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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
: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.
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.
: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?
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.
