Stage 6, recently linked in a popular FPP, has announced it will shut down today. Rumors about why include their battle against UMG to a "ridiculous battle of egos."
posted by Avenger50 on Feb 28, 2008 - 13 comments

Gonzales pushes plan to criminalize copyright infringement, making it punishable by life imprisonment; to increase wiretaps; and to require Homeland Security to notify the RIAA in certain circumstances. "To meet the global challenges of IP crime." I'd comment on this, but I'm afraid that someone might think I was copying someone else. The Intellectual Property Protection Act (official press release) appeared previously in a speech (2005) and as a draft (2006) - now the Justice department is pushing Congress to bring it forward. [newsfilter]
posted by blacklite on May 15, 2007 - 59 comments

The USA playing global sheriff isn't new, but the reach of US laws is extending. Hew Griffiths isn't a terrorist or a violent criminal, he didn't even make any money from his crime. He pirated some software, from his home in Australia. So why is he in jail in Virginia? Some think we might as well join 'em.
posted by bystander on May 8, 2007 - 55 comments

"Dear Internet, I'm Sorry..." Meet Michael Crook, being billed as "the most hated man on the internet". First coming in to view when taking a really bad idea to it's ridiculous extreme, he appears on Fox's Hannity & Colmes to lambast members of the military for being "worthless pukes" and whining about their compensation. One site decides to give him a taste of his own medicine, which he clearly didn't like.
posted by revmitcz on Mar 15, 2007 - 40 comments

New Zealand may soon implement legislation very similar to the DMCA , if the latest draft of the Copyright Amendment Bill is passed. It would appear that the New Zealand government is about to make the same mistake made by the USA several years ago. Most specifically, they propose:

[To] introduce an offence (carrying a sentence of a fine not exceeding $150,000 or a term of imprisonment of up to 5 years, or both) for commercial dealing in devices, services, or information designed to circumvent technological protection measures

Her contact details are available online. We have a small window of opportunity to point out the problems and unintended consequences with similar legislation in other countries, and hopefully circumvent the same problems in New Zealand.
posted by pivotal on Dec 6, 2006 - 17 comments

A PORTION OF THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN REMOVED Not only did CNN edit out a portion of the Larry King Live show from last night for the west coast and later showings, they also edited their transcripts and have sent DMCA takedown notices for the copies on youtube. What was so controversial? Just Bill Maher claiming that Ken Mehlman is gay, something Mehlman neither confirms nor denies.
posted by delmoi on Nov 9, 2006 - 115 comments

It's over. YouTube is taking down Daily Show and Colbert Report clips.
posted by mullingitover on Oct 27, 2006 - 86 comments

How to copy records.
posted by 31d1 on May 17, 2006 - 25 comments

The new DMCA: the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.
posted by beth on Apr 26, 2006 - 36 comments

Judge: Stealing a password does not constitute hacking. David Egilman is a highly-regarded expert in occupational medicine; he was the plaintiff's witness in a recent $253-million verdict in Texas against Vioxx. After two opposing law firms stole a password to his private website containing confidential information for his clients and students, he sued them under the DMCA. He lost.
posted by docgonzo on Dec 14, 2005 - 50 comments

In a sardonic new editorial, the Register asks whether the EFF is harming the very causes that it's supposedly fighting for. This isn't coming out of left field. The EFF has lost numerous cases that could have been won, and in doing so is helping to creating precedents that make fights for civil liberties harder to wage.
posted by bshort on Dec 6, 2005 - 35 comments

Blackhat Search Engine Optimization Techniques. Through the use of a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) complaint, you can have competing web sites thrown out of Yahoo's search index. If you file a DMCA report against a site, Yahoo will quickly remove the "offending" site, leaving no trace of the site in its index. This has led to a rise in so-called "Blackhat SEO," wherein one seeks to become the leading search result not by improving one's own site, but by having competing sites removed through the DMCA.
posted by nlindstrom on Jul 12, 2005 - 15 comments

Endangered Gizmos via the EFF (warning, they do want your money to continue fighting "to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.")
Lawsuits have driven some excellent consumer products into extinction, like the ReplayTV 4000, DVD X Copy and the lamented wild and crazy Napster 1.0 including what drove them into extinction. They also list endangered gizmos like the HD TV PCI Card, Morpheus and Generic FireWire, open Wifi hot spots and CD burners.
Among the "saved" gizmos is the Skylink garage door opener which had been attacked under the DMCA.
posted by fenriq on Feb 8, 2005 - 5 comments

A google search for kazaa lite now yields the following disclaimer (scroll to the bottom of the results page): In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 9 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.
posted by totee on Sep 2, 2003 - 35 comments

SecurityFocus is talking about Niels Provos, a graduate student well known for his work in steganography and for creating the honeyd program, having to move his research for his PhD from his U of Michigan homepage to a server in the Netherlands and keep U.S. citizens from viewing the information. Why? Because the state of Michigan passed their version of DMCA. I can see the routers and firewall software piling up in the trash.
posted by memnock on Apr 15, 2003 - 10 comments

Rep. Zoe Lofgren's BALANCE act attempts to protect "Fair Use" rights from harmful legislation like the DMCA. Some related links: [summary] [whats wrong with the DMCA?]
posted by skallas on Mar 7, 2003 - 4 comments

SomaFM is back on the air after a hiatus, courtesy the DMCA and Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP).
posted by plexi on Jan 6, 2003 - 13 comments

Dow Chemical takes over a parody site Long time reader, first time poster... So what's the lesson learned here? If you make a parody, don't register your domain with a faked name?
posted by mhh5 on Dec 29, 2002 - 18 comments

Black Friday. The meaning of which brings either joy, bewilderment or disgust. Several retailers have sent DMCA notices to several deal hunting sites forcing them to remove any ads or information that reveal any specials that will be offered. WTF!? What other inane uses will the DMCA be used for?
posted by the biscuit man on Nov 21, 2002 - 17 comments

Let your voice be heard. The Copyright Office is Taking Comments On The DMCA, starting today. You can read the law as a PDF Here. They are requesting written comments from all interested parties, including representatives of copyright owners, educational institutions, libraries and archives, scholars, researchers and members of the public, in order to elicit evidence on whether noninfringing uses of certain classes of works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected by this prohibition on the circumvention of measures that control access to copyrighted works.
posted by Blake on Nov 19, 2002 - 26 comments

The Free World is a resource for hosting all kinds of useful information: security information, cryptographic research, programs for the manipulation of patented or reverse engineered data formats (never mind that only processes can be patented and data format patents aren't legal in the first place) and possibly reverse engineering tools. One problem though. If you are a citizen of the USA, or under the jurisdiction of the USA, the license forbids you access. Why? The DCMA.
posted by salmacis on Oct 16, 2002 - 3 comments

Ever wonder who collects information on DMCA violations?
posted by anathema on Sep 20, 2002 - 8 comments

Apple doesn't seem to think the DMCA bites Apple is using their interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent third party dealers from providing software to Apple users enabling them to burn DVDs on external drives. They have no problem with them burning DVDs on Apple drives, naturally. And to think I was just about to switch, too. Um, yeah.
posted by John Smallberries on Aug 29, 2002 - 38 comments

Ever downloaded an episode of a tv show through gnutella or other P2P means? The MPAA may be on the lookout for you.
posted by mathowie on Jul 10, 2002 - 20 comments

The Big Book of Sign Language (from rotten.com). Have you ever wondered how to sign phrases such as "I shovel shit all day long", "I want to pull the shrieking voices from my head and smoosh them", and "Unlock my legs and get it over with"? The Big Book shows you how. Inappropriate? Yes. Hysterical? Yes. (Portions may not be safe for work. Link via Magnetbox. Thanks, ben.)
posted by moz on Jul 9, 2002 - 29 comments

When stupid laws attack: this article points out that the widely syndicated article about thwarting the copy protection of sony's CDs is a direct violation of the DMCA. Will news directors at Reuters, Yahoo, and CNN be seeing fines and jail time soon? How many times does it have to be pointed out that the DMCA restricts free speech as it attempts to thwart piracy at any cost? (via k5)
posted by mathowie on May 24, 2002 - 10 comments

U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher On Why The DMCA Sucks
News.com has a Great Editorial by Rick Boucher who says traditional "fair use" rights are at the foundation of the receipt and use of information by the American people, and those rights are now under attack.
He goes on to say Congress agreed to a fundamentally flawed bill, which created the new crime of circumvention--a crime divorced from over a century and a half of respect for the fair-use rights of consumers. The DMCA, as enacted, quite clearly tilted the balance in the Copyright Act toward complete protection and away from information availability.

"Consider the implications. A time may soon come when what is available for free on library shelves will only be available on a pay-per-use basis. It would be a simple matter for a copyright owner to impose a requirement that a small fee be paid each time a digital book or video documentary is accessed by a library patron. Even the student who wants even the most basic access to only a portion of the book to write a term paper would have to pay to avoid committing a crime."

posted by Blake on Jan 29, 2002 - 14 comments

Sony gets on the DMCA train. Earth to Sony: creating an SDK or an API would be cheaper than lawyers, and not look as horribly militant.
posted by machaus on Nov 2, 2001 - 5 comments

Hackers win round one! Feel free to post DeCSS to this thread; it is no longer illegal.
What, if anything, does this mean to the movie industry?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger on Nov 2, 2001 - 15 comments

Music biz wants tougher DMCA "If the RIAA gets its way, ISPs will be as guilty of copyright violation as their subscribers. "Because of the magnitude of the problem, ISPs can no longer be shielded from the wrath of the law," shrieked Rosen righteously."
posted by Mick on Oct 8, 2001 - 23 comments

A quick break from all the WTC stuff... Considering the recent events, it's probably been overlooked. Canada is proposing a Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues which is similar to the DMCA in the US. All comments on it have to be received by Sept. 15th. You can read the EFF Alert, for more information.
posted by Jairus on Sep 14, 2001 - 2 comments

DMCA: It's not just for software pirates and movie traders anymore. [salon link, sorry] Don't like what a web site is saying about your company and its investors? Cry copyright wolf and the site goes down, no questions asked.
posted by darukaru on Sep 4, 2001 - 10 comments

The first indictment under the DMCA could imprison Sklyarov for 25 years. Adobe and the US's plan to put the fear of the DMCA into the hearts of billions is going according to plan.
posted by skallas on Aug 28, 2001 - 12 comments

Scary story about how the MPAA wields it's bought and paid-for DMCA. (via slashdot)
posted by skallas on Aug 23, 2001 - 8 comments

This NYT article on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), written by Prof. Lawrence Lessig (author of an excellent book on copyright law and policy in the digital age), raises concerns that were academic prior to the recent arrest of a Russian software programmer at a Las Vegas computer security convention for violation of the act's Sec. 1201(a)(1)(A)'s anticircumvention provision. Is Lessig right that Sec. 1201 essentially makes coders (and their employers) into de facto lawmakers and, if so, is this a bad thing? If Sec. 1201 is bad policy, are there any more reasonable alternatives for effectively protecting access to software and/or providing negative incentives for the unauthorized use of software? (NYT article, registration required)
posted by estopped on Jul 30, 2001 - 16 comments

The DMCA, a flawed law responsible for such things as the lawsuit against 2600 and adobe's attempt to prosecute Dmitry Sklyarov is spreading! Canada is starting hearings into its own version of the US's DMCA! Where will all this end? Via /.
posted by bytecode on Jul 28, 2001 - 5 comments

The Digital Millenium Rape Act.
posted by Kikkoman on Jul 25, 2001 - 16 comments

Adobe backs down, Dmitry left on the hook. They dropped all charges against Dmitry, but the Justice Department may not.
posted by Kikkoman on Jul 23, 2001 - 1 comment

A Russian security expert has been arrested for showing how easy it is to crack an e-book. All hail the DMCA! Some information is just Too Dangerous to be Revealed! (See also wildly detailed coverage, including the affidavit, from Planet eBook.)
posted by davidchess on Jul 18, 2001 - 6 comments

Napster to Use "Fingerprinting" Technology to help it filter out copyrighted songs. "There are many technological challenges.'' That's putting it lightly. How badly would this slow down their system if they could even get it to work?
posted by Outlawyr on Apr 21, 2001 - 10 comments

Free as Air, Free as Water, Free as Knowledge : is my favorite link to quote people these days. I like especially the references to Ben Franklin. How do we resolve the problem of fair use in a market driven world? Dan Gillmor's latest column, which calls for people to get active on the issue of fair use, brought the speech once again to mind.
posted by artlung on Apr 8, 2001 - 12 comments

Scientology Strikes Again Last Saturday a comment was posted on Slashdot by an anonymous reader that contained text that was copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. They have since followed the DMCA and demanded that Slashdot remove the comment. After consulting with their lawyers, that's exactly what Slashdot did, but posted the above page with oodles of links to anti-Scientology resources. Will Scientology stop at nothing to silence its opponents?
posted by yarf on Mar 16, 2001 - 21 comments

Ok... let me get this straight. copyright.net has turned loose a tapeworm, called CopyrightAgent, that crawls around on your computer without your permission, looking for copyrighted MP3 files. If it find them, it reports back your IP address, and they have Napster block you, if you're a Napster user. Otherwise, they contact your ISP, and have *them* block you under the DMCA.

And the first I heard about this was a Knight-Ridder wire story in my local paper?? Why the hell hasn't the Internet reacted by burning these people's offices (or uplink :-) to the ground?
posted by baylink on Mar 3, 2001 - 20 comments

The Dubya Administration backs the lawsuit against distributing or linking to the DeCSS utility. What's next?
posted by quirked on Feb 23, 2001 - 15 comments

Wired News reports on the upcoming DMCA review. Via Linux Weekly News: "When music is streamed, webcasters are required to pay a performance royalty. In order to generate smooth playback of incoming streams, computers temporarily store some of the data in memory in a RAM buffer. Music publishers have stated that the data in this buffer should be considered a physical creation that would require webcasters to pay a mechanical royalty, similar to what they pay for downloads or CDs." Anyone need any more on that? Time to get your congressman on the phone...
posted by baylink on Nov 30, 2000 - 3 comments

Microsoft does it, again.
The company you love to hate is at it again, this time attacking Slashdot users. Does MS really not get it this bad? I can't belive it...
ps. The Slashdot server seems to be slashdotted itself.
posted by jedrek on May 11, 2000 - 24 comments

Napster throws Metallica a curveball. Napster has been pointing out to its kicked-off users a certain provision of the DMCA: If an ISP kicks a user off a service for violating copyright, that user may file a counternotification if they believe they were wrongly accused. The plaintiff (Metallica) then has 10 days to respond with a lawsuit directly against that user. If they choose not to respond, the ISP must restore the account. If enough users (among the 300,000 blocked) file counternotifications, Metallica may wish it had never begun this process.
posted by daveadams on May 11, 2000 - 12 comments