RE: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking
I'd get on my cell phone and call the police. That's their job. Of course there is that little fact of having a legal right to the property in question in the first place. :) I fully agree this is Not Good (TM), hence the BAD in my response. Having said that, satellite providers periodically 'kill' hacked access cards on equipment in the user's home with no legal ramifications. How would this be significantly different? Waiving the fourth amendment flag is just FUD in this case. There's more than sufficient current law out there that applies in this case. The entertainment industry just wants an even easier answer. They're lazy. What's new? WorldComm, Adelphia, AOL, (you and me next?), have made this industry and its practices an easy target. Historically, market segments either clean up their own act, or government steps in. I believe this business is at that point now. How we act in the near future will greatly affect the amount of government involvement we'll see. Arguing in support of haz0r/warez networks won't help the cause. To put a different spin on the DCMA/17USC512 takedown letter issue, does this mean you support opt-out lists for Spam as apposed to opt-in? That's how the entertainment industry views our current process. There's a lot of disucssion on this list (actually OT but we see it here anyway) about identifying questionable E-mail traffic (spam). Is it really that much harder to identify questionable P2P traffic? Or are we all too busy listening to our MP3s playlists and watching the latest Starwars rip? Just my 2¢ Best regards, _________________________ Alan Rowland -----Original Message----- From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu [mailto:Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu] Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 1:57 PM To: Rowland, Alan D Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking On Thu, 25 Jul 2002 13:11:00 PDT, "Rowland, Alan D" <alan_r1@corp.earthlink.net> said:
IANAL but IMHO spewing cracked copies of say, Photoshop, or other copyright violations might be considered probable cause with the specific place/things being the share program and it's contents.
If your house was broken into, and your TV stolen, and you were walking along and saw it in your neighbor's living room through the window, would that give you the right to go in and reclaim it? Would it exempt you from having to pay for a new door to replace the one that got broken down? You might want to ask yourself why the now-standard 17USC512 takedown letter isn't sufficient..... I wonder how many 'Hax0rs-R-Us' record labels are about to incorporate. Bad JuJu.
On Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 02:37:15PM -0700, Rowland, Alan D wrote:
I fully agree this is Not Good (TM), hence the BAD in my response. Having said that, satellite providers periodically 'kill' hacked access cards on equipment in the user's home with no legal ramifications. How would this be significantly different? Waiving the fourth amendment flag is just FUD in this case.
Satellite access cards are technically the property of the individual companies and are not allowed to be sold, so if they want to send down some code which disables your access to their system they are allowed. Causing damage to someone's receiver on the other hand, would be bad mojo. However, someone's computer is NOT their property, nothing on it belongs to them (except maybe the copyrighted material of the clients they represent :P), not even a service you are getting from them. I can't imagine they would actually follow through with this though, all it takes is one incident where they cause financial harm to someone with an mp3 they misidentify and their highground is gone. Then again, I can't imagine congress being so massively stupid either, so I suppose anything is possible. -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
I can't imagine they would actually follow through with this though, all it takes is one incident where they cause financial harm to someone with an mp3 they misidentify and their highground is gone. Then again, I can't imagine congress being so massively stupid either, so I suppose anything is possible.
One scenario I can imagine is the MPAA ddos'ing or h4x0ring a university hospital network because they found warez on some secretary's desktop PC. As a result, some databases get corrupted and patients die. Would this bill shield the MPAA from being liable for manslaughter? -Dan -- [-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-]
Well having worked in the hospital setting before...:) And this is only my experience... but Its not usually likely that database machines or critical patient care hardware would be attached to a network available over the public network. In general they are on networks not attached at all, its not a matter of being behind a firewall its just no connection exists. Hospitals certainly have networks and have internet access but in ggeneral the dicom network for heart patients can't be reached unless your attached in someway to the network. If you want to send a patient file to another remote locationor Dr you usually burn it on cd and ship it with the patient, carry it physically to the other location, or carry it to a machine which is internet connected. just my $.02 On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Dan Hollis wrote:
On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
I can't imagine they would actually follow through with this though, all it takes is one incident where they cause financial harm to someone with an mp3 they misidentify and their highground is gone. Then again, I can't imagine congress being so massively stupid either, so I suppose anything is possible.
One scenario I can imagine is the MPAA ddos'ing or h4x0ring a university hospital network because they found warez on some secretary's desktop PC. As a result, some databases get corrupted and patients die. Would this bill shield the MPAA from being liable for manslaughter?
-Dan
I wouldn't bet on these guys holding off for "liability" reasons. They have vast legions of lawyers, and a shortage of good sense, as well as a very loose grasp of the technology. Also, in the case of the Satellite TV Cards, it is a much clearer thing. You attach unauthorized equipment to a utility of some type, and you run the risk of damaging your equipment. The Satellite companies can realistically get away with this because they are really limiting the amount of damage they are doing, and because they have an extremely high accuracy rate. And even if they screw up, and zap a real subscriber's card, they can make them whole through a usage credit - no permanent harm. If they were causing people's TV's to implode, they wouldn't be able to get away with it. This sort of heavy-handed action by the anti-p2p folks will backfire in the end. The folks we should be saving our indignation for are the congressmen who have sold themselves to the RIAA/MPAA/BSA - Hollings, Berman, etc. These guys are pretty close to wholly owned subsidiaries of their respective patron industries. - Daniel Golding
Richard A Steenbergen Said....
On Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 02:37:15PM -0700, Rowland, Alan D wrote:
I fully agree this is Not Good (TM), hence the BAD in my
response. Having
said that, satellite providers periodically 'kill' hacked access cards on equipment in the user's home with no legal ramifications. How would this be significantly different? Waiving the fourth amendment flag is just FUD in this case.
Satellite access cards are technically the property of the individual companies and are not allowed to be sold, so if they want to send down some code which disables your access to their system they are allowed. Causing damage to someone's receiver on the other hand, would be bad mojo.
However, someone's computer is NOT their property, nothing on it belongs to them (except maybe the copyrighted material of the clients they represent :P), not even a service you are getting from them.
I can't imagine they would actually follow through with this though, all it takes is one incident where they cause financial harm to someone with an mp3 they misidentify and their highground is gone. Then again, I can't imagine congress being so massively stupid either, so I suppose anything is possible.
-- Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
"Daniel Golding" <dgolding@yahoo.com> writes:
This sort of heavy-handed action by the anti-p2p folks will backfire in the end. The folks we should be saving our indignation for are the congressmen who have sold themselves to the RIAA/MPAA/BSA - Hollings, Berman, etc. These guys are pretty close to wholly owned subsidiaries of their respective patron industries.
Here's some humor on the subject: http://www.cartoonbank.com/cartoon_closeup.asp?pf_id=32956&dept_id=1001 Peace, Petr
What the Hollywood clowns meant to say was that only THEIR copyrighted content matters in the grand scheme of things. If you're not part of THEIR system -er, 'empire' (eg, small publisher, independent author, producer, or musian) you shouldn't have the right to enforce your copyrights the same way they want to. Talk about underhanded monopoly-mongering. Congress still has no clue about technology policy or the information age. rf ---------- http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26402.html Valenti backs away from P2P hack bill By Thomas C Greene in Washington Posted: 26/07/2002 at 16:14 GMT House Hollywood sock puppet Howard Berman (Democrat, California) may have gone too far in licking the boots of his benevolent patrons. Indeed, he's gone and licked the shine clear off Motion Picture Ass. of America President Jack Valenti's boots, as this article from Reuters indicates. "We're pleased that a bipartisan group of lawmakers ... want to curb the explosion of Internet piracy," the wire service quotes the previously-supportive Valenti as saying. "However, there are aspects of the bill we believe need changing as it moves through the legislative process. We look forward to working with Congress in this regard." The bee in Valenti's bonnet is most likely the loose language in Berman's bill. "A copyright owner shall not be liable in any criminal or civil action for disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, performance, or reproduction of his or her copyrighted work on a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network, if such impairment does not, without authorization, alter, delete, or otherwise impair the integrity of any computer file or data residing on the computer of a file trader." That can't be good. It means that anyone with a copyright will be allowed to hack the daylights out of anyone, including MPAA Headquarters, so long as they have a 'reasonable suspicion' of infringement and notify the DoJ of their intent at least seven days before commencing the attack. Somehow, Valenti failed to impress on the over-eager Berman's mind that this legislation is for media giants only. The second part of the problem is in Berman's extending protections to the victims of such attacks for damages exceeding $50. Again, he's gone over the top in his eagerness to delight his masters. Or, said another way, if anyone attacked can claim $50 or more in harm, the attacker loses his legal protection. Good grief; has Berman gone mad? Everyone and his brother will be able to claim that. So, while Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) President Hillary Rosen still welcomes the Berman Gift; Hollywood Honcho Valenti is stepping back until his team of Ass. lawyers and lobbyists can draft a proper bill for Berman, and send him to the House floor armed with the right stuff. ®
On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Daniel Golding wrote: :I wouldn't bet on these guys holding off for "liability" reasons. They have :vast legions of lawyers, and a shortage of good sense, as well as a very :loose grasp of the technology. Not that I agree with them, but given the state of the EULA's that users accept before running software, I don't see how what they intend to do as illegal. If there were hooks in M$ code for this kind of vigilante DRM enforcement, and given that M$ can do anything it wants to your computer based on their Windows EULA's, is it still "hacking" if it executing a feature of the software which you have already agreed to the licensing conditions of? Big huge IANAL here but.. This RIAA/MPAA/BSA proposal is not as far fetched as many may think. I would even speculate that M$ could even authorize them to muck about with alleged perpetrators machines because the license violation could be construed as being governed by the relationship between licensor and licensee, and not a matter of law enforcement. Not that this is ethical, sensible, or anything other than exploitive, but "illegal" is something interpreted and ultimately decided by the courts, and until then, the issue of vigilante DRM enforcement is a matter of interpretation of license agreements, which is entirely within the discressionary powers of the vendor if the user has implicitly agreed to it in the license agreement, no? While this has little operational value, it would be worth looking at what kind of liabilities your license agreements set you up for. Have your lawyers consult a sci-fi author on this, they're going to need one. -- batz
batz <batsy@vapour.net> writes:
On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Daniel Golding wrote:
:I wouldn't bet on these guys holding off for "liability" reasons. They have :vast legions of lawyers, and a shortage of good sense, as well as a very :loose grasp of the technology.
Not that I agree with them, but given the state of the EULA's that users accept before running software, I don't see how what they intend to do as illegal.
If there were hooks in M$ code for this kind of vigilante DRM enforcement, and given that M$ can do anything it wants to your computer based on their Windows EULA's, is it still "hacking" if it executing a feature of the software which you have already agreed to the licensing conditions of?
Has the Windows EULA (or any EULA) been tested in court?
Big huge IANAL here but..
square(IANAL) for me... Peace, Petr
Petr Swedock wrote:
Has the Windows EULA (or any EULA) been tested in court?
IANAL, but it's my understanding that shrink-wrap and click-thru licenses are only binding in states where the UCITA (http://www.ucitaonline.com/) has passed into law. According to http://www.ucitaonline.com/whathap.html , it is law in Maryland and Virginia. It is pending in Arizona, DC, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon and Texas. -- David
participants (9)
-
batz -
Dan Hollis -
Daniel Golding -
David Charlap -
Petr Swedock -
Richard A Steenbergen -
Richard Forno -
Rowland, Alan D -
Scott Granados