Author: Ed Felten
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Students Write About RIAA/Student Lawsuits
Two of the best sources on the RIAA vs. student lawsuits come, appropriately, from other students. Joe Barillari, a student in my “Information Technology and the Law” course at Princeton, has written an interesting analysis of the case against his fellow Princeton student Dan Peng. [Annoying disclaimer: Joe doesn’t speak for me; I don’t speak…
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LaBrea Unavailable Due To Illinois SuperDMCA
Tom Liston, the author of the award-winning LaBrea security software, has announced that he will no longer make LaBrea available, because of concerns over the Super-DMCA, which has already become law in his native Illinois. Network administrators can use LaBrea to set up a kind of virtual tarpit that entangles attempts by outsiders to scan…
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Security Research Muzzled in Georgia
A state court in Georgia has issued temporary restraining order, which forced the cancellation of a conference panel this past weekend. A company called Blackboard, which sells campus automation systems to colleges and universities, convinced the court to block the publication of embarrassing details about Blackboard products. Blackboard sent a demand letter. Blackboard filed a…
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Will the RIAA Sue Google?
Recently, the RIAA sued four college students for alleged copyright violations, including contributory infringement. The contributory infringement claims are based on assertions that the students ran search engines that can be used to find infringing files. Jacques Distler asks this question: When will they sue Google? Certain parts of the RIAA’s complaint against the students…
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Carve-Outs
This week, the MPAA reportedly has narrowed its Super-DMCA legislation yet again, this time to add special carve-outs to protect ISPs and telephone companies. This is supposed to improve the bill. Actually, the carve-outs probably make the bills worse. One of the principal criticisms of the previous version is that it was too tilted in…
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Berkeley Weblog Discussion
I’ll be appearing (by phone) at tonight’s “Weblogs Information and Society” event at UC Berkeley. The event will be webcast. (See the link above for webcast info.) Other participants include John Battelle, Dan Gillmor, Ross Mayfield, Ernest Miller, Scott Rosenberg, and Donna Wentworth.
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The MPAA's Latest
Some assertions demand a detailed rebuttal, and others just speak for themselves. A story by Louis Trager in today’s Washington Internet Daily quotes MPAA Vice President Vans Stevenson on their next revision of the Super-DMCA: Anyone who opposed the bills must be “against shoplifting laws that would punish someone from stealing a movie at Blockbuster,”…
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What’s the Goal of the Super-DMCA?
One of the mysteries surrounding the Super-DMCA is what its purpose might be. The arguments in favor of it are all vague, amounting to nothing more than “If you dislike piracy, you should support this bill.” There are, of course, plenty of laws that already ban various types of “piracy.” There are laws against computer…
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RIAA Lawsuit Complaints Available
More information is now available about the lawsuits filed by RIAA yesterday against college students. Findlaw has copies of the complaints in the four suits. complaint vs. Jesse Jordan [RPI student] complaint vs. Joseph Nievelt [Michigan Tech student] complaint vs. Daniel Peng [Princeton student] complaint vs. Aaron Sherman [RPI student] Direct and contributory infringement are…
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MPAA Revises Model Super-DMCA Legislation
The MPAA has drawn up a significantly revised version of its model Super-DMCA language. Although it will take some time to analyze the new language, it’s clearly an important step in the right direction.