, yeah!"
Who remembers the [[autofellatio]] image? Now, on Wikipedia there are people who believe that we are a family encyclopaedia and who will actively seek to censor sexuality-related topics, and who certainly don't want their favourite reference source graphically displaying men sucking their own penises (penii?). There is also a somewhat larger group of people who believe we are Defenders of Freedom, and if we shock a few wowsers, so much the better, and who cares if it's editorially necessary. But here's a shock: *neither* group are correct. The only group who matter are those who say: does this improve the article, and is this in the interests of the encyclopaedia? That's a question neither group was interested in answering then, or in similar arguments (lolicon).
Similar camps, with similar splits, occur in all these issues: the freedom-lovers and the wowsers, and neither group can be fully trusted. We aren't going to knuckle down to the interests of pressure groups, but neither are we going to tempt lawsuits. We are going to do what's best for each individual article, and for the encyclopaedia as a whole. If your ideology gets in the way of that, well: fuck you, too[0].
Is your interest in Wikipedia because you want to see it curtailed, censored, emasculated? Is your interest in Wikipedia because you want to fight the censors and see our encyclopaedia as the best battleground available to you? If you aren't here because you genuinely want to help build the world's greatest reference work, then that's fine --- we tend to take contributions from anyone, nutcase or no. But you'll have to excuse us if we don't knuckle down to your ideology, and I don't care whether it's pro- or anti-Freedom. Grow the fuck up and let us get on with our work without your constant fighting.
[0] I don't mean you, geni. I'm on a tear here.
On 5/5/07, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
We are going to do what's best for each individual article, and for the encyclopaedia as a whole. If your ideology gets in the way of that, well: fuck you, too[0].
...
[0] I don't mean you, geni. I'm on a tear here.
Maybe "fuck ye too?"
On 5/4/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, May 4, 2007 06:42 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key
Because, if everyone else in the world is publishing it and linking to it, and we're running around worrying that the sky will fall if anyone breathes a mention of the Forbidden Number, we're going to look ridiculous. And rightly so, that -is- ridiculous.
We're going to look responsible. Most important, we're going to look like the mob is not in control.
No, we're going to look ridiculous, humorless, and ignorant of the implications of the stated purpose of Wikipedia.
On 04/05/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
No, we're going to look ridiculous, humorless, and ignorant of the implications of the stated purpose of Wikipedia.
Ridiculous and humorless is fine. The ignorance of and denial about the implications of the stated purpose of Wikipedia (both "We're here to write an encyclopedia" and the Foundation stuff) in this thread is most disconcerting.
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
No, we're going to look ridiculous, humorless, and ignorant of the implications of the stated purpose of Wikipedia.
Ridiculous and humorless is fine. The ignorance of and denial about the implications of the stated purpose of Wikipedia (both "We're here to write an encyclopedia" and the Foundation stuff) in this thread is most disconcerting.
Just to point out, we're here to write a FREE encyclopedia. If it turns out the **AA goons are going to successfully sue into oblivion anyone distributing the encyclopedia, then there's a good argument the encyclopedia is no longer free.
That said, it hasn't been made clear yet which side the courts are going to take. And if I had to guess, my IANAL ass would guess the courts will side with the rights of an encyclopedia to engage in free speech so long as the focus remains academic in nature.
Then again, maybe it'll be legal to distribute "the number" in Wikipedia in a printed book, and illegal to distribute it electronically. Remember Bruce Schneier's book Applied Cryptography? Granted, a different law, but still...
Anthony
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Just to point out, we're here to write a FREE encyclopedia. If it turns out the **AA goons are going to successfully sue into oblivion anyone distributing the encyclopedia, then there's a good argument the encyclopedia is no longer free.
Look, don't be ridiculous. It's not the case that we're transitioning from a state where it would be legal for us to post anything we want to completely unrestricted, to one where suddenly there are now restrictions.
There have always been restrictions. We couldn't legally post Child Porn images to illustrate the article on it. We don't let people publish BLP libel or unfounded statements. We don't publish a life-size scan of a dollar bill on the Dollar page (it's about 1.5x "real size", presumably due to the size related restrictions). We don't have actual detailed nuclear bomb plans up on [[Nuclear weapon design]] article.
There have been no crusades to overturn those restrictions.
The fight over decrypt code was lost in the 2600 case [[Universal v. Reimerdes]], as offensive as that is to you and me and probably nearly everyone else here on-list. The Internet rather uniquely allows responsible organizations (who could be sued to death for statutory damages by the MPAA and others) to report accurately without the code, and for irresponsible organizations and individuals (for whom the statutory damages may hold little or no practical effect, as they have too little assets) to provide the DMCA-banned code anyways, and countries which don't recognize the DMCA to host the materials without even those restrictions.
We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.
Please don't oversimplify this to a white and black case.
On 04/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.
I think it's blindingly obvious that any serious attempt to do so would result in the destruction of the DMCA, not Wikipedia.
- d.
On 04/05/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.
I think it's blindingly obvious that any serious attempt to do so would result in the destruction of the DMCA, not Wikipedia.
Furthermore, from the article now at [[AACS encryption key controversy]]:
Lawyers and other representatives of the entertainment industry, including Michael Avery, an attorney for Toshiba Corporation, expressed surprise at Digg's decision, but suggested that a suit aimed at Digg might merely spread the information more widely. "If you try to stick up for what you have a legal right to do, and you're somewhat worse off because of it, that's an interesting concept." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-revolt3may03,0,1001452.story?page=2&am...
It appears to be the first time they've worked out that s00per DMCA powers might not be a good thing to throw around without a moment's thought.
Now, I'd like you to think what Wikipedia and Wikimedia could do in response should thugs with money really try such an odious attack on us for writing obviously and blatantly encyclopedic information in an article, such as naming the damn key in the article about the damn key.
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.
I think it's blindingly obvious that any serious attempt to do so would result in the destruction of the DMCA, not Wikipedia.
Furthermore, from the article now at [[AACS encryption key controversy]]:
Lawyers and other representatives of the entertainment industry, including Michael Avery, an attorney for Toshiba Corporation, expressed surprise at Digg's decision, but suggested that a suit aimed at Digg might merely spread the information more widely. "If you try to stick up for what you have a legal right to do, and you're somewhat worse off because of it, that's an interesting concept." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-revolt3may03,0,1001452.story?page=2&am...
It appears to be the first time they've worked out that s00per DMCA powers might not be a good thing to throw around without a moment's thought.
Now, I'd like you to think what Wikipedia and Wikimedia could do in response should thugs with money really try such an odious attack on us for writing obviously and blatantly encyclopedic information in an article, such as naming the damn key in the article about the damn key.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Find a nice Dutch webhost? (Which given this garbage, might not be a terrible idea anyway?)
On 04/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Find a nice Dutch webhost? (Which given this garbage, might not be a terrible idea anyway?)
Nope: just say "Here's an encyclopedic article. They're trying to suppress this. Have a look at them SUPPRESSING a NUMBER." Instant press disaster. Same reason the RIAA backed down from suing Ed Felten.
We may get crappy press about stupid vandalism to living bios, but that's completely irrelevant to this PR battle. on one side you have this (ultimately) nerdy and noble Internet encyclopedia that A THIRD OF ALL AMERICANS USE DAILY, not to mention *every* journalist I've spoken to about Wikipedia in the last year ... and on the other, you have widely despised thugs with money, trying to SUPPRESS a NUMBER.
The people posting to this list with the apparent impression that a DMCA notice sent to Wikimedia about the key would cause the site to be switched off an hour later or sent broke ... are being ridiculous. Completely and utterly clueless about how these things work in practice. If you feel I'm being unfair to you in saying that, please detail your experience, 'cos I bet I have way more than you do.
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Find a nice Dutch webhost? (Which given this garbage, might not be a terrible idea anyway?)
Nope: just say "Here's an encyclopedic article. They're trying to suppress this. Have a look at them SUPPRESSING a NUMBER." Instant press disaster.
I hope if this actually happens that the argument is better than pointing out the fact that this key can be expressed as a number. Because, anything which can be digitized can be expressed as a number.
Besides, if someone posted your telephone number and credit card number on Wikipedia, and the foundation refused to remove it, I bet you'd be pissed too.
Granted, I think this is different, because copying DVDs is a good thing while stealing stuff using credit card numbers is a bad thing, but from the POV of a large portion of the population piracy is actually a bad thing.
Anthony
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Find a nice Dutch webhost? (Which given this garbage, might not be a terrible idea anyway?)
Nope: just say "Here's an encyclopedic article. They're trying to suppress this. Have a look at them SUPPRESSING a NUMBER." Instant press disaster. Same reason the RIAA backed down from suing Ed Felten.
Given the number of take down notices sent and how bullish the MPAA is being about further legal action we would expect the kind of press already if it was going to happen.
We may get crappy press about stupid vandalism to living bios, but that's completely irrelevant to this PR battle. on one side you have this (ultimately) nerdy and noble Internet encyclopedia that A THIRD OF ALL AMERICANS USE DAILY, not to mention *every* journalist I've spoken to about Wikipedia in the last year ... and on the other, you have widely despised thugs with money, trying to SUPPRESS a NUMBER.
No trying to prevent the theft of movies that threatens the livelyhood and jobs of 1000s of people who own kittens.
See Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports yh MPAA (just be careful not to say what in the press release http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=586207&category=ARTS&...
An industry that is able to hide the suck in matix reloaded is unlikely to have significant problems outspinning us.
The people posting to this list with the apparent impression that a DMCA notice sent to Wikimedia about the key would cause the site to be switched off an hour later or sent broke ... are being ridiculous. Completely and utterly clueless about how these things work in practice. If you feel I'm being unfair to you in saying that, please detail your experience, 'cos I bet I have way more than you do.
Foundation would take down the code. If it didn't MPAA would be left with the option of appearing completely toothless or fighting in court. Yes it would take a few months and the sale of the wikipedia domain would probably cover the eventual judgement but the damage done would be significant.
On 04/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Nope: just say "Here's an encyclopedic article. They're trying to suppress this. Have a look at them SUPPRESSING a NUMBER." Instant press disaster. Same reason the RIAA backed down from suing Ed Felten.
Given the number of take down notices sent and how bullish the MPAA is being about further legal action we would expect the kind of press already if it was going to happen.
The number of takedown notices sent to Wikimedia is zero.
The number of takedown notices sent to the press for naming the key in their coverage is zero.
An industry that is able to hide the suck in matix reloaded is unlikely to have significant problems outspinning us.
Their customers despise them.
The people posting to this list with the apparent impression that a DMCA notice sent to Wikimedia about the key would cause the site to be switched off an hour later or sent broke ... are being ridiculous. Completely and utterly clueless about how these things work in practice. If you feel I'm being unfair to you in saying that, please detail your experience, 'cos I bet I have way more than you do.
Foundation would take down the code. If it didn't MPAA would be left with the option of appearing completely toothless or fighting in court. Yes it would take a few months and the sale of the wikipedia domain would probably cover the eventual judgement but the damage done would be significant.
You seem to be assuming that Wikipedia is powerless simply because we don't use our power.
Imagine a serious threat to Wikipedia, where our offence is displeasing thugs with money. Now imagine us mentioning the threat in the site notice.
That would be a not-quite-nuclear option. But the assumption that we are somehow required to fold like a tissue at the whisper of the possibility of a DMCA notice is ridiculous.
In all the thousands of words arguing this issue on Wikipedia, none have said it would actually be *unencyclopedic* to name the key in the article about the key controversy. The only objection has been that thugs with money wouldn't like it.
I seriously doubt us naming the key in the article about the key controversy would actually be illegal. Not unless and until we lost - up till that moment, it's academic and educational free speech.
We are ridiculously powerful just for doing the encyclopedic thing that we claim to be doing.
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The number of takedown notices sent to Wikimedia is zero.
Because while the number is in some edit histories it is not easy to find.
The number of takedown notices sent to the press for naming the key in their coverage is zero.
Well no that would be illogical if you are going to sue. The press have no safe harbour of any type so no need to for take down notices.
Their customers despise them.
Nah. Look at all the extras on DVDs. Brilliant community relations. Snakes on a plane may not have done so well but again brilliant community relations.
You seem to be assuming that Wikipedia is powerless simply because we don't use our power.
Imagine a serious threat to Wikipedia, where our offence is displeasing thugs with money. Now imagine us mentioning the threat in the site notice.
I understand that radio Caroline tried something similar. I understand it didn't work out too well. Internet radio has been trying that for weeks. No sign of a perminent reprieve. And that is in a situation where compramise is posible without complete capitulation from either side
I seriously doubt us naming the key in the article about the key controversy would actually be illegal. Not unless and until we lost - up till that moment, it's academic and educational free speech.
It is part technology, product, service, device or component for circumventing a technological protection measur
we can't use defence B because we are a nonprofit
C would be problimatical because it would be in an article about decrypting DVDs (if it was in an article about planetry distances we would have a better case).
We are ridiculously powerful just for doing the encyclopedic thing that we claim to be doing.
No we are not. So it goes in sitenotice. Wow we get meaningless internet protests and perhaps a few pro-bonon lawyers if we are luck. The MPAA can afford lawyers at least as good and after the SOAP mess know exactly how much internet buzz is worth in meatspace.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Find a nice Dutch webhost? (Which given this garbage, might not be a terrible idea anyway?)
Nope: just say "Here's an encyclopedic article. They're trying to suppress this. Have a look at them SUPPRESSING a NUMBER." Instant press disaster. Same reason the RIAA backed down from suing Ed Felten.
We may get crappy press about stupid vandalism to living bios, but that's completely irrelevant to this PR battle. on one side you have this (ultimately) nerdy and noble Internet encyclopedia that A THIRD OF ALL AMERICANS USE DAILY, not to mention *every* journalist I've spoken to about Wikipedia in the last year ... and on the other, you have widely despised thugs with money, trying to SUPPRESS a NUMBER.
The people posting to this list with the apparent impression that a DMCA notice sent to Wikimedia about the key would cause the site to be switched off an hour later or sent broke ... are being ridiculous. Completely and utterly clueless about how these things work in practice. If you feel I'm being unfair to you in saying that, please detail your experience, 'cos I bet I have way more than you do.
I know some EFF attorneys. After the 2600 decisions, they advised 2600 mag to take down the materials, and then the links after the followups. And they did. 2600 is still around, but doesn't link to code or keys in violation of DMCA.
If they immediately sued with the stated intent to take down Wikipedia the project, they'd end up with hugely bad press. But if they sued "to stop irresponsible people from breaking the law", and clearly stated that they wanted the encyclopedia project to go on but in a legal manner, they'd probably be in the clear in the court of public opinion.
This is the test case for the "Has the Board adequately protected the projects and trademarks from legal liability" questions raised on Foundation-L last week.
On 5/4/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Find a nice Dutch webhost? (Which given this garbage, might not be a terrible idea anyway?)
Dutch law has moral rights. Citaatrecht is rather more limited than fair use. Their legal code is writen in Dutch and is not based on common law. The significant legal presidents are writen in Dutch.
Then we have articles 137c and 137e of Dutch law and no equive of the 1st amendment
Oh and there may be issues with Dutch privacy law and the like.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Now, I'd like you to think what Wikipedia and Wikimedia could do in response should thugs with money really try such an odious attack on us for writing obviously and blatantly encyclopedic information in an article, such as naming the damn key in the article about the damn key.
You tell 'em David!
Yea! and those evil thugs at Microsoft! We'll name the darn windows source code in the article about windows source code leaks, and screw them if they think they can stop us! and screw those prudes in the federal government, we will illustrate our articles about child porn with gosh-darn genuine freshly raped pre-teens if we damn well please! And whats this BS about worry about spreading libel about some dude? We're in the US-fkin-A and there ain't no one that can take away our FREE SPEECH, heck S230 says that we're always immune from liability for distributing material published by others, and as far as I can tell it doesn't matter if we know it's wrong or not! So who cares if we say that the Pope likes little boys? He's probably a jerk anyways. Someone wrote it, it's interesting, and encyclopedic so we should print it! Anything less would be some communist censorship bullshit!
*ahem* .. Now that .. that.. is out of my system.
David please consider that societies have long compromised freedom in the absolute sense to make our lives livable. Some times, they get the balance wrong... sometimes very wrong, and I strongly believe as individuals we should fight against it when they do. But we must remember that for *any* rule there will be some people who believe that ignoring it is the righteous thing to do.
I see nothing in your argument which would allow us, as a community, to choose to ignore some of these laws but not others, other than a roll of the dice and luck of the draw regarding the moral compass of those who have come to the table on whatever day the matter is discussed. I believe the logical and neutral conclusion of the position that it is okay for our project to ignore some laws because some member feels it is righteous is that we should ignore any law whenever some member thinks it is righteous.
I for one am really appreciative that our actions are constrained by law. We have found an amazing decision making process in NPOV, one which allows people of diverse background and beliefs to come to a consensus. But NPOV doesn't help us make value judgements. Many important things DO require value judgments, and I do not see that we have any track record in handling such things well. At least with the constraints of law I can feel comfortable that at our worst our community will not decide to do anything too awful, because the value judgements that prevent such things have often been made for us by our societies and codified into law.
Sometimes the law is a pain, sometimes it is wrong. But someday it might be the law, and only the law, that is keeping us from doing something utterly terrible ... Some days I think we're already there. I hope you keep this in mind the next time you suggest we *should* ignore the law because you personally think it would be righteous to do so, and because you think we could leverage our PR might to get away with it.
On 04/05/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Sometimes the law is a pain, sometimes it is wrong. But someday it might be the law, and only the law, that is keeping us from doing something utterly terrible ... Some days I think we're already there. I hope you keep this in mind the next time you suggest we *should* ignore the law because you personally think it would be righteous to do so, and because you think we could leverage our PR might to get away with it.
I have yet to see an argument that quoting the key is actually illegal in and of itself, particularly given the counter-argument that naming the key in the article about the key would be blatantly academic and educational speech that it would be unconstitutional to suppress.
- d.
On 04/05/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Now, I'd like you to think what Wikipedia and Wikimedia could do in response should thugs with money really try such an odious attack on
You tell 'em David! Yea! and those evil thugs at Microsoft! We'll name the darn windows
[snip straw man]
Greg, I'm saying that we can do the obvious encyclopedic thing and likely have not a peep from the AACS LA once they spend a few weeks exhausting their ability to put the worms back in the can.
I gave an example off the top of my head of why we are far from being anywhere near as powerless as you seem to be assuming. Creative brainstorming on possible counterattacks would likely come up with an incredible variety. All of which could be absolutely and obviously in complete accordance with Wikipedia's mission to write an encyclopedia and Wikimedia's mission to do whatever's in [[m:Mission/Unstable]] today.
I don't consider a fight a good option. However, I don't consider that being unencyclopedic for fear of thugs is a necessary action to avoid a fight.
The mainstream of American don't give a hoot about Digg, but they have actually heard of Wikipedia and use it.
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
[snip straw man]
Greg, I'm saying that we can do the obvious encyclopedic thing and likely have not a peep from the AACS LA once they spend a few weeks exhausting their ability to put the worms back in the can.
I gave an example off the top of my head of why we are far from being anywhere near as powerless as you seem to be assuming.
Powerless? You misunderstand me entirely. We're not powerless. My view is quite to the contrary: I think we are often way more powerful than is justified by our maturity and level of responsibility. This was the entire purpose of my post.
We do have tremendous power. ... but it is equally a tremendous power to do wrong. There are many things which constrain our ability to do wrong. The law is one of them.
Our community might choose to ignore the law, but in doing so we would lose a useful tool which keeps our actions ethical.
[snip]
I don't consider a fight a good option. However, I don't consider that being unencyclopedic for fear of thugs is a necessary action to avoid a fight.
Unencyclopedic?
Please. We write about the Linux kernel without including the completely source-code, and yet we could manage to that that legally. ... The source code to the linux kernel is very informative.... Far more so than a completely opaque and totally randomly selected string of 256 random bits. Unless you try to decode a HDDVD you could not distinguish these numbers from any other random string.
Right now the only purpose these random numbers serve is to circumvent copy-protection. The trafficking of tools to achieve this purpose are specifically forbidden by law. Law which has been upheld in US federal court, and supported on appeal.
Perhaps you've got the enough chutzpah to stand in front of a judge and try to argue that our mission couldn't be accomplished by printing a part of the string (as we do to discuss the popular leaked windows license keys), by presenting a description (as we do for child pornography), or presenting a look alike (as we do to discuss the general concept of libel)... but I don't.
...If I was pulled into a court I'd have to give my honest view that our mission could be effectively accomplished without directly providing the previously-secret material needed to circumvent the AACS system.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I don't consider a fight a good option. However, I don't consider that being unencyclopedic for fear of thugs is a necessary action to avoid a fight.
Unencyclopedic?
Please. We write about the Linux kernel without including the completely source-code, and yet we could manage to that that legally.
That's almost entirely due to the fact that the source code is too long to usefully fit in an article; it's the same reason our articles on amendments to the U.S. Constitution include the entire text of the amendments verbatim, but our article on the U.S. Constitution itself doesn't include the entire text verbatim (we link to Wikisource for that instead, since it's too long). When stuff is shorter and relevant we pretty much always include it; plenty of our technical articles do in fact have executable code snippets.
-Mark
David Gerard wrote:
Lawyers and other representatives of the entertainment industry, including Michael Avery, an attorney for Toshiba Corporation, expressed surprise at Digg's decision, but suggested that a suit aimed at Digg might merely spread the information more widely. "If you try to stick up for what you have a legal right to do, and you're somewhat worse off because of it, that's an interesting concept." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-revolt3may03,0,1001452.story?page=2&am...
It appears to be the first time they've worked out that s00per DMCA powers might not be a good thing to throw around without a moment's thought.
This is a Eureka! moment for the industry. The little guy has always known that the costs of legally recovring for damages to the broken window caused bya a rock at the hand ot the neighbour's brat are always far more than the actual damage. Taking such issues to court are costly even if you win.
Ec
On 5/6/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
This is a Eureka! moment for the industry. The little guy has always known that the costs of legally recovring for damages to the broken window caused bya a rock at the hand ot the neighbour's brat are always far more than the actual damage. Taking such issues to court are costly even if you win.
Industry has known this for years. After all a fair number of those stones were thrown at company buildings.
In some cases this has lead to specialist industries. For most companies chasing up bad debts might not be worth it which why the debt buying industry is doing so well.
The big change is that previously the little guy couldn't hurt you very much. The kid cost you only one window one person failing to pay up wasn't a problem for big companies.
But now the little guy can so what do you do? Well you can try and make the little guy not want to hurt you but there doesn't appear to be a practical way to do that. You can try frightening the little guy but there are so many of the darn things that doesn't appear to work either.
Your final option is to reduce the cost of legal redress. There are various ways this could be done if you are prepared to accept a reduced win rate (and in the US with no loser pays system that is possible).
I *hate* "me - too" posts - but... what he said.
George has eloquently articulated what I've been feeling.
Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: George Herbert To: English Wikipedia Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:37 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Just to point out, we're here to write a FREE encyclopedia. If it turns out the **AA goons are going to successfully sue into oblivion anyone distributing the encyclopedia, then there's a good argument the encyclopedia is no longer free.
Look, don't be ridiculous. It's not the case that we're transitioning from a state where it would be legal for us to post anything we want to completely unrestricted, to one where suddenly there are now restrictions.
There have always been restrictions. We couldn't legally post Child Porn images to illustrate the article on it. We don't let people publish BLP libel or unfounded statements. We don't publish a life-size scan of a dollar bill on the Dollar page (it's about 1.5x "real size", presumably due to the size related restrictions). We don't have actual detailed nuclear bomb plans up on [[Nuclear weapon design]] article.
There have been no crusades to overturn those restrictions.
The fight over decrypt code was lost in the 2600 case [[Universal v. Reimerdes]], as offensive as that is to you and me and probably nearly everyone else here on-list. The Internet rather uniquely allows responsible organizations (who could be sued to death for statutory damages by the MPAA and others) to report accurately without the code, and for irresponsible organizations and individuals (for whom the statutory damages may hold little or no practical effect, as they have too little assets) to provide the DMCA-banned code anyways, and countries which don't recognize the DMCA to host the materials without even those restrictions.
We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.
Please don't oversimplify this to a white and black case.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 5/4/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Just to point out, we're here to write a FREE encyclopedia. If it turns out the **AA goons are going to successfully sue into oblivion anyone distributing the encyclopedia, then there's a good argument the encyclopedia is no longer free.
Look, don't be ridiculous. It's not the case that we're transitioning from a state where it would be legal for us to post anything we want to completely unrestricted, to one where suddenly there are now restrictions.
Look, don't call me ridiculous and then make a comment that has nothing to do with the quote you present.
There have always been restrictions. We couldn't legally post Child Porn images to illustrate the article on it. We don't let people publish BLP libel or unfounded statements. We don't publish a life-size scan of a dollar bill on the Dollar page (it's about 1.5x "real size", presumably due to the size related restrictions). We don't have actual detailed nuclear bomb plans up on [[Nuclear weapon design]] article.
There have been no crusades to overturn those restrictions.
Of course not, and there shouldn't be. You seem to be reading something into my post that isn't there.
We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.
Please don't oversimplify this to a white and black case.
Please retract that comment, as I have done no such thing.
Anthony still posing as wikilegal, because wikimail is still moderated.
After re-reading, I want to post a clarification - I quickly sent a "me too" post, while commenting that I hate them. I do, and this has demonstrated why. While agreeing with the general content of George's message, there are parts of it with which I do not agree, and I should have pointed that out clearly. I do not believe Anthony is being ridiculous - I believe he's arguing a point with which I do not agree. However, I don't think it's ridiculous. It was called to my attention that I may have endorsed that word, which I do not. I apologize to anyone whom I may have offended.
Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: George Herbert To: English Wikipedia Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:37 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Just to point out, we're here to write a FREE encyclopedia. If it turns out the **AA goons are going to successfully sue into oblivion anyone distributing the encyclopedia, then there's a good argument the encyclopedia is no longer free.
Look, don't be ridiculous. It's not the case that we're transitioning from a state where it would be legal for us to post anything we want to completely unrestricted, to one where suddenly there are now restrictions.
There have always been restrictions. We couldn't legally post Child Porn images to illustrate the article on it. We don't let people publish BLP libel or unfounded statements. We don't publish a life-size scan of a dollar bill on the Dollar page (it's about 1.5x "real size", presumably due to the size related restrictions). We don't have actual detailed nuclear bomb plans up on [[Nuclear weapon design]] article.
There have been no crusades to overturn those restrictions.
The fight over decrypt code was lost in the 2600 case [[Universal v. Reimerdes]], as offensive as that is to you and me and probably nearly everyone else here on-list. The Internet rather uniquely allows responsible organizations (who could be sued to death for statutory damages by the MPAA and others) to report accurately without the code, and for irresponsible organizations and individuals (for whom the statutory damages may hold little or no practical effect, as they have too little assets) to provide the DMCA-banned code anyways, and countries which don't recognize the DMCA to host the materials without even those restrictions.
We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.
Please don't oversimplify this to a white and black case.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to link back to pages that include infringing material? Or was that just for basic copyright status? If so, can we link to news sources that include the key?
Also, has any active lawyer weighed in on this legally, that we can go by? FWIW, I think if we have multiple RS reporting on the key itself, that we would be legally covered if we documented what they were reporting on. But I'm not an attorney.
On 04/05/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to link back to pages that include infringing material? Or was that just for basic copyright status? If so, can we link to news sources that include the key?
We do. See [[HD DVD encryption key controversy]]. "Several US-based news sources have run stories containing the key, quoting its use on Digg. [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] None are known to have received DMCA notices as a result."
Also, has any active lawyer weighed in on this legally, that we can go by?
Nope. The Foundation is Not Expressing An Opinion.
FWIW, I think if we have multiple RS reporting on the key itself, that we would be legally covered if we documented what they were reporting on. But I'm not an attorney.
I would think so too. And I'm not an attorney either, but I *am* someone with practical experience of putting up material that thugs with money don't want up [*]. And if they don't bring action against all those US news sources for reporting the key itself, and then bring an actual case when (not if) those news sources tell them to fuck off, and then win said case, they're fucked and we are *so* in the clear.
- d.
[*] Scientology wars. The stuff at our article [[Xenu]] - particularly the piece of L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting - got [[Dennis Erlich]] and [[Arnaldo Lerma]]'s houses raided by copyright police. This won't happen ever again because so many people rose up in abject disgust at such a thing occurring, including particularly [[David S. Touretzky]], who put up an academic treatment of it the Church of Scientology couldn't touch. Now, I'm not saying this will play out just like that - I think it'll be a lot quicker and easier to a win. But when I express an opinion in this thread, I'm speaking as someone who's been there, done that and watched up close as others have done it.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I would think so too. And I'm not an attorney either, but I *am* someone with practical experience of putting up material that thugs with money don't want up [*]. And if they don't bring action against all those US news sources for reporting the key itself, and then bring an actual case when (not if) those news sources tell them to fuck off, and then win said case, they're fucked and we are *so* in the clear.
I think this is the most succint view of it yet and the smartest way to go for the encyclopedias. Personally, my heart is saying "Paste it everywhere," but WP isn't everywhere for it's own internal rules/needs with this. I think it's only a matter of time till this just becomes another watered down farce anyway. Hell, the hex is even on ICANHASCHEEZBURGER. Look at the second post on 5/1:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/05/01/
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to link back to pages that include infringing material?
I don't think that has ever been decided in court one way or another. But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
On 04/05/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to link back to pages that include infringing material?
I don't think that has ever been decided in court one way or another. But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
2600 got hit by it. They haven't gone after anyone else linking to the stuff.
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to link back to pages that include infringing material?
I don't think that has ever been decided in court one way or another. But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
2600 got hit by it. They haven't gone after anyone else linking to the stuff.
Right, but the 2600 case established a precedent that the links are subject to the restrictions. And we can't reasonably plead ignorance about the 2600 case.
The real, really serious problem is that the post-2600 case intimidation seems to be failing. They're likely to lash out against a high-value target to try to re-establish the intimidation. Digg sort of set themselves up as that high-value target, but they might not be that limited.
We should keep the number out for the time being and do everything we can to support Digg if they file suit against Digg. Better them than us.
On 04/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
We should keep the number out for the time being and do everything we can to support Digg if they file suit against Digg. Better them than us.
Absolutely. Part of not having to fight involves putting the AACS in a position where they have to fight others in the intervening weeks or lose by default.
They have not brought DMCA notices against the press quoting the number at all, let alone won in court. I would be surprised and disappointed if Wired backed down in the face of a DMCA notice, for example. But we'll see.
- d.
On 04/05/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
They have not brought DMCA notices against the press quoting the number at all, let alone won in court. I would be surprised and disappointed if Wired backed down in the face of a DMCA notice, for example. But we'll see.
I should note that if they do bring DMCA notices against the press reportage (see the article or [[WP:09F9]]) then my entire bluster collapses^Wis put back probably three to six months.
- d.
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to link back to pages that include infringing material?
I don't think that has ever been decided in court one way or another. But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
It has. It's illegal if you knowingly do so for the purpose of disseminating the circumvention device.
See Universal studios and friends vs 2600, and the court of appeals ruling which upheld it.
At least some of the folks who have given the opinion that hosting the key material is illegal made their statements from reasoned and well considered positions.
On 5/4/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to link back to pages that include infringing material?
I don't think that has ever been decided in court one way or another. But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
It has. It's illegal if you knowingly do so for the purpose of disseminating the circumvention device.
See Universal studios and friends vs 2600, and the court of appeals ruling which upheld it.
The Court went on to hold that when the Defendants [2600, who had previously distributed DeCSS itself] "proclaimed on their own site that DeCSS could be had by clicking on the hyperlinks" on their site, they were trafficking in DeCSS, and therefore liable for their linking as well as their posting.
That's fairly narrow. It only applies to trafficking in cracking tools, and not to all "infringing material". And it is applied to a defendant who previously distributed the tools directly, and then later linked directly to the tools with a message essentially saying "download here".
It's still pretty damning though, especially wrt the current situation. And 2600 claims that all the lawyers they spoke too said they would probably lose a Supreme Court appeal on First Amendment grounds.
Anthony
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
That's fairly narrow. It only applies to trafficking in cracking tools, and not to all "infringing material". And it is applied to a defendant who previously distributed the tools directly, and then later linked directly to the tools with a message essentially saying "download here".
It applies not to 'cracking tools' in general but anti-circumvention devices as defined under the DMCA. The rulings are very interesting although they take some time to read. This isn't a simple matter to judge and a lot of time and thought went into these decisions.
I think you could make a reasonable argument that, for example, linking to the forbiddenstuff as an encyclopedia citation is not at all the same thing as what 2600 did. Specifically, the test outlined in the judgement requires the linking to be created with the intention of distributing the circumvention tool. The court was very concerned with the possible chilling effect of linking restrictions and attempted to avoid that.
On 04/05/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I think you could make a reasonable argument that, for example, linking to the forbiddenstuff as an encyclopedia citation is not at all the same thing as what 2600 did. Specifically, the test outlined in the judgement requires the linking to be created with the intention of distributing the circumvention tool. The court was very concerned with the possible chilling effect of linking restrictions and attempted to avoid that.
Yeah, precisely. An encyclopedia article talking about the circumvention tool is not supplying an actual circumvention tool. Knowing the 09 F9 string is not at all the same as being able to apply it.
I stress again I'm not enthusiastic for us to spend a penny fighting this at all. However, I am far from convinced we would lose, nor that quoting the number itself in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy would be an illegal act.
(It's in the article right now, by the way.)
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, precisely. An encyclopedia article talking about the circumvention tool is not supplying an actual circumvention tool. Knowing the 09 F9 string is not at all the same as being able to apply it.
The law prohibits the trafficking of components of circumvention devices/products/technology. The key is pretty clearly a component. Unlike CSS, AACS is mostly built from public algorithms.. it's is largely fairly standard parts...
However, I am far from convinced we would lose,
*sigh*. I give up.
From now on I'm going to make you deal with every case where someone
thinks we could get away with doing some unnecessary and illegal act X.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
However, I am far from convinced we would lose,
*sigh*. I give up.
From now on I'm going to make you deal with every case where someone thinks we could get away with doing some unnecessary and illegal act X.
The problem is that it's not at all clear that this act is illegal; it would only become clear if, say, _Wired_ were taken to court and lost. That's the crux of the dispute over whether we should include this information or not. As is the case with libel, there's a balance between wanting to avoid breaking the law on the one hand, and being so excessively cautious that we remove information that is both useful and legal to publish, on the other.
-Mark
On 5/4/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
The problem is that it's not at all clear that this act is illegal; it would only become clear if, say, _Wired_ were taken to court and lost.
Except... 2600 was already taken to court and lost. And and lost on the appeal... and where the fact of this instance differ from the prior case, I believe they all differ towards the direction of finding for AACS-LC. ... At least you could try to argue that decss served important research purposes.... but a simple opaque 256-bit random value?
That's the crux of the dispute over whether we should include this information or not. As is the case with libel, there's a balance between wanting to avoid breaking the law on the one hand, and being so excessively cautious that we remove information that is both useful and legal to publish, on the other.
The AACS key is not useful... except for an illegial purpose (the circumvention of the AACS protection system). If it were otherwise useful I'd see a significant amount of merit in your argument.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 5/4/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
The problem is that it's not at all clear that this act is illegal; it would only become clear if, say, _Wired_ were taken to court and lost.
Except... 2600 was already taken to court and lost. And and lost on the appeal... and where the fact of this instance differ from the prior case, I believe they all differ towards the direction of finding for AACS-LC. ... At least you could try to argue that decss served important research purposes.... but a simple opaque 256-bit random value?
The 2600 decision, according to the text of the decision, was almost entirely based on the fact that 2600 was explicitly "trafficking" in circumvention tools, since it was pretty much a "hey download this tool here!" type of link. The court took great pains to note that any sort of academic or educational discussion of circumvention tools would be protected. Basically 2600 didn't even pretend to have a veneer of academic discussion, so it was a completely different case; if _Wired_ were taken to court and lost, that would be much more similar to our situation. In fact in the years since the 2600 case, many dozens of people have published such keys and circumvention devices in academic and educational contexts, and none has lost a court case.
-Mark
On 04/05/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
The 2600 decision, according to the text of the decision, was almost entirely based on the fact that 2600 was explicitly "trafficking" in circumvention tools, since it was pretty much a "hey download this tool here!" type of link. The court took great pains to note that any sort of academic or educational discussion of circumvention tools would be protected. Basically 2600 didn't even pretend to have a veneer of academic discussion, so it was a completely different case; if _Wired_ were taken to court and lost, that would be much more similar to our situation. In fact in the years since the 2600 case, many dozens of people have published such keys and circumvention devices in academic and educational contexts, and none has lost a court case.
None has lost one - has any been put through one?
- d.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
The 2600 decision, according to the text of the decision, was almost entirely based on the fact that 2600 was explicitly "trafficking" in circumvention tools, since it was pretty much a "hey download this tool here!" type of link. The court took great pains to note that any sort of academic or educational discussion of circumvention tools would be protected. Basically 2600 didn't even pretend to have a veneer of academic discussion, so it was a completely different case; if _Wired_ were taken to court and lost, that would be much more similar to our situation. In fact in the years since the 2600 case, many dozens of people have published such keys and circumvention devices in academic and educational contexts, and none has lost a court case.
None has lost one - has any been put through one?
Not entirely; there have been DMCA related threats made to researchers, companies, conferences, and academic institutions. Those have resulted in pulled papers (most of which eventually were published in alternate manners), cancelled talks at conferences, etc.
It's a mixed bag. Neither side seems really interested in taking this all the way to a scorched-earth, win or lose case. MPAA has too much to lose attacking academics (their deep fear is losing a case which makes DMCA's tech bans unconstitutional, and academics have too many possible research-related defenses). They tend to try to intimidate but not push too far. Academics tend to publically talk that they're sure they'd never lose, but the stories you hear from their attorneys (and EFF attorneys, and such) are much more worried about the implications of outright losing one of these as well.
MPAA don't have such inhibitions against random people on the net; they're the people that they need to intimidate, and if they can't with the law, then they've lost.
MPAA seem to be cogniscent of the fact that RIAA have destroyed their industry's relationship with its consumer base, so they're being somewhat careful, but I think they realize that bandwidth availibility is enough to let people trade HD DVD movies en masse now and that if they don't win this fight now (legally or via effective intimidation) they're lost.
I just had Jay Adelson from digg and Fred von Lohmann from the EFF on CalacanisCast to discuss the issue: http://www.calacanis.com/2007/05/04/calacaniscast-26-beta/
First time the two have spoken!
best j --------------------- Jason McCabe Calacanis Entrepreneur in Action, Sequoia Capital Mobile: 310-456-4900 My blog: http://www.calacanis.com AOL IM/Skype: jasoncalacanis
If you want to subscribe to my Podcast go to iTunes and select "Advanced" then "Subscribe to Podcast" and add this feed: http://podcast.calacanis.com/rss.xml
... or just click this link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=204314545
David Gerard wrote:
On 04/05/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
The 2600 decision, according to the text of the decision, was almost entirely based on the fact that 2600 was explicitly "trafficking" in circumvention tools, since it was pretty much a "hey download this tool here!" type of link. The court took great pains to note that any sort of academic or educational discussion of circumvention tools would be protected. Basically 2600 didn't even pretend to have a veneer of academic discussion, so it was a completely different case; if _Wired_ were taken to court and lost, that would be much more similar to our situation. In fact in the years since the 2600 case, many dozens of people have published such keys and circumvention devices in academic and educational contexts, and none has lost a court case.
None has lost one - has any been put through one?
Not on DMCA grounds, to my knowledge. The RIAA, MPAA, DVD-CCA, and similar groups have been extremely afraid of bringing any more for fear of the 2600 case's chilling effects being weakened. The 2600 case was a best-case scenario for them: The party they were suing made no even half-assed attempt to be educational, explicitly and openly posted the tool *as* a circumvention device, and probably worst of all subtitled themselves "The Hacker Quarterly". Basically the only way to go with a follow-up case is down. The RIAA and SDMI did famously threaten [[Edward Felten]] with a lawsuit for publishing details on how to break SDMI, but rapidly backtracked so far that they ended up actually arguing in court that Felten *wasn't* violating the DMCA, to avoid the possibility of the DMCA being litigated.
A few cases on trade-secret grounds have been brought, with the defendents prevailing on the defense that something posted a million times on the internet cannot be a trade secret. Andrew Brunner is the most notable one of those.
-Mark
On 04/05/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
However, I am far from convinced we would lose,
*sigh*. I give up. From now on I'm going to make you deal with every case where someone thinks we could get away with doing some unnecessary and illegal act X.
OK! I'll say "No" a lot. "Not yet" is a good one too.
- d.
G'day Greg,
From now on I'm going to make you deal with every case where someone
thinks we could get away with doing some unnecessary and illegal act X.
Maybe we should have a swear jar. Every time you think you have a chance at convincing someone you're not anti-Freedom, you have to put 20c in the jar. That should pay for a few servers ...
On 5/4/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to
link back
to pages that include infringing material?
I don't think that has ever been decided in court one way or another. But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
It has. It's illegal if you knowingly do so for the purpose of disseminating the circumvention device.
The next important question then, I think, is would Wikipedia liable legally if they served a DMCA takedown, and we did take it down? If the answer is Yes, we'd be legally safe, then perhaps mentioning the string itself isn't a risk. Maybe. Beyond that, the liability for posting/reposting would fall to users and IPs that posted it?
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just curious. Isn't it a technical violation of US law/DMCA to
link back
to pages that include infringing material?
I don't think that has ever been decided in court one way or another. But someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
It has. It's illegal if you knowingly do so for the purpose of disseminating the circumvention device.
The next important question then, I think, is would Wikipedia liable legally if they served a DMCA takedown, and we did take it down? If the answer is Yes, we'd be legally safe, then perhaps mentioning the string itself isn't a risk. Maybe. Beyond that, the liability for posting/reposting would fall to users and IPs that posted it?
-- Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I think we're missing another question as well here.
What are they going to sue -for-?
The number's all over the net, and, by now, I'm sure it's on thousands to millions of people's own hard drives too. Suing for an injunction would be silly and pointless. Injunctions are granted for -relief-, the court could not in this case provide relief.
So that leaves damages. What damages? We didn't do it. We certainly can say "Look, we didn't damage you worth one nickel, this key was all over the place by the time we published it, and you had no hope in hell of recanning the worms long before we published it. We did you no harm. By the time we published your "secret", it had long since stopped being a secret."
On 5/4/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I think we're missing another question as well here.
What are they going to sue -for-?
To put the fear of the law into people (remember technically this can get into criminal territory as well as civil).
By taking legal action the MPAA would hope to make it very clear that such actions are illegal and make sure that in future big distributors stayed away from the whole thing to avoiding similar legal repercussions.
On 04/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I think we're missing another question as well here. What are they going to sue -for-?
To put the fear of the law into people (remember technically this can get into criminal territory as well as civil).
I am cognizant of the fact that we are not actually dealing with rational actors here. They have the corporate equivalent of batshit crazy right now because their *one dream* has been revealed to be snake oil yet again. They're angry, in denial and blaming and lashing out at everyone in the world except themselves. That's another reason I want to wait a few weeks so that someone else can spend the effort to deal them the smackdown if they don't back down.
- d.
As every day goes by the absurdity of trying to take down a reference to material already known to every person on earth capable of utilizing the information becomes more and more absurd, and we may already be at that point. Whatever we may have in wikipedia from this point on does not actually contribute to the circumvention of the protection -- and it never really did even at the beginning.
At this point deleting the information would also been the removal of it from numerous mailing lists, internet archives, mirrors, news sites, etc etc., and there would be no way of preventing people from other countries from posting it again and again, without filtering the internet to the extent that some other countries do. The comparison with China will not escape people. The moment some conventionally printed source reprints some of these exchanges will mark the end of even that.
The information is also within the capacity of most humans to memorize. cf. Fahrenheit 451. DGG
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I think we're missing another question as well here. What are they going to sue -for-?
To put the fear of the law into people (remember technically this can get into criminal territory as well as civil).
I am cognizant of the fact that we are not actually dealing with rational actors here. They have the corporate equivalent of batshit crazy right now because their *one dream* has been revealed to be snake oil yet again. They're angry, in denial and blaming and lashing out at everyone in the world except themselves. That's another reason I want to wait a few weeks so that someone else can spend the effort to deal them the smackdown if they don't back down.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I'm sorry to be blunt...but this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HD_DVD_Night_Digg_Frontpage_Screenshot_be...
is beyond pathetic.
On 5/4/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
As every day goes by the absurdity of trying to take down a reference to material already known to every person on earth capable of utilizing the information becomes more and more absurd, and we may already be at that point. Whatever we may have in wikipedia from this point on does not actually contribute to the circumvention of the protection -- and it never really did even at the beginning.
At this point deleting the information would also been the removal of it from numerous mailing lists, internet archives, mirrors, news sites, etc etc., and there would be no way of preventing people from other countries from posting it again and again, without filtering the internet to the extent that some other countries do. The comparison with China will not escape people. The moment some conventionally printed source reprints some of these exchanges will mark the end of even that.
The information is also within the capacity of most humans to memorize. cf. Fahrenheit 451. DGG
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/4/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I think we're missing another question as well here. What are they going to sue -for-?
To put the fear of the law into people (remember technically this can get into criminal territory as well as civil).
I am cognizant of the fact that we are not actually dealing with rational actors here. They have the corporate equivalent of batshit crazy right now because their *one dream* has been revealed to be snake oil yet again. They're angry, in denial and blaming and lashing out at everyone in the world except themselves. That's another reason I want to wait a few weeks so that someone else can spend the effort to deal them the smackdown if they don't back down.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 5/4/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry to be blunt...but this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HD_DVD_Night_Digg_Frontpage_Screenshot_be...
is beyond pathetic.
Eh? looks like a fairly good bit of propaganda to me.
Todd Allen wrote:
I'm sorry to be blunt...but this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HD_DVD_Night_Digg_Frontpage_Screenshot_be...
is beyond pathetic.
I'm hoping someone's got an uncensored version stashed away to post in the eventuality that mentioning the forbidden number becomes okay.
On 05/05/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I'm hoping someone's got an uncensored version stashed away to post in the eventuality that mentioning the forbidden number becomes okay.
Considering that everyone and his uncle (and his uncle's dog) now knows what the key is, "recovering" the blacked-out parts of the image will hardly be a difficult task....
Earle Martin wrote:
On 05/05/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I'm hoping someone's got an uncensored version stashed away to post in the eventuality that mentioning the forbidden number becomes okay.
Considering that everyone and his uncle (and his uncle's dog) now knows what the key is, "recovering" the blacked-out parts of the image will hardly be a difficult task....
An uncensored version was up for a while, and even though it's now been deleted it should be possible to undelete fairly easily if the number becomes less radioactive. So I'm satisfied.
On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I am cognizant of the fact that we are not actually dealing with rational actors here.
We don't know what we are dealing with. I strongly suspect the MPAA are not certian what they will do yet. I expect we will find out after the weekend.
They have the corporate equivalent of batshit crazy right now because their *one dream* has been revealed to be snake oil yet again.
Not at all. They still have an untried encrption method on blu ray and the HD-DVD system was built on the assumption that it was posible some of the keys would be descovered. What they appear to be unhappy about is the blatent flouting of the law that is meant to offer some protection. Aditionaly they must know if they don't fight this time it will be imposible to do so in future. Thus the stakes are increased.
Look at EMI's recent rethink. That rethink only makes sense if you assume that most people are on some level law abideing. What MPAA are seeing now is a large number are not (or outside the US although for certian people I understand that ammounts to the same thing).
On 5/4/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
The next important question then, I think, is would Wikipedia liable legally if they served a DMCA takedown, and we did take it down? If the answer is Yes, we'd be legally safe, then perhaps mentioning the string itself isn't a risk. Maybe. Beyond that, the liability for posting/reposting would fall to users and IPs that posted it?
There is no DMCA takedown in this context. "DMCA takedown" refers to the notice/takedown procedure in the OCILLA. The OCILLA is one component of a bundle of distinct laws passed at the same time under the banner of the DMCA. Circumvention devices are illegal under the WIPO implementation act. There is no takedown procedure. No notice procedure. No and service provider safe harbor.
However, you are required to know that the technology, product, component, etc that you are distributing is intended for circumvention or that it otherwise has no other commercially significant purpose.
So... we /should/ be safe for the stuff we don't know about... But beyond that, there isn't a get out of jail free card here like there is for copyright infringement.