IP: Spam & WIPO legislation -- Afternoon Line June 18, 1998

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:21:09 -0400
From: Jonathan Gregg <jgregg () PATHFINDER COM>
To: AFTERNOONLINE () LISTSERV PATHFINDER COM
Subject: Afternoon Line June 18, 1998


Bills of Fare


Two contentious bills with serious implications for the Internet and beyond
are working their way through Congress this week.


Yesterday  a Senate commerce subcommittee examined an amendment that would
require spammers to identify themselves in their messages and to honor
recipients' requests to be removed from their lists.


The hearing was something of a formality since the amendment has already
passed in the Senate, where it was attached to another bill after the
hearing was scheduled, but that doesn't mean everyone at the hearing was
happy.


The representative from the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail
(CAUCE) denounced the amendment, saying that it legitimized spammers and
left recipients too much at their mercy.


CAUCE would like to see a ban on all spamming, as proposed in a bill by
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) that updates the junk fax law. That bill is also
supported by someone who should know what it takes: reformed spam king
Sanford Wallace.


The House takes up the amendment Tuesday, but before that its Commerce
Committee is meeting today to consider amendments to a somewhat more
far-reaching bill aimed at protecting copyrights.


The bill, which has been passed in the Senate and in the House Judiciary
Committee, would in its present form criminalize any effort to circumvent
copyright protection mechanisms in such digital products as movies and
software.


That would stifle most software research and development, which frequently
involve reverse engineering, and lawmakers are sure to push for a relaxing
of the rules. Likewise, the definition of what constitutes fair use of
copyrighted materials by libraries, schools and academics is likely to be
broadened.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,23288,00.html?st.ne.1.gif.2
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_display/0,3440,2113407,00.html


Sink or Swim


Microsoft is taking its show on the road, and is testing the legal waters
in the process.


In Japan, it's going swimmingly. Windows 98 bundled with the IE4 browser?
No problem, Gates-san, says Japan's Fair Trade Commission, which declared
that the product does not conflict with the country's antimonopoly law.


But things aren't going so smoothly in Korea, where Microsoft has gotten in
hot water for making a deal in which the manufacturer of the country's
dominant word processing program would abandon its product in exchange for
a $20 million investment.


Such unabashed corporate imperialism has struck a raw nerve among the
Korean public and has also attracted the attention of Korea's fair trade
agency, which takes a dim view of investments that involve an
anticompetitive quid pro quo.


Microsoft admittedly has a lot of experience in that area, but messing with
a country's national pride is always a dangerous addition to the mix.
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/13041.html
http://www.newslinx.com/News/cg-061898d.html


Look Who's Talking


The great thing about software is that when it screws up, it's a doozy.


Think HAL in "2001," destroying the mission he's meant to safeguard. Or how
about Panasonic's Secret Writers' Society, a program that helps kids learn
how to write by reading what they've written back to them in a HAL-like
voice.


Sounds harmless enough: They've even got a filter with a file of obscene
words and expressions that keeps kids from talking dirty -- just as long as
they don't double click to submit their message for playback.


And if they do? Well, let's just say Andrew Dice Clay might be given a run
for his money, as the contents of the forbidden file spew out in a torrent,
all delivered in a computer-generated voice.


And you thought Miss Cavendish in third grade was tough.


Less embarrassing but no less amusing for its quixotic temperament is
Windows 98 (yes, already), which reportedly contains a virus whose sole
purpose in life, cicada-like, is to come out on Saturdays and turn your
screen into a mirror image of itself.
http://www.nbnn.com/pubNews/98/113432.html
http://www.msnbc.com/news/173611.asp