Intellectual Property Law

Apple Says Public Domain Is Too Dirty for iPhone

Posted on May 22, 2009
Eucalyptus is the name of an e-book reader app for the iPhone. It allows you to read public domain books that have been digitized by the volunteers at Project Gutenberg. Apple has rejected Eucalyptus for inclusion in the iTunes App Store because one of the books archived at Project Gutenberg, and thus readable in Eucalyptus, is a Victorian-era translation (just text!) of the Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian compendium of practical information about sex...

Judge Takes Government to Task in Al-Haramain Spying Case

Posted on May 22, 2009
Today, United States District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker took the government to task for failing to obey his prior orders in Al-Haramain v. Obama (formerly known as Al-Haramain v. Bush), asking the government to explain why he should not sanction the government by holding that the plaintiffs win the warrantless wiretapping lawsuit...

Administration Introduces Open Government Initiative Websites

Posted on May 22, 2009
The Obama Administration has launched several websites to further its commitment on the first full day of Obama's presidency to improving transparency and encouraging citizen participation in government. On the transparency side, the Administration launched the hotly anticipated data...

minilinks for 2009-05-22

Posted on May 22, 2009
The FCC's Warrantless SearchesWired's Threat Level reports that the FCC claims the right to enter and inspect any wireless device. IBM Unveils Real-Time Datamining SoftwareThe new software does "stream processing," allowing researchers to combine data from various sources to find patterns...

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Judge Rules Dorm Room Search for Evidence of Prank Email Illegal

Posted on May 22, 2009
Boston - A justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ordered police to return a laptop and other property seized from a Boston College computer science student's dorm room after finding there was no probable cause to search the room in the first place...

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Tosses Out Warrant in Boston College Case, Says No Probable Cause Existed

Posted on May 22, 2009
On May 21, 2009, Justice Botsford of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts granted our client Riccardo Calixte's motion to quash the illegal search warrant with which it seized Calixte's computers, phones, ipods, camera and other personal property...

Right-to-Repair Law Proposed ... for Cars

Posted on May 20, 2009
It's not often that you get former presidential candidates from the Green Party and the Libertarian Party to agree on legislation, but Bob Barr and Ralph Nader have done just that -- jointly supporting the Right-To-Repair Act of 2009 (H.R. 2057): This aptly named bill would allow independent repair shops to compete for the business now guaranteed only to dealer-controlled establishments...

Danger Mouse Releases a Blank CD-R

Posted on May 19, 2009
For decades, recording artists have lived in fear of their albums ending up in limbo if a record label refused to release it. But no more? Danger Mouse, who broke into the public consciousness with his remarkable Grey Album remixing Jay-Z and The Beatles and went on to form Gnarls Barkley, is apparently counting on the fact that it's the fans, not record labels like EMI, who have the upper hand in the digital age...

Craigslist Demands Apology From South Carolina Attorney General

Posted on May 18, 2009
Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster today posted a strongly-worded response to South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster's ongoing legally-baseless threats to bring criminal charges against him and founder Craig Newmark, culminating in a request for a long-overdue apology...

Six Simple Steps You Can Take To Protect Your Gripe or Parody Site

Posted on May 15, 2009
Here?s a story we hear a lot at EFF: You think BadCo, Inc. is a bad actor and you?ve developed a really cool site to tell the world why. Maybe just by griping about them or maybe through a bit of parody. Fast forward two weeks: you?re basking in the pleasure of calling BadCo out when bam! You find out your site?s been shut down...

Apple vs. Blasphemy (and Innovation)

Posted on May 13, 2009
Two more interesting applications have been blocked by Apple in its quixotic quest to police what users can think and do while using their iPhones. First, we have Me So Holy, an iPhone app that takes a snapshot of the user and cleverly pastes it over the faces of holy religious figures such as Jesus Christ and the Dalai Lama...

3 Strikes for Print: A Modest Proposal From Ed Felten

Posted on May 13, 2009
In the tradition of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," EFF board member and Princeton Computer Science Prof. Ed Felten has written an essay in response to the recently passed "3 strikes" legislation in France: Yesterday the French parliament adopted a proposal to create a "three-strikes" system that would kick people off the Internet if they are accused of copyright infringement three times...

AGs' Bogus Threats Hit Their Mark: Craigslist Gives In

Posted on May 13, 2009
Disappointing news today out of San Francisco that craigslist has given in to pressure from law enforcement officials and agreed to remove the "erotic services" section from its site, establishing a rather dangerous incentive for law enforcement officials to bully website operators with baseless threats...

Victory For Location Privacy in New York GPS Tracking Case

Posted on May 12, 2009
Today brings great news for location privacy, especially if you live in New York. The highest court for that state ruled today in People v. Weaver that police may not use a GPS device to track the movements of your vehicle without first getting a warrant...

White House Photos Update: Flickr Removes License from Gov't Photos

Posted on May 12, 2009
The photos by official White House photographer Pete Souza are now available to the public on the White House Flickr stream under a new arrangement: in place of the Creative Commons Attribution license used previously, the photos are now identified as "United States Government Works," along with a link to the U...

Recommendations for Web Measurement on Government Websites

Posted on May 12, 2009
Today, The Center for Democracy and Technology and EFF are releasing "Open Recommendations for the Use of Web Measurement Tools on Federal Government Web Sites." (Press Release. PDF.) The document recommends repairs to the federal guidelines that regulate the use of cookies and other "persistent tracking technologies" on government websites...

Why Video Remix Creators Need a DMCA Exemption

Posted on May 11, 2009
If you are a vidder, a movie trailer mashup creator, YouTube movie critic, or anyone else who needs to take clips from DVDs in order to make an original remix video, you might be interested in the hearings held last week before the U.S. Copyright Office, where EFF and the Organization for Transformative Works squared off against the MPAA and DVD-CCA...

minilinks for 2009-05-08

Posted on May 08, 2009
Justice Department Finds Flaws in FBI Terror ListSurprise! The exponential growth the terror watch list has led to errors ? including 24,000 names included on the basis of outdated or irrelevant information. Libraries Raise Concerns About Google BooksLibrarians submitted a letter to the court considering the Google Book Settlement raising concerns about how Google's plans for digital books will affect privacy and censorship...

YouTube Restores A Fair Use

Posted on May 07, 2009
About a week ago, blogger Perez Hilton issued a DMCA takedown notice, asking YouTube to remove a video created by the National Organization of Marriage (NOM). The video used a clip from Hilton's blog in which he strongly criticized Miss California USA Carrie Prejean, in response to comments she made criticizing gay marriage...

AGs v. Craigslist: Putting the Bully Back Into Bully Pulpit

Posted on May 06, 2009
Here we go again. On Tuesday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster notified craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster that unless craigslist removes its erotic services section within 10 days, "craigslist management may be subject to criminal investigation and prosecution...

Government Still Blocking Information on Secret IP Enforcement Treaty

Posted on May 06, 2009
Washington, D.C. - Two public interest groups today called on the government to stop blocking the release of information about a secret intellectual property trade agreement with broad implications for privacy and innovation around the world. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge said that the April 30th release of 36 pages of material by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) was the second time the government had the opportunity to provide some public insight into the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), but declined to do so...

Apple's Censorship Makes the Case for DMCA Exemptions on "Jailbreaking"

Posted on May 05, 2009
If we had tried to invent a scenario that would illustrate some of the reasons why we need DMCA exemptions for cell phone "jailbreaking," we could not have come up with a better story than Trent Reznor's recent troubles with Apple's iPhone app store. Reznor, front man for the band Nine Inch Nails and an innovator in the world of digital music, had the latest version of his Nine Inch Nails-themed application for the iPhone rejected by Apple on the grounds that it contained "objectionable content" — the content in this case being a streaming version of the song "The Downward Spiral," which includes Reznor's usual strong language...

Fight Government Secrecy and Reform the State Secrets Privilege

Posted on May 05, 2009
This week presents another opportunity to begin to curb ongoing abuse of government power. For years, the state secrets privilege was a favorite tool of the Bush Administration. They used it to avoid accountability for both the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program and the CIA's "special rendition" program...

White House Photos ? Does the Public Need a License to Use?

Posted on May 01, 2009
The White House has recently unveiled its Official White House Photostream on Flickr, posting dozens of stunning photos by official photographer Pete Souza. In posting the photos, the White House chose the least restrictive license available, a Creative Commons Attribution license — which means the public is free to download, copy, and re-mix freely, so long as the original photographer is credited...

minilinks for 2009-04-30

Posted on April 30, 2009
Rep. Boucher Pushes Internet Privacy Legislation The Virginia congressman wants legislation that will protect the public against behavioral advertising and other new technologies. Obama's First 100 Days: High Marks for Science, Low for Privacy Wired's Threat Level blog grades the Obama administration on issues of copyright, cyber security, transparency and privacy...

Google Book Search Settlement: Recent Developments

Posted on April 29, 2009
In recent weeks, there have been a number of important developments relating to the the Google Book Search settlement, currently awaiting approval before a court in New York. As we've written previously, this settlement would end the litigation that has pitting book publishers and authors against Google over Google's massive book scanning and indexing project...

DMCA Hearings on Phone Unlocking, Jailbreaking, and DVD Clipping at Stanford This Friday

Posted on April 29, 2009
This Friday, May 1, the U.S. Copyright Office comes to Stanford Law School to hold hearings on proposed exemptions to the DMCA's prohibition on circumventing technical protection measures (i.e., DRM). The hearings will be open to the public, and are scheduled to run from 9a to 5p...

Massive FBI Data-Mining Project Needs Congressional Oversight

Posted on April 28, 2009
Washington, D.C. - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called on Congress today to examine the Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW) -- a massive FBI data-mining project that includes a billion records, many of which contain personal information on American citizens...

Ninth Circuit Issues State Secrets Opinion, Allows Rendition Case to Proceed

Posted on April 28, 2009
Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Government's expansive view of the state secrets privilege, allowing an "extraordinary rendition" case against Jeppesen Dataplan to proceed. In the case, which was brought by the ACLU, the plaintiffs allege that "Jeppesen provided flight planning and logistical support services to the aircraft and crew on all of the flights transporting the five plaintiffs among their various locations of detention and torture...

EFF Issues Report on FBI Investigative Data Warehouse

Posted on April 28, 2009
Today EFF issued a report about the Investigative Data Warehouse, a gigantic billion-document storehouse of information maintained by the FBI. In addition, EFF wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, asking Congress to examine the IDW...

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