Tag: Technology and Freedom
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My Testimony on the Berman-Coble Bill
Today I submitted written testimony that will be included in the record of last week’s House hearings on the Berman-Coble bill.
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Doubletalk from MediaDefender?
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that MediaDefender has been sending cease-and-desist letters to universities, identifying the IP addresses of specific computers that are alleged to be offering copyrighted movies for download. These IP addresses usually correlate one-to-one with users. One of the MediaDefender letters is reprinted in the Chronicle story. The letter says in…
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Technology: Unknown or Unknowable?
I’ve been reading what various Washington people are saying about the Berman-Coble peer-to-peer hacking bill. Many people agree that if the bill is passed, a sort of arms race will develop between the p2p-disrupters and the p2p-developers. The disrupters will deploy a new technology to foil p2p networks; the developers will cook up a countermeasure;…
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What Hollywood Wants to Do To P2P Users
The written version of Randy Saaf’s testimony at yesterday’s Berman-Coble hearings is now available. It is longer than his oral statement and answers a key technical question. Saaf runs a company called Media Defender (MD) that tries to disrupt p2p networks on the behalf of copyright holders. All of the speakers at the hearings agree…
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Sprigman on Reverse Engineering and Licenses
Interesting legal commentary by Chris Sprigman at FindLaw, on the legal status of reverse engineering in relation to software licenses. [link credit: FurdLog]
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NYT: Software Diverts Referral Commissions
Today’s NYT discusses software that horns in on referral commissions (like those from Amazon’s affiliates program) meant for others. Based on the article’s description, it looks like the software lurks quietly, waiting until the user’s browser is going to place an order that could generate a commission. Then the software inserts its distributor’s ID into…
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Godwin Article on the "Right to Tinker"
Mike Godwin has a new article at law.com on “the right to tinker.” He mentions my upcoming book on the topic. (Thanks, Mike.)
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Notes on Today's Berman-Coble Hearings
A House subcommittee held hearings this morning about the Berman-Coble peer-to-peer (p2p) hacking bill. I heard the first two hours, but then I had to go give a lecture. The bill would give copyright owners new powers to employ self-help “hacking” measures aimed to prevent infringing file-trading on p2p networks. Everybody agreed that the self-help…
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Wireless Tracking of Everything
Arnold Kling at The Bottom Line points to upcoming technologies that allow the attachment of tiny tags, which can be tracked wirelessly, to almost anything. He writes: In my view, which owes much to David Brin, we should be encouraging the use of [these tags], while making sure that no single agency or elite has…
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Live On-Line Feed of Tomorrow's House "Piracy" Hearings
Tomorrow (Thu 26 Sept) at 9:00 AM (Eastern time), the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, will hold a hearing on “Piracy Of Intellectual Property On Peer-to-Peer Networks.” A live feed will be available during the hearing. [link credit: Ray Ozzie]