O'Reilly Digital Media

Related link: http://www.cioinsight.com/article/0,3658,s=25125&a=25590,00.asp

Interesting copyright developments: There are attempts to create a new type of intellectual property right for proprietary collections of facts, (including recombinations of public domain data). Up until now, a partial recombination of public or private facts into a new database was generally not restricted.

Related link: http://www.wiltgen.net/articles/dotnet/

I was happy to find this… useful for educating people who don’t know all these terms.

321 Studios isn’t waiting around to become the next Elcomsoft.

The company has recently filed a complaint against the major movie studios seeking a declaratory judgement that its “DVD Copy plus” product does not violate the DMCA.

The complaint (PDF file) is a defensive measure prompted by the MPAA’s public confirmation of its intent to prosecute 321 Studios for its violations of the DMCA.

Here are some excerpts from the complaint that I hand typed from the PDF file to help better explain the exact details of the situation.

This lawsuit involves the ability of a small Internet company to market and sell an instruction manual and bundled computer software that teaches legal owners of DVD movies to make legitimate backup copies of the contents of a DVD for their own personal use. 321 Studios’ package, called “DVD Copy Plus,” is an effective and easy-to-use method of transferring the digital video images from a DVD onto regular CD-ROMs, permitting the DVD owner to make backup copies of the DVD films… (Page 1, Line 25-Page 2 Line 2)

…This lawsuit presents important questions about the interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its interaction with United States copyright law and the First Amendment. The so-called “anti-circumvention” provisions of the DMCA have been widely criticized by legal scholars and computer industry experts. Because the potential reach of this new legal scheme is unclear, and because defendants claim 321 Studios violates this untested provision of copyright law, declaratory judgement by this Court is necessary to preserve the legitimate right of 321 Studios to market and sell DVD Copy Plus, and the legitimate rights of DVD owners to make backup archival copies of their own DVDs…(Page 2, Line 13-20)

…The problems with the DMCA stem from its vagueness, its interaction with other copyright laws, and its inconsistencies with the First Amendment protections on speech. The DMCA prohibits legitimate conduct including the fair use of copyrighted works permitted under the Copyright Act. (Page 9, Line 14-17)

Based on information and belief, representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America have asked the FBI to investigate 321 Studios’ distribution of DVD Copy Plus and have stated their belief that 321 Studios’ distribution of DVD Copy Plus and have stated their belief that 321 Studios has violated the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The MPAA’s desire to shut down the distribution of DVD Copy Plus, and its allegations that such activities and distribution violate the DMCA, are stated in a March 11, 2002 newspaper article distributed [by] the Gannett News Service. The newspaper article specifically referred to the website operated by 321 Studios offering the DVD Copy Plus product, “www.copymydvd.com.” (Page 9, Line 19-26)

There’s also a good CNET article by Lisa Bowman about the subject (where I first heard about it.)

Resources

• Complaint For Declaratory Relief and Demand for Jury Trial
  (http://www.321studios.com/complaint.pdf)

• 321 Studios’ Press Release Regarding the Complaint: 321 Studios Files Complaint against Nine Major Movie Production Companies Seeking Right To Sell DVD Copying Software
  (http://www.321studios.com/PR_complaint.htm)

• DVD Copy Plus
  (http://www.copymydvd.com)

• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
  (http://www.eff.org/)

• Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
  (http://www.mpaa.org)

• And Justice For Adobe, by Lisa Rein, O’Reilly Network Weblog
  (http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/wlg/505)

• Elcomsoft
  (http://www.elcomsoft.com)

• Upstart seeks court OK for DVD , Lisa Bowman for CNET
  (http://news.com.com/2100-1023-889455.html)

Do you think you should be allowed to make backup copies of your DVDs?

Related link: http://research.microsoft.com/users/annemk/workshop.htm

Call for papers on reliable p2p distributed systems.

Related link: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/0wn2.html

This guy sounds off on the flawed security of commercial p2p trojan horse business strategies. However, he doesn’t recommend any alternatives. I think the industry has to solve the mobile code trust issue eventually, not just say “it’s a really hard problem.”.

Related link: http://wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51586-2,00.html

This article from Wired highlights some of the clever hacks that some enterprising iPod lovers have thought up, including using an iPod as a TV remote, transferring address books from Palm/Entourage onto the iPod’s hard drive, and displaying news headlines for later viewing.

I’m not really a complaining type of guy, but I was so amused at the flurry of emails I just got to be part of to re-register a domain that was paid up for another year, that I had to post about it.

Verisign is sending out these outright lying emails, telling people to register their supposedly ALREADY EXPIRED domains. Personally I think it’s kind of cute. To help you with “what’s wrong in this picture”, I’ve red-lettered the date my domain already expired in their email. I suppose these are mistakes due to computer error- I mean, why would you intentionally decieve your customers?