IP: RE: Author of DeCss Arrested

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

> Reply-To: <callbritton () edit nydailynews com>
> From: "Chris Allbritton" <callbritton () edit nydailynews com>
> To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
>
>
> Dave,
>
> this is a horrible trend that seems to be accelerating--namely the
> privatization of ALL knowledge. It seems that copyright laws are being used
> not as an incentive for artists to produce new work, but revenue streams for
> multinational corporations. I can't imagine this is what the framers had in
> mind when they wrote that clause into ye olde Constitution.
>
> I enclose portions of a (copyrighted) story that appeared in Saturday's
> NYTimes on this subject:
>
> The Artist's Friend Turned Enemy: A Backlash Against the Copyright
> By PAUL LEWIS
>
> Shakespeare was great at writing plays but lousy at inventing plots. So he
> borrowed them.
>
> "Romeo and Juliet," for instance, was lifted from "The Tragicall Historye of
> Romeus and Juliet," a 1562 translation of a tale by Matteo Bandello, an
> Italian writer, soldier and monk. "Julius Caesar" came out of Sir Thomas
> North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's "Lives of Nobel Grecians and Romans."
>
> Nobody sued for breach of copyright because there wasn't any. By and large,
> the work of artists, inventors and scientists was available for others to
> copy, improve or improvise on at will.
>
> Of course, that hasn't been true the last couple of hundred years. The idea
> of a copyright -- to establish personal ownership of artworks, ideas,
> techniques and other intellectual property -- was included in Article 1 of
> the United States Constitution. In 1989 Americans took out 95,537 patents;
> in 1998 the number reached 147,521 and 72,395 more were issued to
> foreigners.
>
> In 1998 Congress extended existing copyright protection for an additional 20
> years. Major beneficiaries were corporations like Disney, whose copyright on
> Mickey Mouse, for example, was to expire in 2004 but has now been extended
> through 2023.
>
> Since then criticism has been building in the academic world, with many
> arguing that the growing privatization of knowledge will threaten
> traditional intellectual and artistic freedoms.
>
> "Industries and governments always favor strong intellectual property
> protection; academics tend to favor weaker protection," said Robert P.
> Merges, an expert on intellectual property law at the University of
> California at Berkeley. "If you took a poll of American academics, you'd
> find most believe the knowledge grab has gone too far."
>
> This year a group of Harvard University law professors asked the United
> States District Court for the District of Columbia to declare the Copyright
> Extension Act of 1998 unconstitutional. They argued that it violated
> guarantees of free speech by reprivatizing works that would otherwise have
> become public property. They also said it breached a constitutional
> requirement that copyright laws "promote the progress of science and useful
> arts."
>
> "Extending a dead author's copyright won't encourage him to write another
> book," said Lawrence Lessig, one of the Harvard professors bringing the
> case. "Would Shakespeare have written 'Romeo and Juliet' if he had to get
> permission from Bandello and pay royalties?"
>
> <I wish I could include more, but alas, I would be running up against fair
> use laws. But I can probably include a little more...>
>
> While some of the fastest growth in copyrights has been in the field of
> computer software (where the number of patents granted is expected to
> increase to 22,500 for 1999 from 1,300 in 1990), companies are increasingly
> patenting such innovations as methods of doing business.
>
> Amazon.com, the on-line bookseller, for example, has patented its "one
> click" sales system, allowing customers to place new orders with a single
> press on the computer mouse. And priceline.com has done the same for
> "reverse auctions," which enable buyers to name a price and find a seller.
> Applications for such "business method" patents have risen 70 percent this
> year, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
>
> Critics say that the current laws on intellectual property may shrink the
> pool of freely available artworks and ideas from which artists and inventors
> often draw their inspiration.
>
> In "Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the
> Information Society" (Harvard University Press), James Boyle of American
> University argues that the present system overemphasizes the rights of the
> romanticized author at the expense of "the public domain necessary to give
> the magpie genius the raw material she needs."
>
> <The "romanticized author" these days is too often a faceless corporation.
> To grant these immortal bodies with scads of money and power the same rights
> as (relatively powerless) individuals is a travesty, one that extends far
> beyond the issue of intellectual property. But another well-made point from
> the article:>
>
> Ronald V. Bettif, a communications professor at Pennsylvania State
> University, writes in his book "Copyrighting Culture: the Political Economy
> of Intellectual Property" (Westview Press): "The consequences of expanded
> intellectual property rights are always the same: the continuing enclosure
> of the intellectual and artistic commons.
>
> "More and more knowledge and culture are being privately appropriated and
> submitted to the logic of the marketplace."
>
> <I only wish I could include a link to the article but it's buried in the
> premium archives now. Hm. That seems to prove my point even more. Anyway,
> the continuing corporatization of so many aspects of our lives threatens to
> erase the cultural and intellectual commons that allow people with vision to
> move society forward. Instead we seem content to place that vision in the
> hands of the 'free market,' which doesn't hold the common good as a value,
> but instead seeks--by law--to maximize shareholder value. In cases regarding
> intellectual property, shareholder value is antithical to a free and open
> society.>
>
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Chris Allbritton
> Technology Reporter -- New York Daily News
> 450 W. 33rd St., New York, NY 10001-2681
> callbritton () edit nydailynews com
> (212) 210-2197 (v)
> (212) 210-2921 (f)
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-ip-sub-1 () admin listbox com
> > [mailto:owner-ip-sub-1 () admin listbox com]On Behalf Of Dave Farber
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 10:56 AM
> > To: ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com
> > Subject: IP: Author of DeCss Arrested
> >
> >
> > [ In my view this type of action portends serious serious problems in the
> > future. I wonder if, as a teacher, I had assigned a project to
> > explore the
> > security of some system and see how robust it was, if I and my studnets
> > would be arrested?   djf]
> >
> > > Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 10:48:57 -0500 (EST)
> > > From: Joe Greenseid <jgreenseid () mail wesleyan edu>
> > > To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> > >
> > > Jon Johansen, the 16 year old from Norway who cracked DVD encryption was
> > > arrested in a suprise raidyesterday after being named in a
> > lawsuit by some
> > > of the biggest companies in entertainment.
> >
> >
> > Police raid teen hacker's home
> >
> >
> > Police have raided the Larvik home of a teen charged by some of
> > the world's
> > biggest entertainment companies with ripping off their music and
> > films. The
> > boy broke the code protecting videos and CDs. \
> >
> > Entertainment industry giants including Sony, Universal, MGM and Warner
> > have sued the 16-year-old Norwegian, accusing him of hacking his way
> > through the codes meant to protect their products from downloading.
> >
> > They also charged he then publicized the code on the Internet.
> > The teenager
> > published the code on the home page of his father's company. His
> > father is
> > also charged.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/d121152.htm