Intellectual Property Law

MBTA, MIT Students Join to Discuss Improvements to Automated Fare Collection System

Posted on December 22, 2008
pBoston - Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) officials and three MIT student researchers announced today that, following the dismissal of a federal lawsuit brought by the MBTA against the MIT students, the parties agreed to work together to identify and help improve security in the MBTA's Automated Fare Collection System...

RIAA v. The People Turns from Lawsuits to 3 Strikes

Posted on December 19, 2008
The lawsuits are ending. It's about time. According to the Wall Street Journal, the recording industry has halted its mass litigation campaign against music fans for Internet file-sharing, a campaign that has targeted more than 35,000 Americans over more than 5 years (for a complete history of the lawsuits, see our RIAA v...

Is it patentable?

Posted on December 19, 2008
pTwo months ago, in iIn re Bilski/i, the Federal Circuit a href=http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/federal-circuit-limits-business-method-patentsrejected/a the notion that anything that produces a useful, concrete, and tangible result is potentially patentable...

Yahoo To Anonymize Logs After 90 Days, Compared to Google's 9 Months

Posted on December 17, 2008
pToday, Yahoo upped the ante when it comes to protecting search engine users' privacy, a href=http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=354703announcing a new data retention policy/a providing for anonymization of search queries mdash; as well as page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks mdash; after 90 days...

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Reactions to Yahoo Data Retention Policy

Posted on December 17, 2008
pEarlier today, Yahoo! a href=http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/12/yahoo-anonymize-logs-after-90-days-compared-googleannounced a new data retention policy/a providing for anonymization of search queries ? as well as page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks ? after 90 days...

First Interview with the NSA Whistleblower

Posted on December 17, 2008
p Over the weekend, Newsweek a href=http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/12/whistleblower-who-kick-started-domestic-spying-revrevealed/a Thomas M. Tamm as the man who first blew the whistle on the Bush Administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping program...

EFF, FIRE and Others Urge Michigan State to Respect Student Speech in Spammer case

Posted on December 17, 2008
pThe Electronic Frontier Foundation, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and ten other civil liberties organizations today sent an a href=http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10045.htmlopen letter/a today to Michigan State University (MSU) President Lou Anna K...

The Twelve Days of EFF

Posted on December 16, 2008
We'd like to share this animated holiday greeting titled the 12 Days of EFF to celebrate the season and thank our friends and supporters for a good year in the fight for digital rights. Thanks and happy holidays!

Second Circuit Rules Against National Security Letter Gag Orders

Posted on December 15, 2008
Today, the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals gave another setback to the Bush Administration's claims for sweeping new Executive powers. The court found the National Security Letter (NSL) statute's gag provision unconstitutional in Doe v. Mukasey...

The Whistleblower Who Kick-Started Domestic Spying Revelations

Posted on December 15, 2008
Remember how shocked you were back in December of 2005 when you learned that the government was spying on Americans' phone calls and emails without warrants? The whistleblower who apparently kicked off that New York Times investigation has come forward, and his story is a timely lesson on how important -- and frightening -- it can be to do the right thing...

minilinks for 2008-12-15

Posted on December 15, 2008
Obama May Keep CIA ChiefMichael Hayden, a major player in the Bush administration' wiretapping program, may stay on as head of the CIA under Obama. Panel to Call for Review of Wiretapping ScholarThe House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel plans to ask the NSA to open a formal investigation into whether NSA wiretaps were improperly used in the trial of Ali al-Timimi...

MPAA Asks Obama for More Copyright Surveillance of the Internet

Posted on December 11, 2008
As part of their commitment to transparent and open government, the Obama Transition Team is posting the lobbying agendas of the groups it meets with for public review and comment. One of the more interesting documents to be found there is the Motion Picture Association of America's "international trade" agenda...

Labels Open to Collective Licensing on Campus

Posted on December 10, 2008
Finally. The major record labels are coming around to voluntary collective licensing, as we've been urging (and predicting) since 2003. Last week, TechDirt posted a set of leaked slides suggesting that Warner Music Group has opened a discussion with several major U...

Internet Censors Must Be Accountable For The Things They Break

Posted on December 09, 2008
Yesterday's scandal over the UK Internet Watch Foundation's attempt to censor a purportedly pedophiliac Wikipedia entry raises some important questions about unintended technical consequences of Internet censorship systems. The Wikipedia article was about a 1970s hard rock album called Virgin Killer [NSFW] by the German band Scorpions...

Obama's Transparent Transition

Posted on December 08, 2008
The Obama-Biden Transition Project took a major step to increase transparency Friday, announcing that most policy documents from meetings with outside groups will be posted on the Web site Change.gov for review and comment. The new policy also invites the public to submit their own ideas and leave comments for the transition team...

Minilinks for 2008-12-05

Posted on December 05, 2008
Obama's Attorney General Pick: Good on Privacy?Eric Holder has an unfortunate history of supporting schemes that broaden law enforcement powers at the cost of privacy and other civil liberties. Principles for an Open TransitionLeaders of the open government movement published three principles to guide President-elect Obama's transition team in fostering greater speech and participation...

Jewelry Company Quest to Expand Trademark Law Could Quash Internet Commerce

Posted on December 04, 2008
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) along with Public Citizen and Public Knowledge urged a U.S. court of appeals Wednesday to reject jewelry-maker Tiffany's attempt to rewrite trademark law and create new barriers for online commerce and communication...

Remixers, Unlockers, Jailbreakers, Oh My!

Posted on December 03, 2008
Yesterday, EFF filed petitions (1, 2) with the Copyright Office seeking DMCA exemptions for three categories of activities that do not violate copyright laws, but that are still jeopardized by the DMCA's ban on bypassing technical protection measures used to control access to copyrighted works (i...

Copyright Office Should Right DMCA Wrongs in Rulemaking

Posted on December 02, 2008
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed three exemption requests with the U.S. Copyright Office today aimed at protecting the important work of video remix artists, iPhone owners, and cell phone recyclers from legal threats under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)...

global minilinks for 2008-12-02

Posted on December 02, 2008
Citizen Safeguards Struck Out in EU CouncilLa Quadrature Du Net analyse the latest moves in Europe's telecoms package - still a mixed bag for protecting rights online. Inside Italy's Net FiltersAn overview of the "P-Box" - the bespoke Debian install intended to filter content at Italian ISPs...

Change.gov Content Now Under Creative Commons License

Posted on December 01, 2008
In the last few days, President-elect Obama's transition team took a significant stride towards a more open government by licensing the content of Change.gov under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Using that license essentially means that the transition team is allowing others to freely share and remix what's posted there, provided that reposts are attributed to Change...

EFF to Fight Against Telecom Immunity in Tuesday Hearing

Posted on December 01, 2008
San Francisco - On Tuesday, December 2, at 10 a.m., the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will challenge the constitutionality of a federal law aimed at granting immunity to telecommunications companies participating in illegal domestic surveillance...

Censorship in the 21st Century: Targeting Intermediaries

Posted on November 25, 2008
On November 12, 2008, a group of artists and activists unveiled a brilliant spoof of the New York Times, widely distributed to readers in New York and Los Angeles. This "July 4, 2009" version of the Times — which the real New York Times described as a "Grade-A caper" — boldly announced the end of the Iraq War, the nationalization of major oil conglomerates, the elimination of tuition at public universities, and the indictment of soon-to-be-former president Bush on charges of high treason...

Apple Confuses Speech with a DMCA Violation

Posted on November 25, 2008
Slashdot reports that Apple has sent a "cease and desist" email to bluwiki, a public wiki site, demanding the removal of postings there by those who are trying to figure out how to write software that can sync media to the latest versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch...

A "Grey Hat" Guide for Security Researchers

Posted on November 24, 2008
In counseling computer security researchers, I have found the law to be a real obstacle to solving vulnerabilities. The muddy nature of the laws that regulate computers and code, coupled with a series of abusive lawsuits, gives researchers real reason to worry that they might be sued if they publish their research or go straight to the affected vendor...

Apple Downgrades Macbook Video with DRM

Posted on November 21, 2008
Once again, thanks to DRM, a new product ends up less useful than the one it replaces. This time, it's the new family of Apple Macbook laptop computers that gets the downgrade. When it launched the new Macbooks, Apple announced that they would sport a new digital video output connector, known as Mini DisplayPort...

Google is Done Paying Silicon Valley's Legal Bills

Posted on November 20, 2008
[I wrote the following op-ed, which appeared in the Nov. 14 issue of The Recorder. Because that publication's website is not publicly available, I'm posting a copy here, with their permission.] For most of the decade, Silicon Valley technology startups have assumed that Google would pay their legal bills...

Apply for the Summer Google Policy Fellowship and Work with EFF

Posted on November 20, 2008
Students interested in technology law and policy may be interested in applying to work with EFF next summer through the Google Policy Fellowship, a program that gives students the chance to spend the summer working alongside host organizations on topics of Internet and technology policy...

What Obama Can and Should Do to Stop Telecom Immunity

Posted on November 19, 2008
Yesterday, the New York Times ran the story "Early Test for Obama on Domestic Spying Views", describing the national security-related issues facing the incoming Obama Administration. Chief among them is the issue of immunity for telecoms that illegally assisted in the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program: In perhaps the most critical test, civil liberties groups that are suing major phone companies that took part in the N...

EFF Joins with Coalition to Provide Policy Roadmap to Next President and Congress

Posted on November 19, 2008
A coalition of more than 25 organizations, including EFF, yesterday released "Liberty and Security: Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress", a comprehensive catalogue of policy recommendations on a range of critical civil liberties issues...

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