Spam Laws, 107th Congress
Spam & E-Mail
3/17/2001; 6:50:55 PM Slashdot has an article today on yet another spam law proposed in Congress. Rather then make a news article out of that, I'd rather take this opportunity to point you at the Junk Email pages at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Record Industry Plays Both Sides
Music & MP3
3/17/2001; 6:35:59 PM '...Record labels are poised to conquer cyberspace with their own streaming and downloading services.

'Ironically, only one thing stands in the way: copyright.

'Record companies aren't the only ones that hold copyright on music recordings. Music publishers, who represent lyricists and composers, do too -- owning the rights to the piece of music itself. For every copy a record company distributes, the publisher gets a small cut. That's how the people who write the songs get paid....

Better Business Bureau tries to stop Web links
Free Speech
3/14/2001; 9:09:35 PM 'The Better Business Bureau is demanding that an Israeli company's Web site take down its link to the consumer protection organization.

'The demand raises new intellectual property questions about how companies protect their names and logos online. A trademark expert said that the group has little chance to enforce its demand in court....'

'Zialcita said the bureau allows links from the news media, government agencies, schools and bureau members. She said the organization also allows links to search engine sites because ``we can't stop them.'''

High-tech titans put the squeeze on privacy regs Privacy from Companies3/14/2001; 11:45:29 AM 'Aiming to halt the advance of dozens of privacy bills in Congress and in state legislatures across the country, the group Monday went public with four industry-funded studies asserting that privacy legislation would cost consumers billions of dollars annually.' 'Led by the Online Privacy Alliance in Washington, the loosely organized campaign is attacking legislative proposals on three fronts: identifying expensive regulatory burdens, raising questions about how any U.S. Internet law would apply to non-Internet industries, and assuring lawmakers that privacy is best guarded by new technology, not new laws.'I won't simply claim these studies are fallacious (though the people conducting the study clearly said they had not considered all factors (specifically, the increase in spending due to increase in confidence, though who knows what else they left out?)), but I can't imagine taking them at face value. Aside from the fact that these studies were bought (why does anyone bother reporting on studies that reflect exactly what the people buying them wanted them to say? Only the opposite would be newsworthy), the results may still not mean anything. Regulation is always expensive. Cars would be thousands of dollars cheaper without regulation. This is not speculation, this is an observation; I've seen a car being produced for China that can be made and sold for a few hundred dollars. It's made out of wood and canvas and has the cheapest imaginable engine in it. The windshield wipers are used by hand. In a crash at an significant speed, it would provide no protection whatsoever. You can even make a case that the majority of a car's price is due to regulation (though it depends a lot on how you draw the lines). So... should we deregulate cars just because it's expensive? No, because the benefits of safe cars outweight the costs.The argument that "Privacy is too expensive" assumes that there is some definition of "too" expensive. Simply tossing about billions of dollars in expenses (chump change, really) is not sufficient to prove "too-expensiveness", especially in a study that doesn't consider all the variables. The real question is, "Is privacy worth the cost?", and I personally would say yes (assuming there is a cost, which I do not necessarily concede). (Granted, privacy isn't as directly a live-or-death matter as car safety... nevertheless we are talking about real harm to people.)Oh, and of course, to look at it another way, "If we aren't allowed to abuse our customer's sensibilities and privacy, then we may not be able to make as much money" is an extraordinarily greedy and childish argument.

Banner Ads Now Themselves Have Banner Ads
Humor/Amusing
3/13/2001; 11:28:50 AM 'The basic problem," says Marcos, "is that banner ads are expensive to run. Organizations like DoubleClick whose business is to provide the public with banner ads are hemorrhaging cash. It just can't be done by hobbyists anymore. That's why we're stepping in and providing commercial sponsorship for banner ads, in the form of banner ads."'

Copy This! Can 'Military' Technology Beat Digital Piracy?
Misc.
3/13/2001; 11:05:44 AM

'A small Austin start-up run by intelligence community alums is parachuting into the burgeoning, post-Napster, copy-protection market with a remarkably thin, invisible software product that claims to offer nearly invincible armor for music, video, film and e-books alike....'

'The InTether system consists of a packager, used by the originator of a file, and a receiver, used by the recipient. The packager enables a publisher, record label, movie studio -- or, for that matter, a law firm, doctor's office, bank or anyone else who wants information security -- to impose a set of restrictions on almost any digital file. InTether, Friedman says, works equally well with, for instance, Word, Adobe Acrobat, Lotus or Excel documents, e-books, music, video or photographic files....'

Should Patents be Granted for Computer Software? (UK)
Country Watch: Britain
3/12/2001; 9:58:13 PM

'The Government’s conclusion is thus to reaffirm the principle that patents are for technological innovations. Software should not be patentable where there is no technological innovation, and technological innovations should not cease to be patentable merely because the innovation lies in software.'

'However, the Government agrees with those respondents who said that at present the law is not clear enough, and that this is damaging. Clarification is needed. This raises complex and technical questions, but the central difficulty can be expressed simply: how to define the boundary determining when software is, and is not, part of a technological innovation, so that what is patentable will be clear in specific cases in future. The Government intends to take this matter up with its partners in the European Union and the European Patent Convention as a matter of urgency.'

German Court Finds AOL Guilty of Internet Piracy
Country Watch: Germany
3/10/2001; 1:20:23 PM

'Restrictive online copyright protection may have been bolstered by a German appeals court, which has upheld a ruling against America Online (NYSE: AOL - news) that found the Internet giant responsible for pirated material swapped on its service...

'The Frankfurt district court ruling Friday upheld the determination of a Bavarian state court in Munich last April that Internet service providers (ISPs) are responsible for pirated material traded on their systems.'

Users, vendors face off over UCITA law in Texas
UCITA
3/10/2001; 12:01:45 PM

'A TITANIC STRUGGLE over the proposed new Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act -- one that pits large corporate users against a group of major technology vendors -- is under way in Texas and could become a key showdown for the controversial software licensing measure.

'The legislation, known informally as UCITA, was approved relatively easily last year in two states: Virginia and Maryland. But things are different in Texas, where opponents are moving aggressively to prevent the state legislature from passing the measure.

Law shelters AOL from child porn suit
Misc.
3/10/2001; 11:56:38 AM 'The state Supreme Court said Thursday that federal law shields America Online from illegal transactions--in particular, the sale of child pornography--taking place on its service.

'In a 4-3 decision, Florida's high court said the Communications Decency Act gives the Internet service provider, a unit of AOL Time Warner, immunity from a lawsuit filed by a Florida woman, whose 11-year-old son appeared in a lewd videotape sold by one AOL subscriber to another.'