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Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Government Domain Name Seizures Violate First Amendment

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal court to return two domain names seized in the U.S. government's fundamentally flawed anti-infringement campaign in an amicus brief filed Monday.

"This misguided intellectual property enforcement effort is causing serious collateral damage to free speech rights," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "These domain seizures should cease unless and until the government can fix the First Amendment flaws inherent in the program."

EFF's brief was filed in support of a petition from Puerto 80, the Spanish company behind popular sports streaming sites Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org, which were both seized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this year, even though a Spanish court found they did not violate copyright law. Puerto 80 tried to work with ICE and other U.S. government authorities to resolve the matter without court involvement, but its efforts were unsuccessful.

ICE began seizing domain names last year as part of "Operation in Our Sites," a government initiative to crack down on Internet piracy. ICE has seized 125 domains and redirects visitors of those sites to a banner notifying them that the domain name of that website has been seized by federal authorities.

"Neither the government nor rightsholders should fear a copyright enforcement process that complies with the rule of law," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Valid claims of copyright infringement can be pursued in a manner that allows the accused parties to defend themselves. The unilateral seizure of domain names without a court ruling -- which obstructs access to all of a website's content -- is improper and should be strongly opposed by free speech advocates everywhere."

The Center for Democracy and Technology and Public Knowledge joined EFF's amicus brief. Jeffrey Neu and Luc Ulmet of the law firm Kuzas Neu serve as local counsel.

For the full amicus brief:

https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/puerto80_v_US/2011-06-20-rojadirecta....

For more on this case:

https://www.eff.org/cases/puerto-80-v-us

Contacts:

Corynne McSherry

Intellectual Property Director

Electronic Frontier Foundation

corynne@eff.org

Matt Zimmerman

Senior Staff Attorney

Electronic Frontier Foundation

mattz@eff.org

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EFF Asks Supreme Court to Protect "First Sale" Rights

EFF asked the Supreme Court yesterday to weigh in on Vernor v. Autodesk, a case that tests whether the "first sale doctrine" will survive in the digital age.

Under the first sale doctrine, once a copyright owner sells or gives you a copy of her work, she gives up control of that particular copy. You buy it, you own it. This principle is extraordinarily important for consumers, as it makes it legal for you to resell, lend, or give away the books, CDs, DVDs, and software that you purchase.

Many copyright owners don’t like these limits; they’d rather be able to completely control the market for their products, including any secondary markets. Thus, in an effort to duck the first sale doctrine, companies increasingly claim that they are "licensing" products to consumers, instead of selling them.

That's exactly what's happening in Vernor. Timothy Vernor, an online software reseller, tried to auction four packages of Autodesk's AutoCAD software on eBay, but Autodesk threatened Mr. Vernor with a copyright infringement lawsuit, claiming that its software is only “licensed,” never sold and pointing to the fine print on the agreement it had with the original purchaser from whom Mr. Vernor obtained the software.

The public interest litigators at Public Citizen pitched in to help Mr. Vernor, and they filed suit in Seattle, asking the court to clarify his right to resell the software. The district court agreed with Vernor in 2009, but Autodesk appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. There, justices wrongly held that the first sale doctrine doesn't apply as long as the vendor writes a user agreement that includes restrictions transforming a sale into a license. In other words, if you use the right "magic words," you can turn buyers of your works into renters, who don't have the right to resell, lend, or give away property they thought they owned.

This decision was bad news for consumers. By undermining the crucial balance between copyright owners and users that supports used bookstores, libraries, DVD rentals, and so on, it hurt our ability to save a few dollars and our ability to retain, archive and access older, out-of-print materials. Libraries and second-hand sellers are often the only hope for these materials and the “long tail” community of researchers, historians and hobbyists that value them. And since software is embedded in an extraordinary array of content and devices, from videos to music to goods such as phones, picture frames, book readers, etc., all of which is made available subject to a EULA few consumers read, we worry that the decision may have an even broader impact.

This Ninth Circuit got this one wrong, which is why we asked the Supreme Court to hear this case. A coalition of public interest, consumer, and library groups joined EFF in the amicus brief, including several national library associations, Public Knowledge, the Consumer Federation of America, and U.S. PIRG. We hope that the Court agrees to review the case and treats it as an opportunity to put consumer rights and expectations ahead of the overreaching demands of software vendors.

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Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Google Chromebook – The First Reviews Are In!

The tech blogs have received their review units of Google Chromebook, a few weeks before the public launch, and the first reviews are ticking in as we speak.

So are the reviewers impressed with the Chromebook hardware? Is the cloud-only Google Chrome OS practical without any offline apps? Are Google Chromebooks worth the money when you can get more powerful Windows laptops at lower prices? Let’s see what the pundits have to say on the Chromebook:

Joanna Stern of ThisIsMyNext writes:

Where the laptop and its 16GB SanDisk SSD really shine is with boot up and resume times. Samsung and Google promise 10-second boot times and that’s more or less accurate. It took only nine seconds to get to the login screen and then another two seconds to get into the browser.

For the most part, I noticed real slow downs when I had a number of tabs open in two windows or I was running a Flash-heavy site in the background. Not only was scrolling slow, but it would take a few seconds for it to recognize my keystrokes.

Adrian Covert of Gizmodo writes:

The hardware isn't powerful enough to handle the more exciting aspects of the web. Despite the dual-core processor, the Samsung Chromebook struggles with Flash video. Standard definition video functions well enough, but when you start watching HD quality web videos, you'll notice choppiness. Same goes for 3D web games.

Sherri Smith of LaptopMag writes:

The Series 5 is great for watching video, playing casual games, and doing light tasks such as creating spreadsheets and documents, but it really can't handle much more heavy lifting.

A fast boot time and bookmarks masquerading as apps can't make up for the fact that we can't use Google Docs offline, we have to hunt around for our local files, or that the Series 5 can only deal with one peripheral at a time.

Thomas Claburn of InformationWeek writes:

Chromebooks make a lot of sense for businesses that want a system for employees that provides Web access without the management burden of a full-blown computer. For individuals, the Chromebook value proposition is less clear.

Brad Linder of Liliputing writes:

I’m a bit skeptical that a Chrome OS device could replace a traditional laptop for everyone, but if you’re in Google’s target audience of people who spend most of your time on a computer interacting with a web browser, it might just do the trick.

Dana Wollman of Engadget writes:

We had no problem juggling a dozen open tabs, a list that included Gmail, Google Calendar, several news stories, Scoutmob, and the content management system we use to compose posts. Only when we pushed the system to take on a ludicrously unrealistic workload did it start to falter. And by ludicrous, we mean opening the same YouTube clip in two windows, with half a dozen tabs apiece. By the fourth tab of the first window, we noticed the pages were slower to load, and formed something of a queue. The sixth outright crashed. But somehow, we're guessing that's not what you'll be doing with your Chromebook.

Jason Cross of PCWorld writes:

You can find plenty of Windows-based laptops in the $430-to-$500 range that may not have the sleek look of a Series 5 Chromebook, and may not boot up as quickly, but offer such vastly superior functionality that I can't imagine recommending a Chromebook instead. For now, laptops based on Chrome OS feel like a novelty for tech enthusiasts. Even Android 3.0 tablets feel more powerful, flexible, and useful.

Joshua Goldman of CNET writes:

The Series 5 works as promised and looks good doing it. However, for its price you can buy a more capable Windows Netbook or laptop - even if you just want something for couch use. You can do a lot of things with one of those (or a smartphone, an Android tablet, or iPad for that matter). Right now, though, there are just a lot of things you can't do with a Chromebook.

Overall, most reviewers agree that Google Chromebooks are small and look attractive, the battery life is impressive, they boot instantly but the performance is average to poor (depending on how many tabs are you working with) and the web-only Google Chrome OS can be a real limitation.

Google Chromebooks are now up for sale on Amazon.com. If you wish to know how it is to use a web-only notebook, here's a guided tour: