Why I’m Suing the US Government
bunniestudios.com
bunniestudios.com
My wife is a speech therapist and uses a system that is designed to help people who have had strokes regain their voice.
It comprises a piece of software that comes with a "specially calibrated USB microphone". The microphone is actually a Samson laptop USB mic that had the voice improvement systems logo stuck on it.
The system came with lots of legal warnings about not copying, not telling unqualified people about how it worked and not to use an unapproved microphone. The DMCA was specifically mentioned.
One day the mic failed (the program requires patients to shout aggressively at the mic) so my wife went off looking for a replacement. We had a few USB mics that we tried and and the application refused to acknowledge their existence even though they showed up in Windows. It became obvious that the software was checking the USB device ID. My wife went to the company that ran the system to get a replacement, but they said she had to buy a new copy of the software as well - total cost $659. So we took a chance and ordered a new Samson USB mic from Amazon for €30.00, but when it arrived it didn't work. It was the same model, but was a few generations ahead and therefore had a different USB device ID. My wife has some colleagues with the same package so I tested their mics and they had different USB device IDs and it became obvious that when Samson released a revision of the mic the company offering the system simply recompiled the code with he new device ID baked in and then re-branded the mic.
So, not wanting to shell out $659 for a whole new package I took the old and new mics apart desoldered the cartridges from both mics and put the new one in the body of the failed mic. It worked! Now technically this would be a violation of 1201 in the sense that the individual copy of the software they sold you was tied to the specific mic they sold you at the same time - they said so in the EULA. But lets be honest that's just nonsense. They were simply trying to sell more stuff - a tactic that seems fairly common in various fields of professional therapy.
This is the sort of problem caused by 1201. If we lived in the US we would have been in breach of the DMCA even though we copied nothing.
Also, the software is as ugly as sin.
Edit: A common problem in her sector, and other therapy sectors, is that all the recognised diagnosis and treatment systems get bought by the likes of Pearson and other big technical publishers who will demand recurring payments to use the system. For example Owls, a common speech therapy system requires her to use their pre-printed forms to take notes. The basic diagnosis pack costs over $700, but she has to keep buying the forms at $60 for 25 - even thought he system rarely changes.
That said, I doubt one could go at it alone with no support or with only a grant -- building up mind share, fighting off BS patent threats, and doing enough sales to break even on these non-development costs aren't the sort of things that a government/ngo grant will typically support. And even if you could find the money, you'll still need access to a network of experts.
Someone should setup a fund that force-multiplies government/NGO grants for societally beneifical OSS with funding and access to expertise for these other things (legal/marketing/etc.). The aim could just be breaking even on non-grant-funded costs by selling support/branding/etc. to institutional players like hospitals and large chains.
I mentioned Owls above. You wont believe what it is... just clipart in a nice easel book form. I'm not joking, its just page after page of clipart, accompanied by a manual and 20 page copyright warning booklet.
The thing is Pearson has convinced governments, schools, charities, hospitals etc that this system is the best way to diagnose speech issues. My wife and a lot of her colleagues would beg to differ.
The best way to improve the status quo on a case-by-case basis is to introduce competition, say by developing a better product, marketing it well, and basically out-predating the theretofore market predators. The marketing is easy if you can get enough momentum behind it:
“FooCorp wants to sell you these materials for $absurd. We made these better alternative materials. You can print the basic set yourself for free, or order any of our wide, high-quality selection, starting from $reasonable.”
I don’t think there is a general solution to the underlying cause, though.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'd love to see China come in and drive the price down to commodity levels on.
The therapy involves getting patients to shout in a certain way and try and reach certain volume levels or follow certain volume patterns. E.g. shout gently for five seconds and gradually ramp up the volume over 10 seconds.
It would be really easy to replicate. I reckon the most time consuming part would be testing and calibration.
The whole app directory is less than 2MB.
But you should look into Max/MSP ( https://cycling74.com/products/max/ ), where you could build and bundle a simple audio app like that in minutes and have it tailored to your specific needs.
There are other settings more under the preferences category than DSP, like what profiles go on what switch setting, beeps, things like that. But these are all guarded jealously.
The aids are very expensive, more than $5k, for what's now ancient tech. They've only recently gotten BT and only then at the high end, more like $8k for the BT models.
We really need open hardware and software, so home users can get an audiologist to compute their profile and then do what they want with it.
My father who is in the age group now pretty much confirmed all of this when recently shopping for one. As it was covered by his health care they were trying to flog him one at a ridiculous price.
But, she can hear, and she’s happy. I guess that’s how these companies get away with it—you can satisfy a customer without doing a whole lot of actual good for them.
Is this a common thing? I would absolutely love to be funded to work on a bespoke open source project for such a good cause.
I have another friend from college who works in a hospital and makes 70-80k. Although there isn't much increase over the years in a hospital.
Just curious because I'm familiar with the field. Are things different in Europe?
This is a common criticism of HN I hear on Twitter by people who clearly don't spend much time here.
[0] (This is only here because I wanted to make sure spurious meant "false" and not "fast or quick") http://www.dictionary.com/browse/spurious
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12039107 (2-3 negative, spurious comments about snapchat)
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11075336 (about 33-33-33 of completely dismissive, completely bewildered, and then simply trying as hard as they can to explain to the previous two groups)
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778392 (I honestly didn't want to continue doing this simply to explain my perception)
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9606984 (This was actually my first comment on Hacker News :) Hopefully this one won't be my last...)
edited formatting of the links
So I think Dan was right to consider your "oogle of 40 somethings complaining about how useless and unintuitive it is" to be a spurious putdown. I think your "first" comment makes the same point about Snapchat's utility, but in a more acceptable manner. So please keep posting other comments, even controversial ones, but if possible avoid such generalizations unless they are well-supported and central to your argument.
It's possible that this company's business plan assumed the replacement by obsolescence model - instead of a high upfront cost to recoup their R&D, they expected users to replace it every few years at full cost.
This is no different than the vast majority of the bait & switch type schemes the tech industry and every other market uses. If one is acceptable, I don't see why the other is not, just because a small percentage of the population on HN understands how to replace the electronic components of said hardware.
Should a chemist be able to manufacture patented pharmaceuticals in his garage simply because he/she knows the procedure? What if the drugs cost $10K a month because the company spent billions developing and marketing them? Now what if the chemist decides to make the expensive drugs for his family? And his friends. And their friends. Where does it stop?
The DMCA has been abused, but it isn't so cut and dry.
you are essentially taking the position that the company should be forced to sell its software unbundled with hardware because you would prefer it that way.
Under your logic, the unicorn Uber could be forced to provide their software independently too, why should I have to use Uber's cars if I just want to use their software for scheduling and other market clearing tasks that I want to undertake, including scheduling competitive ride sharing. My headphone broke; I didn't like my Uber driver; how dare they bundle them together.
Now, I actually believe that Uber and other unicorns should not be allowed to become unicorns the way they do because I think we could achieve the same level of innovation in the public interest without monopoly prices. But I don't attempt to get my way by sneering at people and downvoting them.
Look, I agree that I don't like what this company is doing. But I don't like what the unicorns are doing either. I'm arguing for consistency of viewpoint; and in terms of damage, what this company is doing is far less damaging to the economy (and I'm not referring to the damage Uber is doing to taxis, I'm in favor of that, I'm just in favor of a herd of Uber's competing, rather than a single player monopoly run by a sleazebag)
I also don't see anything in that comment saying that they should be forced to decouple software from hardware. What it says is that they shouldn't be allowed to legally prohibit their users from doing said decoupling on their own, if they have the resources and the expertise to do so.
Now, this position does result in their business model being non-viable - if working around such technical restrictions is not illegal, and it's cheaper than not doing so, then there will be a market in workarounds. But I think that is fair - there's no inherent right for some arbitrary business model to be viable, so the market sorts it out. Companies can still try to make it work by utilizing more sophisticated protective schemes that require more effort to break, raising the cost of such workarounds. But if it doesn't work for them, well, they will have to look for a different business model - sell the device at a higher price, say, to mitigate losses from savvy customers that cannot be milked; or rent it out instead of selling.
As to patents and copyrights - these are, indeed, legal tools that enable specific business models. They exist because we as a society (i.e. majority consensus) believe that these are necessary to stimulate creation of certain goods that would otherwise not be created at all - so we have established them as a kind of explicit social contract. One could argue that their present form (terms, especially, and domain of applicability) is not actually agreed upon by the majority; but I think most people agree with the basic principle. They also have some important exemptions, such as fair use, which are also there to ensure a balance between keeping the business model viable, and protecting other social interests.
I don't think that a similar consensus exists with respect to DMCA protections. If you take a random person off the street, and explain them a situation that DMCA makes illegal, as the original post in this thread, the most common reaction is "WTF? This is insane". And I think it's for a good reason - DMCA doesn't really enable any business models that are uniquely suited to producing goods and services that the society needs, and that cannot be produced through any other business model. All it does is provide some opportunity for extra profit. I don't think that most people would consider extra profit for a few businesses to be sufficient justification for very heavy-handed legal restrictions that defy common sense.
What I am objecting to in this thread is the tone of everybody that this one little anecdote concerning the bad luck of one guy with a copy protected system is somehow egregiously bad behavior on the part of one little company. It's not. It is further evidence that we could have a better system without the DMCA etc.
What I'm saying is, when I drive a car, sometimes I speed, and if I get caught, I take my ticket like a grownup, I don't start pissing and moaning about cops, The Man, how I was treated, "we shouldn't have speed limits" etc. which many people I know do. Even though I've seen a lot of bad behavior by cops, I see a lot of bad behavior by a lot of people, many of whom have jobs that I don't want myself.
This thread should be a celebration of somebody's diligent hack around some arbitrary rules. It's not a poster child for the evils of corporate ethics.
People whose blood is boiling over what happened here? I hope they don't own guns or feel like I sped past them too fast on the highway, because I think they're *.ragers, is the argument in favor of rationality I'm trying to make.
Yes, he should. As long as he doesn't sell the patented chemicals it should not be a violation.
In the world I want to live in, this type of thing would be given to society due to the benefits of it. "But it's an investment; how will they recoup R&D money?" some will say. My response is that we as a society should recognize that the "free market" approach here can be quite inhumane for many people and figure out a way to either publicly fund this research (and address the related problems such as fraud and embezzlement) for the benefit of everyone.
Any business model is fine, as long as all the people involved in the transaction know what they are agreeing to. Bait and switch is NOT acceptable, and just because others do it does not make it acceptable.
If you are going to hide the fact that you expect your product to break in 2 years and the customer will have to buy a new one, then you don't get to complain if someone bypasses your business model and fixes it themselves. You can't use the law to enforce your trickery.
Incidentally when I called Samson support looking to buy a specific model revision I told them what the mic was used for. When I mentioned it was for people shouting mouth open wide at the top of their voice the support rep said "But that mic is for stuff like Skype and maybe recording a little bit of singing not for shouting at".
No, as OP mentioned, the software was compiled to match the device ID of the mic it was shipped with. So it would only work with versions of the software that were the same as OP's.
>So it would only work with versions of the software that were the same as OP's
>the software was compiled to match the device ID of the mic it was shipped with.
Since there isn't a "device ID", only a "Model ID", there isn't a new compiled version for everything being shipped. There's maybe 3 or 4 versions of the software total and there's probably one version that's more prolific than the others.
He may not have been able to buy one of those USB Microphones off of Amazon that had the same VID and PID but the old model that he repaired is one of the few versions that the manufacturer used so there's a pretty decent chance that the fixed one will work as is with another computer with the software on it.
But, if you hack the binary, its probably worthwhile to spend a little extra time and completely remove the id check. That way you can use any random mic you find.
That also may require playing with settings that require drivers to be signed (http://www.alphr.com/blogs/2012/08/06/getting-older-drivers-...)
On linux LD_PRELOAD should be enough.
I'm looking for potential new open source projects. Knowing about the software and its use helps me figure out if its doable (for me).
Anyways I was fortunate enough to belong to a school district that had a speech therapist who rotated through schools. After three years I had improved enough to 'graduate' and have been saying words with 'r' ever since. I haven't thought about it in years but the actions of that therapist, and of the district to provide her, have greatly effected my life.
So tell your wife thank you for what she does, and please ask her if she is aware of any philanthropic organizations where people can donate time or money to the worthy cause of speech therapy. I can only imagine all the inner city schools in America without a speech therapist, and what that must do the the kids.
She spent several years as a school district speechie in Texas so she probably knows exactly what you went through.
I also grew up with a rhotacism which I forced out of myself due to bullying. I know what you went through.
More seriously, the GPLv3 contains an interesting provision. Search for "Anti-Circumvention" in this to find the section: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0-standalone.html
The second paragraph is probably enforceable, but I'd be interested to hear from someone suitably informed whether the first paragraph has any basis. How far can it be taken?
For example, one of the most insidious things about the Blu-ray format is that unlike DVD and HD-DVD, commercially pressed video Blu-rays are obliged to use AACS. Theoretically non-AACS discs could be pressed and work, but the replication plants aren't _allowed_ to print non-AACS video Blu-rays. This has caused some consternation where people want to distribute Creative Commons/etc. video on optical media, more than can fit on a DVD. I think I recall Archive Team talking about just having to resort to putting video files on a data Blu-ray instead.
If someone made a film, put "Neither this work nor any derived work can constitute an effective technological measure for the purposes of the WIPO copyright treaty or any corresponding legislation" in the credits, and then someone else got AACS'd Blu-rays made of it, would 1201 thereby not prohibit breaking AACS specifically in the context of that Blu-ray? It seems rather dubious.
> [A] technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
This seems like an objective metric, not something the copyright holder can arbitrarily "deem".
However, in the usual case people worry about, where a user is "circumventing" by modifying software on their own device, one could argue that given the "Installation Information" clauses and the other parts of the GPLv3 aimed at ensuring the user has the ability to modify the software, it does not "in the ordinary course of its operation" require permission from the copyright holder. The "no covered work shall be deemed" clause could be seen to clarify intent.
There are other cases, like if the GPL software was, say, a web server that someone had configured to password protect files they had copyright over, and a hacker bypassed the password protection. This would normally be covered by the CFAA and other hacking statutes, but the DMCA could apply too. In this case, the GPL's "waive any legal power to forbid circumvention" clause wouldn't apply because the hacking wouldn't be "effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work". But if the "no covered work shall be deemed" clause is effective, it would close off using 1201 against the hacker anyway...
What's kind of cool about this issue is that it attracts support from citizens of all political stripes - whether you're a farmer who just wants to be able to fix his own damn tractor, or a hacker who wants to futz with proprietary hardware, the law is patently bogus.
Unfortunately, farmers and hackers have far less political influence than corporations. Hopefully by pursuing this through the courts and with adequate resources from the EFF some progress can be made that couldn't be in congress.
To be more accurate, I would say the number of farmers that want to work with code/electronics to fix tractors is a small subset of "farmers." Try cutting a farming subsidy and you'll quickly see how powerful farmers really are.
Ted Cruz was the only candidate who dared challenge Ethanol mandates -- while campaigning in Iowa. Most political pundits considered that suicide. He won Iowa despite that, but it does show that farmers actually have disproportional power in national politics. However, the "hack my tractor" crowd is not necessarily exercising that power. Perhaps in the 2020 election, this will become a marquee issue (as ethanol has been in elections past.)
> EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to make innovative uses of their paid video content, such as captioning a presidential debate with a running Twitter comment field or enabling remixes of high-definition video. But using or offering this technology could run afoul of Section 1201.
It definitely should be legal to build those products. Maybe it should be legal to distribute that captioned video as fair use. But why should Twitter profit from a user captioning a video CNN created?
That's the part I have trouble with here. Fair use is fine and good, but there is a large universe of very profitable companies that don't make content of their own, but profit from other peoples' content. Of course they have a huge interest in weakening copyright protections under the guise of promoting fair use.
If you've seen his previous NeTV project[1] he's looking to inject video overlays into the HDCP stream and let you do things like he described in his letter. His method of getting into the HDCP stream[2] via a MITM attack is probably what's running afoul of the government.
The DMCA protects certain forms of property very jealously, but other forms (e.g. a review) aren't even recognized as property, and the idea of users being appropriately compensated (as we'd expect each nickel to be accounted for a song owned by EMI) is practically absurd. (Note that I do not want the world where we monetize everything)
At the end of the day, which forms of digital property we create and enforce are going to be what determines who can amass wealth - the existing regime was obviously set in place to benefit corporations, billionaires, not joe user.
Twitter is made up of it's shareholders and workers. The workers have been receiving a salary(profit essentially). Twitter shareholders make money when the market cap goes up(profit essentially). It's likely a semantics discussion about what "profit" specifically means to each person more than anything.
Fortunately, profit isn't defined so subjectively when talking about a corporation.
I would like to suggest out that the latter is a heavily-defended form of property (belonging to the platform, not the user who does the work of viewing/clicking) that is monetized into the billions, while the former does not directly, probably just because it cannot be defined by terms of contract, and would be exercised on behalf of users, a diffuse unorganized source of power, and not the corporation, a narrow, organized source of power with specific intent.
We might despise users for not having their shit together, and watch happily while large corporations cart off billions and build giant systems of surveillance to further probe us, but this sort of 'vae victis' attitude is I think why 2016 is the debacle that it is.
I'm not sure I agree with you but your views are valid and a positive contribution to this thread. Just want to call out that I'm a bit disappointed with the rest of the community for targeting you.
This is not about Twitter, or CNN, but the users ability to consume content that they have legitimate access to in the way that they choose.
Replace twitter in this example with the ability to feed an audio stream into a speech recognition and translation service to translate audio streams on the fly and suddenly no one can argue the value to the consumer, but both cases are legitimate uses to different users.
Imagine if someone has their Blu-ray player playing on a TV. They design a system that flashes physical flashcards in front of the TV with a twitter feed. That shouldn't be illegal, right?
Now, what is the difference between that and overlaying a digital twitter feed? You are legally allowed to view the content. Why shouldn't you be able to consume it in any way you deem fit? If you copy or distribute it, that should be (and is) a crime, but until you have done that, in my opinion you have done nothing wrong.
Corporations have successfully lobbied to erode the whole basis of our legal system by taking away the presumption of innocence at every turn.
It appears that you are saying you can create something that incorporates fair use of a protected work, but you can't disseminate it, except maybe by some non-profit internet samizdat. That makes fair use a nullity.
Twitter isn't profiting from a work CNN created. They are, indirectly, profiting from user-created content, some of which is based on fair use, by creating a communications medium.
I went ahead and wrote an article that might be of interest to you, and seeing as you're an astute and recognized authority, I'd appreciate criticism as well.
IP is completely flawed because it grants a monopoly on the fruits of specific knowledge or a work as if they are static end products, whereas in reality anything that is not evolving is dying. So the law restricts progress to the owners of the IP even when we could all contribute. And when there is incompetence or negligence by the owners, we have a situation where something good is ruined or withheld, with anyone fixing it being illegal.
Removing IP is impossible because it's about profit, which is also a right. What we need is a new revenue system based on new principles of an expectation of progress and open contribution. Open source software and hardware is this, but just without any standard profit model backed by law.
Producers will announce themselves anyway, in hopes that their content will generate as much value as possible. Contributors would announce themselves in exchange for the right to use any IP.
So say DJ Foo remixes a Michael Jackson song and uploads it to YouTube. YouTube will withhold the IP tax from the ad revenue paid out, and hand it over to the IP revenue service with the copyright profile. Michael Jackson will get paid for DJ Foo's remix automatically.
Say DJ Foo does an original song and uploads it to YouTube. The same thing will happen, but DJ Foo will get paid from the IP revenue service since the IP is tied to DJ Foo as the originator.
And imagine if all this information was open and public. We could lookup any product or work and see all of its activity and history as if it were open source code on github.
In exchange for everyone paying an IP tax, anyone creating anything or adding something will be guaranteed to get paid for their contributions based on the maximum value society can generate from it. Violators will be shamed just by manipulating the system because they'd be doing it in public, and it would be in the IP creators best interest to police their work and report violations. Violations don't even need to be criminal. They just need to be fines that disincentivise those actions enough, much like parking tickets. An example violation would be uploading someone else's song without changing it or false claims regarding ownership.
plus... does anyone except the rich celebrities really think they're worth as much as they make? they could afford to have a bit less anyway ;) and they'd still keep creating
The trick is to create a society where creators get fed, and that still remains compatible with capitalism because we are in love with capitalism.
And maybe just anyone who wants to join is good enough. By joining, creators will get paid automatically just by publishing content that generates income for themselves or anyone else.
Not really useful without any public source code.
Today's kids have been well trained by Apple, Google and Netflix and hardly even understand what we are talking about.
"Oh, you don't have an iPhone anymore? Just buy it on Google Play and you will have it again on your Galaxy." is a quote I have heard more than once...
NOTE: I am talking about what the company's perspective may be, not my own view of the risks.
We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation.
What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!?
What if we let people tinker with their toasters and somebody uses one to electrocute a pool full of kids!?!?
Please, think of the children!
I know this was said in jest, but given the (generally unfounded) fears some people have about microwaves and cellphones I want to point out that exposure to unshielded microwave radiation isn't going to cause cancer (at least not any more than anything else that heats you up could somehow cause cancer) because microwave radiation is non-ionizing; you would need at least ultraviolet light for that (and UV-C or X-rays would be most effective).
The biggest danger with strong microwave radiation would be boiling your eyeballs as they lack the cooling most of your body has but contain significant amounts of water.
Sauna heat does not preferentially target liquid for heating.
By the time you have to worry about specific non-brain parts being overheated, your overall temperature is such that you're braindead.
Pretend my original comment ended with "Past that, you basically fell in a fire and it doesn't matter what is heating you." Is there anything wrong with that? Or the rejection of the idea that bone marrow is at risk?
Well, given that the Earth could be wiped out at any moment with the nuclear weapons and stuff we stockpiled, long term this idea might prove to be laughably wrong.
Yes, we sure can.
I don't want your "innovation" killing a bunch of people.
If you can't innovate without endangering people, you need to "innovate your innovation" and come up with a way you can do it safely.
You shouldn't be able to sue a tool manufacturer for misuse of a tool.
If you cannot sue Mercedes for a case when a driver with after market tuning kills someone in a crash, why should Tesla be liable?
So... does this mean I could sue Ford if someone modified a Ford car with a nitrous oxide booster? Could Ford sue the modifier for ruining the reputation of Ford when they crashed a modified Ford car? Will the state sue Ford for allowing such modifications, commonly used in street races? Can there be a civil suit against ford for anyone harmed by such modification?
To me, all those questions has a clear answer, and that answer is No. It also has a historical proof, as there hasn't been any lawsuits against Ford for failing to prevent such modifications. If the owner of a car modify their own car, then that person is fully responsible of any consequences of that action.
"We're allowing you to unlock your bootloader, but if you do, you're voiding your warranty."
Similarly car makers could say as soon as the user unlocks the car's systems for modification, the company is no longer responsible for any accident that might happen.
It seems like a rather good compromise to me.
"It is the socially responsible thing for Tesla to make guarantees about their car software performance and prevent tampering in order to keep our streets safe."
and
"It's my product, I own the car; I have the right to tinker with all of it."
I observe that we constantly have this same debate: can we be responsible and take care of ourselves or do we need some ruling class to take care of us and micromanage our decisions for us? Or philosophically, can mankind be perfected through laws?
Half-measures and exceptions in the self-determination debate always strike me as lacking wisdom. Culturally, we should be strongly predisposed one way or the other.
What?
Check out the Fast and Furious movies if you're interested.
By signing a EULA, you are accepting a limitation of your freedom of speech and (along with other factors - e.g. money) gaining some compromise instead (a car). That's not First Amendment territory in the same way that moderation of an online forum isn't.
The First Amendment prevents laws being made, not contracts being signed. It means it's not illegal, not that it isn't a breach of contract.
(IANAL - Obligatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/1357/)
The EULA is an agreement between a citizen and a corporation, and thus the First Amendment does not apply.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-always/jgpmh...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amazonsmilere...
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-se...
>"The Library of Congress failed in its October 28, 2015, rulemaking to grantexemptions from the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision, 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1), for speechusing clips of motion pictures, for the shifting of lawfully-acquired media to different formatsand devices, and for certain forms of security research.SeeLibrary of Congress, “Exemption toProhibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access ControlTechnologies,” 80 FR 65944 (Oct. 28, 2015) (“Final Rule”). The Librarian’s failure to grantthese exemptions violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”),5 U.S.C. § 702.Case 1:16-cv-01492"
As is such, the EFF needed time to compile a case, file it, and also find plantiffs.
You need standing and money to sue. Based on the EFF release:
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-se...
> EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to make innovative uses of their paid video content, such as captioning a presidential debate with a running Twitter comment field or enabling remixes of high-definition video. But using or offering this technology could run afoul of Section 1201.
> EFF is also representing plaintiff Matthew Green, a computer security researcher at Johns Hopkins University who wants to make sure that we all can trust the devices that we count on to communicate, underpin our financial transactions, and secure our most private medical information. Despite this work being vital for all of our safety, Green had to seek an exemption from the Library of Congress last year for his security research.
They have two people with reasonable reasons for wanting the regulation changed and are affected by it now would be my guess. Oh, and these people need the EFF to cover the legal costs.
I don't find this litigant to be sympathetic in the least (the second one, Green, is much more reasonable - though redundant to the John Deere case going on).
My initial impression is that I might actually want Huang to lose, if the implications of what he wants are as stated. He's trying to justify "remixing" for profit without compensation to the original rights holders. That's hot garbage in my personal opinion as a content creator.
There are a large number of situations where you have to break protection mechanisms on content you've legally purchased in order to exercise your previously existing and legal rights to use it as an owner.
Here's a practical application: Due to travel, sometimes my wife and I are apart when the latest Must Watch Episode of something comes out. We will fire up skype and hbonow/netflix and watch it together. Dorky, yes. But also a pain in the ass to keep synced when pausing for bathroom breaks, snacks, etc. Someone should invent an app for that! Oh... but it would be illegal under DMCA.
You do know the app you describe wouldn't be illegal under the DMCA if your program was licensed by the rights holders, right? That's what we're getting to here. If Huang's post described how he went about trying to negotiate and make deals with the content providers his device wants to piggy back on, and they were terrible in response, that's a different game - I'd be a lot more sympathetic then, no doubt. Show me where he did the due diligence and crunched the numbers, really!
It certainly doesn't change the basis of argument being asinine when realistically DMCA protections don't get in the way of day-to-day Fair Use. It just takes some effort, not buying some Bunnie Studios box off the shelf so he can make a profit. That's what is so stupid about trying to digitally steamroll protections - any time a human can SEE or HEAR something they can find a way to jack it and do something. It's just reality.
That makes a lot of sense. /s
You realize a TV fits that description, right?
There is no reason for every device in the pipeline to kick back money to the content creator. You only need to pay for it once.
You only have to pay for it once when you're consuming, you have to pay for it in a different way if the intent is to allow someone else to consume a variation of what you've paid for. That's how copyright works. Questions?
If I sold a transparent LCD display that displayed twitter content, and told buyers to put it in front of the video while it was playing. Would I still be making derivative content for profit? If not, why is compositing the video and overlay physically meaningfully different from the compositing happening between the player and the display?
I'm not an American and do not live in America but the problems with American (copyright) laws unfortunately affect the world on a global scale. I sincerely wish you all the best in your efforts and hope that other organisations as well as the (fantastic) EFF back you.
I stand behind you.
Section 1201 contains the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions. These infringe upon fair use activities like format conversion, repairs, and security research.
Don't get me wrong, great that a person can, but that shouldn't even be needed... in my opinion, utopia
"Roe (P), a pregnant single woman, brought a class action suit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas abortion laws. These laws made it a crime to obtain or attempt an abortion except on medical advice to save the life of the mother."
But this one has economic (money) aspects, i fear this might be a bigger struggle (while people may differ about whats more important).
So, basically, go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Supreme_...
and pick any case titled "{Person} v. United States" or "{Person} v. {State}". If the winning party is {Person}, chances are good that it repealed some law or another.
Now my attempts so far are stymied by this weird half world. Most government contracts basically want either bums on seats contractors or to fundamentally hire "someone who has done it before" (effectively the same as wanting to buy off the shelf)
So there is almost no way to seed fund the initial OSS development.
Down thread people talk about a fund for starting OSS projects to provide things like this. Plover is an example of people trying it on their own - but a funded system that basically follows current gov work seems better.
That's a valid point but I don't see how it's gotten to 1000 points, so I think I'm missing something. What's the lawsuit? What's the egregious use case?
However, it's not just a pain to be worked around. In the US, since the DMCA section 1201 became effective in 1998, it is illegal to try to work around DRM. Mostly.
Every couple of years, the Library of Congress gets to make a list of exceptions to 1201, of specific situations where you can work around DRM without it being illegal. Most recently was October 28, 2015.
Many people still objected to section 1201 on principal that it prevents tinkering, but the Library of Congress' list of exceptions has generally kept people placated.
As for context of their specific case: I'm not totally sure. User csydas suggested that this case became possible because of certain exceptions being removed from the latest version of the list (then some time for the EFF to compile the case). This seams reasonable to me, but to know for sure would involve legal details about the case that we don't have yet.
Like, if the scene is some dinner party, but right before you started watching someone had set a bomb under the table or something. What's the bomb here?
Copyright has gone out of control. Luckily not yet the whole planet bows to USA's demands. Let's hope that that will never be the case.
And it's such a shame, too, since those laws were bought and paid for by lobbyists, and what does it say about the rest of the country if one can't expect to get what one pays for when lobbying at the highest level of government?
Before we get into socioeconomic barrier discussions I am a former disabled homeless person who is how the founder of one of the most powerful environmental activism groups in the country. I started out with nothing and worked myself to where I am, using original and creative thought and at no time have I ever needed anyone’s intellectual property to build myself to where I am.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, that supports this complete bullshit erosion of the rights of content creators everywhere, does nothing in this world but fight for causes that continually reduce the market value of original ideas.
They claim to fight for things like “free speech” but what they really fight for is the rights of anonymous hate groups to steal your photos and write nasty messages on them. They fight for the rights of the meek to inherit the Earth so they can then destroy it with their abject failures.
Look to the recent lawsuit Google v Oracle, where Oracle sued Google over the use of their software in Android. Google avoided billions in liability and it was all thanks to the work of the EFF, who suck off the teat of Silicon Valley and protect their billionaire buddies from financial liability, and then they support “little guys” like this so they can continue their 1% supporting ruse.
I look forward to watching this mad grab at free intellectual property get slapped down by Washington DC. This is not about fighting the government, this guy is a puppet being used by the power that be in Silicon Valley in order to allow companies like Google to continue to rob, loot, and pillage other people’s intellectual property without financial liability.
Not saying you did it, but I had to comment someplace.
I think the insulting tone towards those that disagree with him might have something to do with it. And the above statement is just plain absurd.
I don't share your POV btw, but I got downvoted because they don't like that I defended your right speak because your POV is unacceptable here. And this, to move the topic further afield, is why codes of conduct don't work: it's just another flavor of Turkish Pres Recep Erdoğanian "thin skin to disagreement", or "I don't like your opinion in one area, so you'd better shut up about everything else"
| HN is a weird place to bemoan prices when many here are seeking unicorn valuations while disrupting industry
HN is a place where many seek unicorn valuations which are only achievable from monopoly rents. Monopoly rents are what the headphone USB trick is attempting to collect (see bundling). That's what makes it pertinent to state "weird place to take this side" especially so vociferously... well, weird side to take unless you are not educated about econ and are unable to decode what's actually happening.
If the software producer did not try to enforce copy protection through the USB scheme, they would presumably face the problem of people copying the software and buying aftermarket headphones. In a large scale industry like operating systems (Microsoft Windows) such rent seeking behavior is to be deplored because prices of individual copies of the software should approach their very-inexpensive marginal cost. But the marginal cost of a niche piece of software such as this ADA software is complicated by the difficulty in earning back the development costs. This is the justification for patents, etc. whether you believe in it strongly or less strongly or not. I am less strongly a believer, but I'm not a pussy who downvotes people who disagree with me.
However, I feel like there is something very very wrong about method and intention of this type of actions/complains.
One thing always bugs me about Americans: despite the liberties that they enjoy, despite the very real capacity to impact change in their government and laws, they all hate "the Government." Who is "the Government"? Wait, ain't them the very candidates that you the people vote into offices?
Like this idea of "suing the US government." Who are you suing? The executive branch? Why are you suing them? This is over a law. It's a piece of legislation. The executive branch merely, you know, execute the laws. Why not sue Congress? Oh wait, why sue Congress when you can simply vote them out of office? Oh wait, why "stop enforcing" the laws when you can, you know, CHANGE the laws?
This kinda reminds me of the libertarians' ideas of obstruction of legislation so that "the government does not spend more." If not spending is the right thing to do, why not educate people that. Even if one believes that 47% of the population is "takers," 53% is still a majority. So teach, advocate, change minds. But no, they prefer to obstruct their country, risk the centuries of their national reputation, put t heir fellow citizens to starvation. You know, if this happens in schoolyards, we probably call it "bullying." But if a bunch of libertarians do it, it's "principles."
Obviously, I agree with the plaintiff here. However, the method is still wrong. And different from above, there are very few "takers" here. Mostly, it's faceless businesses that (let's be frank here) few people like. So why not take the high road? Why not educate your fellow citizens on the danger of the laws? Why not change minds? Why not raise money for candidates who will change the laws appropriately?
In short: why not be a citizen rather than a rebel? Why not change the system for the better rather than obstruct it? Why not make your society/country a better place rather than simply fight it?
When a bunch of civil rights activists do it, is it still "bullying"?
Similar lawsuits are why Texas and other US states can't enforce their anti-homosexual sodomy laws anymore.
I could make a bulleted list of why a republic doesn't work very well to tame media oligarchs, but it boils down to control of the media and decades of experience with framing the public conversation.
Legislation is inert. The Executive exists to execute the will of the people expressed through the Legislature. The Judiciary interprets legislation, particularly the interactions and priorities of various laws, ranging from the Constitution, to legislation, to case law. This in turn informs the Executive as to how to execute the legislation.
Therefore, if a citizen is of the opinion that the Executive is doing a bad job of balancing concerns in enforcement (in this particular case asserting that 1201 is unconstitutional due to the 1st Amendment), they sue the Executive. Again, this is entirely in keeping with the structure of checks and balances American government is founded on. When it works, it works well.
That can be radically difficult because of gerrymandering.
That aside, launching a public campaign, garnering votes, and voting on a _single issue_ is often the wrong way to elect a representative.
For instance, I think the 2nd amendment is actually a good idea to prevent invasion of a foreign force (an armed population is very hard to rule over). However, I pretty much never vote for candidates that support the 2nd amendment because they often also deny climate change, vote for private prison control, etc. I can't go with their whole platform. I don't want them representing me.
So in those cases, when you have one issue - especially when it's just part of a whole (e.g. just section 1201) - it seems like the right approach, especially when you think there's a piece of legislation (like the Constitution) that supersedes and invalidates the legislation you're looking at.
Duverger's Law also complicates things:
Fixing this issue via the legislative process would therefor require realigning lawmakers with their constituents, which could be done possibly by enacting laws which prevent contributions from corporations (which is itself something that lawmakers may disagree with their constituents about) or by a grassroots campaign to basically replace the entire legislative branch with non corrupt law makers.
Both of these paths are slow and difficult, if possible at all. Meanwhile, there is an argument that the law is unconstitutional which means that it could be repealed immediately. We are still completely within the realm of being a citizen. This is the whole point of the checks and balances system.
Yes, the very candidates we vote into offices chosen from a menu prepared by the 0.1% of the wealthiest people in the country.
Please see Lessig's TED talk on U.S. Democratic process.
https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_...
Because that's incredibly inefficient when compared to taking someone to court. Most people don't care about the things you care about, and they shouldn't have to -- that's what the courts are for. Democracy is a great last resort, but it should only be used when all other options have been exhausted.
> One thing always bugs me about Americans: despite the liberties that they enjoy, despite the very real capacity to impact change in their government and laws, they all hate "the Government." Who is "the Government"? Wait, ain't them the very candidates that you the people vote into offices?
Fear of government is essentially a founding value of the United States, but I agree that people often go too far with it.
> Like this idea of "suing the US government." Who are you suing? The executive branch? Why are you suing them? This is over a law. It's a piece of legislation. The executive branch merely, you know, execute the laws.
Because that's how American constitutional law works. If you believe a federal law to be unconstitutional, you sue "the United States" so the courts can rule on the matter. The Justice Department, part of the executive branch, which for all intents and purposes is the government's legal team, is then tasked with defending the law.
Also, in constitutional law cases it's common for the plaintiffs to not seek monetary damages of any kind, just for the courts to affirm the rights they're asserting and remedy the specific situation that led to the lawsuit.
> Why not sue Congress?
The only time you would really have standing to sue Congress is if it did something to you directly, like you walked into Capitol Hill and one of the security guards roughed you up for no reason. Otherwise, Congress is acting on behalf of the government, and if you don't like acts of Congress you sue the government as a whole.
> Oh wait, why sue Congress when you can simply vote them out of office? Oh wait, why "stop enforcing" the laws when you can, you know, CHANGE the laws?
A couple reasons.
One, as an American citizen, there are at most three members of Congress you vote for: your Representative, and your two Senators. That's three out of 535 members. If you don't live in a state, you have no representation at all. So even if you can energize your neighbors to agree with and vote like you, it's still hard to sway the tide of national lawmaking.
Another reason is that it simply might not be politically possible to seek relief in Congress, because you're suing for a right that's politically unpopular, or for the rights of an unpopular group. Think of all the lawsuits involving flag burning, sodomy, the KKK, and the Westboro Baptist Church.
But the intentions of the legislation don't change its consequences.
Ignoring fair use for a moment (which DMCA 1201 also breaks, so that's another problem), copyright restricts copying. DMCA 1201 produces a restriction on usage, which copyright does not control.
DMCA 1201 doesn't actually prevent you from copying a DVD, for instance. DMCA 1201 prevents you from reading and playing a DVD using anything other than software approved by the author of the DVD.
1201 also has the effect of banning circumvention that does not infringe copyright. Which is supposedly addressed by the weird adhoc Library of Congress exemption system, but only in a very limited set of cases.
If they want to sell something and still remain ownership rights, then do what every company in history did before software DRM: rent it out as a service. A car bought, and a car rented, has natural right differences which is being erased by DRM.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think that laws with a constitutionally valid purpose are sometimes ruled unconstitutional by the courts when they have unconstitutional effects.
I can't comment on whether I think that will be the case here.
Doing <B> was already illegal. Therefore, doing <A> in order to <B> was also already illegal.
People are upset that <A> is now illegal, for all purposes, not just doing <B>.
> The purpose of the statute isn't to <X> but is to <Y>. I don't see anything wrong with that.
What's wrong with that is that it also does <X> (even if that isn't the "purpose").
What difference does the intended purpose make if it does indeed destroy <insert Internet activist claimed right>?
If that was indeed the purpose of 1201, the the law as written has unintended consequences.
But my feeling is that they knew damn well that they were going to sweep up non commercial tinkerers as well.
These days the line between commercial and non commercial is blurred. With the internet a hacker can publish some circumvention method and software with the same reach as a large company.[1]
[1] I personally see no problem with that. BTW. The law is being used here to prop up outdated, often monopolistic, business models. That's the company's problem, and shouldn't be externalized onto all of society.
Of course not every violation of 1201 will be prosecuted, but the laws are there to intimidate people if their tinkering becomes commerciall bothersome.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_pu...
- Tractors that have technical measures to prevent 3rd party repairs or replacement parts. Circumventing those measures is a DMCA violation, even if all you're trying to do is repair a tractor that you own without paying an arm and a leg to the manufacturer for a repair person.
- Printer makers that use technical measures to prevent their printers from using 3rd party inkjet cartridges. It's not my fault that they want to use the "give away the razor, sell the blades" business model.
- Basically any company that wants everything relating to their product to go through them, and to prevent 3rd party companies from creating replacement parts or performing repairs.
The government shouldn't be making laws just to make certain business models viable (that are otherwise not viable). (e.g.) If you can't sell cheap printers without gouging people by selling expensive ink, then charge more for your printers. If printers are too expensive for everyone to have one at home, then so be it. They will do their printing at Kinko's (or the local equivalent).
This works in other industries. Car manufacturers have had a 3rd party parts market for a long time (though they are definitely suckling at the teat of the DMCA and trying to make newer cars as locked down as possible).
Do you really think that the US government should be making laws to shut down the 3rd party inkjet cartridge industry in order to protect HP's consumer printer business? Should the US government pass laws to make it illegal for a farmer to install a non-John Deere part on his John Deere tractor? Is this the kind of thing that the government needs to be doing?
Do you see the problem?
Of course, the question is does this invalidate the entire DMCA or only that specific part?
If a law has unintended consequences of the magnitude that exceeds the supposed beneficial intent of the law, it's a bad law.
If there's no way to write a law without such unintended consequences, it shouldn't exist.
In this case, there's also the additional orthogonal argument that the law violates the First Amendment by prohibiting speech. Even if the law didn't have unintended consequences, this alone is sufficient to justify getting rid of it - if we allow unconstitutional laws because they serve a good purpose, all constitutional protections go out of the window.
So unless Bunnie has been prosecuted for breaking the DMCA, this is likely going to be an ineffective move.
If you want to change a law without breaking it first, the right way to go about it is petitioning Congress, the lawmaking part of the government.
>Before Section 1201, the ownership of ideas was tempered by constitutional protections. Under this law, we had the right to tinker with gadgets that we bought, we had the right to record TV shows on our VCRs, and we had the right to remix songs.
Wait, before the DMCA "we" had the right to remix songs? Okay so this case is going nowhere because the person filing really doesn't quite understand the mechanics of basic Copyright. Just kind of throwing out the concept of "remixes" does a dis-service for the real nuances of how the rights/permissions/compensation system works, has been tested in court, etc.
The subject of ownership and repair is extremely complex and this lawsuit is frivolous when the matter is being actively tested by John Deere and various farmers. Maybe this person could assist in funding that challenge to 1201. There are some glaring flaws in this whole approach, from what I understand about Copyright law and the DMCA.
Also, I don't know why the EFF continues to push erroneous information regarding how Copyright, the DMCA, and Fair Use actually work:
>This ban applies even where people want to make noninfringing fair uses of the materials they are accessing.
Fair Use always trumps the DMCA; the nature of Fair Use, however, is subject to four factor tests, if an IP owner should feel compelled to assert the Fair Use was not in the spirit and letter of the law. Sometimes it seems like the EFF and TechDirt try to claim things that aren't true just to make a point. It's something that bothers me routinely in this subject in particular.
This is not necessarily the case.
> However, in a number of cases involving DVD decryption courts have held that there is no fair use defense in circumvention cases. In Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 294, 322 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), the court stated that "[i]f Congress had meant the fair use defense to apply to such actions, it would have said so."[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention#Fair_Use_an...
Do you have a link on the John Deere suit(s) you mentioned? That's one I'd be interested in following.
[1] http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere
[2]https://theamericangenius.com/business-news/farmers-cant-leg...
it seems to concern the idea, as mentioned above, of ownership vs a permanent license of the goods purchased or in their minds.. leased?