headers
Seth Johnson | 1 Oct 2004 06:12
Picon

Swarthmore Activists Triumph vs. Diebold


> http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65173,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Diebold Loses Key Copyright Case  

By Kim Zetter
05:03 PM Sep. 30, 2004 PT

Students who sued Diebold Election Systems won their case against
the voting machine maker on Thursday after a judge ruled that the
company had misused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and
ordered the company to pay damages and fees. Lawyers for the
students call the move a victory for free speech. 

A judge for the California district court ruled that the company
knowingly misrepresented that the students had infringed the
company's copyright and ordered the company to pay damages and
fees to two students and a nonprofit internet service provider,
Online Policy Group. 

Today's the Day. Last October, students at Swarthmore College in
Pennsylvania posted copies and links to some 13,000 internal
Diebold company memos that an anonymous source had leaked to
Wired News. The memos suggested that the company was aware of
security flaws in its voting system when it sold the system to
states. 

Diebold sent several cease-and-desist letters to the students and
threatened them with litigation, citing the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, or DMCA. Online Policy Group was also threatened
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 1 Oct 2004 22:14
Picon

Blizzard v. BNETD Disaster


> http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/000708.html

Blizzard v. BNETD (Davidson v. Internet Gateway) Fair Use/DMCA
horrors

September 30, 2004

Blizzard v. BNETD (formally "Davidson & Associates v. Internet
Gateway") (http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/) is
a case about the right to reverse-engineer and build a
open-source network game emulator. A district court decision has
just been issued (via Ed Felten
[http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000692.html]
[(http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/doc/2004/bnetd_30sep.pdf)]).
In sum, it's a horror on every item, and rules solidly against
programmer's interests.

Some of the parade of horrors:

The quasi-Libertarian like-it-or-lump-it view of a contract of
adhesion:

The parties in this case did have unequal bargaining power
because Blizzard is the sole seller of its software licenses;
however, the defendants had the choice to select a different
video game, to agree to the terms and gain the software and
access to Battle.net, or to disagree and return the software for
a full return of their money.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 2 Oct 2004 23:43
Picon

Portuguese Free Software Resolution


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: portuguese resolution on free software
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 22:10:12 +0100
From: Graham Seaman <graham <at> theseamans.net>
To: discussion <at> fsfeurope.org

Hi,

The Portuguese parliament (Assembleia da Republica) recently
passed an  advisory motion on free software (proposed by the
Communist Party, but  with cross party support). You can find the
original at  http://www.pcp.pt/ar/legis-9/projres/pjr255.htm.
There is  some (portuguese language) discussion of the
resolution, together with  the text of supporting speeches by
other deputies in the ANSOL free  software list 
http://listas.ansol.org/pipermai/ansol-geral/2004-September/

I haven't seen anything about this in any language other than 
Portuguese, so I thought I would translate it.
The translation below is completely unofficial; I hope it's of
some  interest for the list, but you might want to get it
verified by a native  Portuguese speaker before using it for
anything.

Best
Graham
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Draft resolution no. 255/1X
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 4 Oct 2004 23:05
Picon

New Approaches to Exclusive Rights at WIPO


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Random-bits] WIPO backs Development Agenda, and new
approaches to innovation andcreativity
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 11:59:09 -0400
From: James Love <james.love <at> cptech.org>
To: random-bits <at> lists.essential.org

Over the past two years, there has been a growing movement to
change  WIPO as an institution.  This includes growing civil
society  participation in some of the WIPO committees, the summer
2003 request  that WIPO hold a major meeting on open
collaborative efforts to create  public goods, two TACD meetings
on the WIPO Work Program and the Future  of WIPO, an August 2004
proposal by Argentina and Brazil to change the  WIPO charter and
adopt a new work program and development agenda, and  the recent
Geneva Declaration on the Future of WIPO.
(see http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/genevadeclaration.html)

Today the WIPO General Assembly dramatically decided to advance
the  proposed "Development Agenda" for WIPO.  As evidenced by the
document  setting out the proposal (WO/GA/31/11), and the debate,
the "Development  Agenda" is really two things.  (1) a focus on
the development aspects of  intellectual property policy, and (2)
a frontal challenge to the "more  is better" approach to IP
policies.  One element of the “Development  Agenda” is a new
Treaty on Access to Knowledge and Technology.  There  are many
other important elements.

I would like to thank everyone who played an important role in
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 13 Oct 2004 03:53
Picon

CodeCon 2005 Call For Papers


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [p2p-hackers] CodeCon 2005 Call For Papers
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 19:34:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bram Cohen <bram <at> gawth.com>
To: p2p-hackers <at> zgp.org

CodeCon 4.0
February 2005
San Francisco CA, USA
www.codecon.org

Call For Papers

CodeCon is the premier showcase of cutting edge software
development. It is an excellent opportunity for programmers to
demonstrate their work and keep abreast of what's going on in
their community.

All presentations must include working demonstrations, ideally
accompanied by source code. Presenters must be done by one of the
active developers of the code in question. We emphasize that
demonstrations be of *working* code.

We hereby solicit papers and demonstrations.

    * Papers and proposals due: December 15, 2004
    * Authors notified: January 1, 2005

Possible topics include, but are by no means restricted to:
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 13 Oct 2004 23:35
Picon

EU Commission "DRM Workshop"


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fsfe-ie] DRM: European Commission not interested in
CivilSociety's position
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 15:57:02 +0100
From: "Teresa Hackett" <teresahackett <at> eircom.net>
To: <fsfe-ie <at> fsfeurope.org>

DRM: Commission not interested in Civil Society's position
12 October, 2004
http://www.edri.org/issues/copyright/drm/contact041011

Civil Society representatives, user and consumer advocates were
left almost speechless yesterday, October 11, at a hearing
organised by the European Commission on Digital Rights
Management. Due to the invitation policy of the Commission's DG
Internal Market, the event, organized to help the Committee
established under Article 12 of the EU Copyright Directive
evaluate the way Article 6 of that same Directive is being
transposed, was entirely dominated by the Digital Rights
Management Iindustry and by representatives of collecting
societies.

Speakers were required to speak only on a few specific points,
which, in the programme already, touched very little of DRM
technology's problematical implications. The only slot were these
problems could be discussed - "Developments in case law as well
as relevant economic, social or cultural or technological
developments" - was put on the agenda as the very last item.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 15 Oct 2004 09:15
Picon

SIPShare: "VoIP" Distributed File Search from Earthlink


Ah, this is such an evil, criminal application.  And you can tell
Earthlink is really just out to corrupt our youth.  They're such
terrible actors.  Can't fool me.  Probably teaching them
INDUCTIVE reasoning or something . . . get the hemlock, we'll
force them to drink it, we will.  Damn troublemakers . . .

Seth

> http://www.research.earthlink.net/p2p/

SIP Beyond Voice and Video

Standards-based Distributed Networking
from EarthLink Research and Development

Introducing EarthLink SIPshare

EarthLink SIPshare, a simple, SIP-based
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3261.txt?number=3261)
proof-of-concept content sharing application, demonstrates the
viability of SIP as a protocol over which peer-to-peer (P2P)
applications other than the well-known voice and video cases may
be implemented. (SIPshare is not a supported EarthLink product.
Please see the Disclaimer below).

Features

    * Peer discovery - Given a few bootstrap hosts, peers learn
of other peers using standard SIP messages.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 16 Oct 2004 08:41
Picon

UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize. Call for Nominations


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [MediaMentor] UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize.
Call for Nominations
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 00:04:11 -0600
From: George Lessard <media <at> web.net>
To: L mediamentor <mediamentor <at> yahoogroups.com>

UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize. Call for Nominations
11-10-2004 (UNESCO) - Nominations are now being accepted for the 
first-ever UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize for significant 
contributions to the preservation and accessibility of
documentary 
heritage. The Prize of US$30 000 was created to commemorate the 
inscription of the Buljo jikji simche yojeol, the oldest known
book 
of movable metal print in the world, in the Memory of the World 
Register.
<http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17352&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html>

--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

Public, keyword searchable archives  <at> 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mediamentor
FEEDBACK: 
mediamentor-owner <at> yahoogroups.com
POST: If subscribed, post to the list  <at> 
mediamentor <at> yahoogroups.com
No attachments...... less viruses.... text only please....
No HTML and no RTF from your subscription's e-mail address only.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 20 Oct 2004 11:09
Picon

NoSoftwarePatents.com Launches Campaign


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [GreenSource] NoSoftwarePatents.com Launches Campaign
   Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 11:02:21 퍭
   From: "VANDEWALLE Laurence" <lvandewalle <at> europarl.eu.int>
     To: <greensource <at> lists.collectifs.net>

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com

NoSoftwarePatents.com Launches Campaign

Against Software Patents in the EU

1&1, Red Hat and MySQL AB are corporate partners -- Web site
starts in 12 languages -- Campaign warns that software patents 
are used for anti-competitive purposes

Munich, Germany (20 October 2004). A new campaign against
software patents in the EU was launched today in 12 languages at 
www.NoSoftwarePatents.com. The campaign is managed by Florian
Müller of SWM Software-Marketing GmbH, a software  industry
veteran with almost 20 years of expertise, and is supported by
three corporate partners: 1&1, Red Hat, and MySQL AB.  The
campaign manager will discuss the issue of software patents with
politicians and the media.

"Software patents are used for anti-competitive purposes, stifle
innovation, and would cost the entire economy and society
dearly",  Florian Müller said. "On the bottom line, they create
more injustice than justice. There is only a small group of
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Seth Johnson | 20 Oct 2004 14:37
Picon

EU Article: EU Software Patents Directive Delayed


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fsfe-ie] News article EU software patents directive
delayed
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 12:21:39 +0100
From: "Teresa Hackett" <teresahackett <at> eircom.net>
To: <fsfe-ie <at> fsfeurope.org>

Forwarded from edri list.

Teresa
----------------------------

EU software patents directive delayed
http://europa.eu.int/ida/en/document/3378/194

eGovernment News – 11 October 2004 – EU and Europe-wide –
Software/Legal aspects

The formal approval of the draft Directive on the patentability
of computer-implemented inventions by the EU Competitiveness
Council has been postponed due to translation delays.

The political agreement between Member States over the draft
Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions
was expected to be approved during the EU's Competitiveness
Council meeting held on 24/09/2004, before being sent back to the
European Parliament for a second reading. However, the item was
removed from the Council’s agenda due to delays in translation.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |

Gmane