Posts
From: editor@eff.org
Subject: EFFector 18.32: Don't Let Congress Ignore the Broadcast Treaty!
Date: September 23, 2005 3:22:42 PM EDT
To: agalma@socrates.berkeley.edu
Reply-To: editor@eff.org
EFFector Vol. 18, No. 32 September 23, 2005 donna@eff.org
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
ISSN 1062-9424
In the 348th Issue of EFFector:
* Action Alert: Don't Let Congress Ignore the Broadcast
Treaty!
* Google's Card Catalog Should Be Left Open
* EFF Hosts 15th Anniversary Party, October 2
* Election Reform Commission Urges Secure E-voting
* EFF, Florida Disability Rights Advocates Fight to Avert
E-voting Debacle
* EFF in Canada: Protect Your Northern Rights!
* CopyNight Reminder: Cocktails & Copyright, September 27
* miniLinks (10): Hollywood to Waste $30 Million Believing
It Can Build Better Copy Protection
* Staff Calendar: 09.24.05 - 09.25.05 - Annalee Newitz
emcees Webzine 2005, San Francisco, CA; 09.25.05 - Jason
Schultz speaks at ResFest, San Francisco, CA; 10.02.05 -
EFF hosts 15th Anniversary Party, San Francisco, CA
* Administrivia
For more information on EFF activities & alerts:
Help EFF protect privacy, innovation, and free speech.
Make a donation and become a member today!
Tell a friend about EFF:
: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :
* Action Alert: Don't Let Congress Ignore the Broadcast
Treaty!
Lobbyists at the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) want to give broadcasters a brace of undeserved
rights in the content that they transmit. That's right,
another group of companies is seeking to control what you
do with your television or computer. If they get their
way, these middlemen will seize 50 years of copyright-like
control over the material they merely broadcast, including
public domain and Creative Commons-licensed works. If that
wasn't bad enough, the US is pushing to extend this new
layer of rights to "webcasters."
EFF believes that there should be a demonstrated need for
such rights, and a clear understanding of how they
will impact the public, educators, existing copyright
holders, and new Internet technologies. Write to Congress
now and ask them to take a close look at this new WIPO
treaty!
Join EFF as a member today:
: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :
* Google's Card Catalog Should Be Left Open
San Francisco, CA - The Authors Guild filed a class-action
copyright infringement suit Tuesday against Google over
its Google Print library project. Working with major
university libraries, Google Print aims to make thousands
of books searchable via the Web, allowing people to search
for key words or phrases in books. The public may browse
the full text of public domain materials in the process
of such a search, but only a few sentences of text around
the search term in books still covered by copyright.
EFF applauds Google's effort to create the digital equivalent
of a library card catalog and believes the company has a
strong case.
"Just as libraries don't need to pay publishers when they
create a card catalog, neither should Google or other
search engines be required to when they create an
improved digital equivalent," said EFF Senior Staff
Attorney Fred von Lohmann.
In defending the lawsuit, Google is relying on the
copyright principle of fair use, which allows the
public to copy works without having to ask permission
or pay licensing fees to copyright holders. EFF
believes Google is likely to prevail on its defense.
One key point in Google's favor is that Google Print
is a transformative use of these books - the company is
creating a virtual card catalog to assist people in
finding relevant books, rather than creating
replacements for the books themselves.
In addition, it is almost certain that Google Print will
boost, rather than hurt, the market for the copyrighted
books. "It's easy to see how Google Print can stimulate
demand for books that otherwise would lay undiscovered
in library stacks," said von Lohmann. "It's hard to see
how it could hurt publishers or authors."
For additional legal analysis, EFF recommends "The Google
Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis," a recently
published white paper by noted Washington, DC, copyright
attorney Jonathan Band of Policy Bandwidth.
For this release:
"The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis"
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* EFF Hosts 15th Anniversary Party, October 2
When: Sunday, October 2nd, 2005, at 5 p.m.
Where: EFF Headquarters in San Francisco, 454 Shotwell
Street
Mark your calendars! EFF is 15 years old this year, and
we're going to celebrate! We're having an anniversary
bash at our San Francisco headquarters on Shotwell Street
on Sunday, October 2nd, 2005. The party starts at 5 p.m.
Join us for delicious Mexican food and drinks from Pancho
Villa, hear a special address from our founders, John Perry
Barlow and John Gilmore, taste our special 3D cake, and
enjoy both the grooves of Gypsy Jazz from the Zegnotronic
Rocket Society and the hypnotic beats of DJ Ripley and
Kid Kameleon.
Our celebration is free of charge and open to anyone, so
bring your friends and family. We look forward to
celebrating with you.
Please let us know you're coming so we don't run out of
food and libations! Send an email to rsvp@eff.org, or
call 415-436-9333 x129.
EFF's office is located at 454 Shotwell Street and is BART
accessible. Take BART to 16th and Mission, walk to 19th
Street and take a left, and take another left on Shotwell
Street, three blocks down. We are between 18th and
19th on Shotwell.
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* Election Reform Commission Urges Secure E-voting
EFF Applauds Commission Recommendations But Opposes
National ID Card Endorsement
Washington, DC - The Carter-Baker Commission, formally
known as the Commission on Federal Election Reform,
this week released an extensive report on the
country's electoral health, along with a wide range of
suggested reforms. Most of the Commission's
recommendations should cheer those concerned about the
security of electronic voting.
The report found that there is an urgent need for the
nation to increase transparency in voting processes and
to institute robust security measures, and that the
lack of transparency and robust security is undermining
public confidence that votes are being accurately
recorded.
"The Commission joins a growing chorus of concerned
groups and citizens urging that electronic voting
technology and related procedures be overhauled," said
EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "This high-level,
bipartisan panel confirmed that e-voting has
introduced an unacceptable amount of uncertainty
into voting, which should be the most trusted task
performed by government. Congress and the states
need to move quickly to ensure that another election
doesn't go by with the same systemic flaws. Luckily,
on the federal level, HR 550 could help us reach
some of those goals by mandating a voter-verified
paper trail and mandatory audits." HR 550,
currently seeking support in the House, could
become the biggest beneficiary from the report's
strong pro-paper trail findings. [Follow this link
to tell your member of Congress to support HR 550:
http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=109]
Zimmerman noted that while most of the Commission's
recommendations were on-the-mark, others - such as
permitting states to decide for themselves
whether paper or electronic ballots would rule in
the event of disparities - don't go far enough to
ensure accountable elections. In addition, EFF
strongly opposes the Commission's privacy-invasive
recommendations regarding voter identification. The
report suggests that voters should be required to
present the national ID card mandated by the recently
passed Real ID Act at the voting booth.
"Tying voter ID requirements to the REAL ID Act is bad
for voting and for privacy," said EFF Senior Staff
Attorney Lee Tien. "There's scant evidence that
inadequate voter ID is a factor in election fraud.
And the Commission admits to concerns that voter ID
requirements could disenfranchise eligible voters,
adversely affect minorities, or be used to monitor
whether voting behaviors are 'serious and legitimate'
- a vague and subjective standard."
"Moreover, the REAL ID Act turns drivers' licenses into
de facto national IDs by forcing states to link their
DMV databases so that drivers' personal data will
instantly be available to a wide range of state, local,
and federal officials," added Tien. "Once created,
history has shown that law enforcement, employers,
landlords, credit agencies, mortgage brokers, and
direct mailers will find a way to access and abuse those
databases."
For the full press release:
For the Carter-Baker Commission report:
EFF action alert to support HR 550:
More about e-voting:
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* EFF, Florida Disability Rights Advocates Fight to Avert
E-voting Debacle
Case Puts Security and Auditability at Risk in the Next
Election
Volusia County, FL - EFF filed a friend-of-the-court
brief last week with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
supporting Volusia County, Florida, in an ongoing legal
battle to permit the county to consider voting systems
that are both accessible to the disabled and auditable
for everyone.
EFF's brief strongly urged the court to reject an argument
by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) that
Volusia County should be forced to purchase paperless
touchscreen voting machines for the upcoming October
11th election. This deadline would require the county to
rush to prepare for the election, possibly jeopardizing
its efforts to program the machines, train election and
pollworkers, and educate the public. Instead, argued
EFF, the county should be given the chance to acquire
voting technology that creates an auditable paper trail,
as well as provides accessibility features for a wider
range of disabled voters.
"As a blind voter, I'm strongly opposed to the paperless
e-voting machines that the NFB is trying to force onto
us," said David Dixon, president of Handicapped Adults of
Volusia County (HAVOC). "I want a voting system that is
accessible to as many voters as possible and that also
produces an audit trail. The paperless machines are
simply the wrong approach, and I support the county's
efforts to try to find a better way."
"We're disappointed that national disability rights groups
have taken such a counter-productive step despite
opposition from local disability rights leaders," said EFF
Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "At a time when people
devoted to meaningful election reform should be working
together, it's unfortunate that the NFB is making the
dangerous argument that election integrity should be
sacrificed for otherwise laudable accessibility goals."
For the full press release:
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* EFF in Canada: Protect Your Northern Rights!
EFF is pleased to announce that we are strengthening our
work in Canada. We'll be tracking issues like Bill C-60
(copyright reform), "lawful access" (privacy and surveillance),
and other digital rights issues that matter to Canadians.
Ren Bucholz, EFF's Policy Coordinator in the Americas, is
now based in Toronto, Ontario, where he'll be following
these developments full time. If you're interested in
staying up-to-date on EFF's work in Canada, sign up for
special bulletins here:
* miniLinks
miniLinks features noteworthy news items from around the
Internet.
~ Don't Blame the User for Security Screw-ups
Jakob Nielsen says stop shouting at poor consumers for
problems caused by badly designed security software.
Spoilsport:
~ Practical Guide to Political Blogging and Activism
Reporters Without Borders publishes an outstanding how-to
for bloggers seeking to make their voices heard in the
face of government monitoring, censorship, and worse:
EFF's own Legal Guide for Bloggers, which provides a
collection of FAQs on the wide range of legal issues
bloggers confront:
~ Levy Breaches in Sweden
A company that makes MP3 players refuses to pay the
copyright levy on players, arguing that it's
"outdated":
(The Local)
~ Family Values
A Christian band from San Diego is helping fans circumvent
industry-mandated DRM, explaining, "We refuse to allow
corporate policy to taint the family we've developed
together":
~ Obscenity Regs to Hit the Net?
Susan Crawford looks at a draft telecom bill that could
put the FCC in charge of "national consumer protection
standards" aimed at stopping broadband, VoIP, and
broadband video services from being used for annoying or
"indecent" speech:
~ Piercing the Copyright Reality-Distortion Field
EFF pal Wendy Seltzer and friends annotate the USPTO's
one-sided copyright quiz for kids, highlighting its
unfortunate distortions:
~ Boucher Seeks to Cut Copyright's Red Tape
Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) says he's working on
new legislation to make it easier to license musical
works:
~ Hollywood to Waste $30 Million Believing It Can Build
Better Copy Protection
That's the spot-on headline for a Techdirt piece
criticizing Hollywood's plans to create home-grown
DRM:
Edward Felten's take:
~ Fair Use as...Illicit Housecleaning?
EFF's own Jason Schultz criticizes the strained analogies
being used to describe the Google Print furor:
~ Red Hat and Patents
The deputy general counsel for Red Hat discusses patent
reform and free software:
