IP: EFFector 14.07: EFF Needs Your Help!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

     EFFector       Vol. 14, No. 7       Apr. 20, 2001     editor () eff org

    A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation     ISSN 1062-9424

   IN THE 167th ISSUE OF EFFECTOR (now with over 27,400 subscribers!):

      * EFF Needs Your Help
      * EFF Receives Digital Music Award, Advances Audiovisual Freedom
      * Send Us Your Stories About Blocking Products
      * EFF Announces Matching Funds Drive
      * Administrivia

    For more information on EFF activities & alerts: http://www.eff.org
      _________________________________________________________________

EFF Needs Your Help

    For over ten years, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been
    happy to offer you our online newsletter, EFFector, free of charge.
    EFFector currently has over 27,000 subscribers, and we're so pleased
    that you're interested in learning about our cutting edge work to
    protect freedom in the digital world. While we're extremely sensitive
    about spam, we find it imperative that we ask you now to join with
    us so we can continue doing this important work.

    EFF is a member-supported nonprofit organization. Over 75% of our $2
    million annual budget comes from memberships and individual donations.
    Yet EFF currently only has 3,000 active members. We need your support
    to stay on the cutting edge, taking on such foes as the U.S.
    government and the movie industry. From Steve Jackson Games (email
    privacy) to Bernstein (encryption) to 2600 Magazine (reverse
    engineering and linking), EFF has taken on some of the most
    precedent-setting cases of our time. Our future looks bright, but we
    need the financial support of the Internet community--people like you
    who "get it."

    Please consider joining EFF today. You can join online at
    http://www.eff.org/support, or email us at http://www.eff.org/support, or email us at membership () eff org. Thank
    you for helping us work toward a digital future where everyone's basic
    right to free speech, privacy and free and open communications are
    maintained and enhanced.

      _________________________________________________________________


EFF Receives Digital Music Award, Advances Audiovisual Freedom

   EFF to Rock the NY Music & Internet Expo

     Civil Liberties Org Advocates for Artist Empowerment & Free Expression

       For Immediate Release April 16,2001

       Contact:

      Robin Gross, EFF Staff Attorney for Intellectual Property,
      +1 415-863-5459
      robin () eff org

    New York: The Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) co-founder and
    board member John Perry Barlow will receive an award at the New York
    Music & Internet Expo, the third annual digital music conference
    geared toward independent musicians. Barlow, a lyricist for the
    Grateful Dead, is being recognized for his work to promote liberty and
    artist empowerment at a private VIP party at Madison Square Garden on
    April 21st.

    EFF will also be exhibiting at the conference and producing a panel
    discussion introducing its Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression
    (CAFE) that advocates for laws and technologies which promote freedom,
    while empowering artists and audiences. Barlow and several EFF staff
    members will participate on the April 21st panel with Free Software
    Foundation's Legal Counsel Eben Moglen to discuss the importance of
    preserving liberty to use audiovisual technology. EFF's CAFE panel
    discussion will explore how artists are effected by the recording
    industry's treatment of fair use, the public domain, privacy concerns,
    and other civil liberties issues related to intellectual property.

    "It is extremely prescient of the New York Music & Internet Expo to
    embed a discussion of the EFF's Campaign for Audiovisual Free
    Expression in its program," said the cyber-liberty organization's
    Vice-Chairman John Perry Barlow. "We are honored by the opportunity
    and the award, which I am happy to accept on behalf of EFF."

    The online civil liberties group launched CAFE in June 1999 to address
    complex social and legal issues raised by new technological measures
    for protecting intellectual property. EFF believes that new
    intellectual property laws and technologies harm - nearly eliminate -
    the public's fair use rights, and makes criminals of people doing
    perfectly legitimate things. Our Campaign for Audiovisual Free
    Expression (CAFE) advances the following principles in response to the
    Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and related intellectual
    property holder "land grabs" against your rights:

     1. Piracy of an artist's work is illegal. Fair use is not.
     2. We have the right to hear, speak, learn, sing,think, watch, and be
        heard.
     3. No one should assume by default that we're criminals, and the
        technology we use shouldn't do so either.
     4. We have a right to use technology to shift time & space (including
        using a media player of choice, when we want, and where we want,
        with content we legally have access to.)

    For more information on EFF's Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression
    (CAFE), see:
      http://www.eff.org/cafe

    Special Presentation: The Electronic Frontier Foundation Presents
    CAFE: A discussion of the EFF's Campaign for Audiovisual Free
    Expression
    April 21, 2001 1:15 pm - 2:15 pm (Room A)

      * John Perry Barlow, Co-Founder, EFF/Grateful Dead Lyricist
      * Eben Moglen, Professor, Columbia Law School
      * John Marttila, EFF CAFE Director
      * Patrick Norager, Radio EFF Station Manager
      * Robin D. Gross, EFF Staff Attorney for Intellectual Property
        (moderator)

    For More Information on EFF's Panel Discussion on CAFE, see:
    NY Music & Internet Expo: www.newyorkexpo.com

    For More Information of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, see:
      http://www.eff.org

    For More Information on the Free Software Foundation, see:
      http://www.fsf.org

       About EFF:

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties
    organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded
    in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and
    government to support free expression, privacy, and openness in the
    information society. EFF is a member-supported organization and
    maintains one of the most linked-to Web sites in the world:
      http://www.eff.org
      _________________________________________________________________


EFF Wants to Hear Your Stories About Blocking Products

   What Experiences Have You Had with Internet Blocking Products?

     Help EFF Let the World Know

    EFF is seeking individuals who have had experiences with Internet
    blocking (aka filtering or censorware) products to document how these
    products affect Internet users, especially students in public schools
    and library patrons in public libraries.

    Please write up your experiences in as much detail as possible,
    including any supporting product documentation, screen snapshots,
    etc., so that we can best understand and make that information
    available during research and policy evaluations of Internet blocking
    products.

    There is also an opportunity to provide input to "a study on tools and
    strategies for protecting kids from pornography and their
    applicability to other inappropriate material on the Internet". At the
    request of the U.S. Congress, the National Research Council (NRC) of
    the National Academies (which include the National Academy of
    Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of
    Medicine) is conducting the study.

    The study organizers are seeking a diversity of comments by holding
    hearings in a variety of accessible locations as EFF Online Activist
    Will Doherty discovered when providing comments to them via a video
    conference link at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference in
    Cambridge, MA, on March 8, 2001.

    Regional meetings and site visits will be held in the following
    locations and on the following dates.

      * Kansas City, MO April 25-26, 200
      * Salt Lake City, UT April 26-27, 2001
      * San Diego, CA May 2-3, 2001
      * Blacksburg/Roanoke, VA May 8-9, 2001
      * Miami, FL, dates to be determined

    Whenever possibly, please provide copies of your testimony to EFF for
    use in responding effectively to Internet blocking policy proposals.

    Specific locations for open testimony and agendas for each regional
    meeting/site visit are available at:
    
http://www4.nas.edu/cpsma/cstb/itas.nsf/44bf87db309563a0852566f2006d63bb/1235607911a65f498525686d0061bf0b?OpenDocument

    More information on the project is available at:
    http://www.itasnrc.org

    Please send the Internet blocking materials, preferably online, to
    Will Doherty at wild () eff org

    Back to table of contents
      _________________________________________________________________

EFF Announces Matching Fund Drive

    Matching Fund Drive: The USENIX Association recently renewed its
    support for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) by committing
    $150,000 over the next three years to protect copyright and fair use
    rights related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) legal
    cases. EFF is opposing the anticircumvention rules of the DMCA as
    violating constitutional rights to free expression. Help us to match
    this $150,000 amount with your dollars during our April "DMCA/DVD
    legal fund drive." These cases willl cost us $1.5 million over the
    next three years -- we need your help to win.

    To contribute, please see our Support EFF pages at:
    http://www.eff.org/support
    or contact EFF's development director Jance Mantell at
    jmantell () eff org.

    The cases build on EFF's earlier precedent-setting victory, Bernstein
    vs. U.S. Department of Justice, where a federal appeals court ruled
    that code is free speech and, therefore, protected by the
    Constitution. The USENIX Association also helped fund the Bernstein
    case in 2000. For more information about the case, refer to DMCA and
    DeCSS Project. For more information about EFF, visit the EFF web site.
    BACKGROUND:

    The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was introduced in Congress
    several years before it actually passed in 1998. From its inception,
    the law was rife with problems for free speech and the growth of
    technology. Most particularly, the anticircumvention rules of section
    1201 of the DMCA give content holders much broader rights to digital
    content than they ever held with non-digital content. Concerned about
    fair use and reverse engineering, EFF, with several other groups,
    including members of the library and scientific communities, lobbied
    hard against passage of the DMCA. However, the music, movie and
    software industries, with their bottomless funding bases, lobbied hard
    for its passage, and, ultimately, the DMCA became the law of the land.

    This law is problematic on several levels. Most importantly, it will
    eviscerate the public side of the copyright bargain -- the part that
    recognizes that the goal of the copyright monopoly is to give authors
    the incentive to produce works so that eventually those works will
    fall into the public domain or be available for fair use or ordinary
    use to all people. The DMCA effectively eliminates fair use by letting
    content owners use technology to completely control all uses of their
    works. This has already come to a head in the 2600 case (see below),
    where content owners have gone after an electronic newspaper for
    publishing computer code.

    Also troublesome is the criminalization of circumvention software
    based upon its possible misuse, even though it has plain and important
    acceptable uses. This has also come to a head in the 2600 case, where
    software that circumvents the encryption code used on DVDs was posted
    on the Internet to facilitate the creation of a DVD player using the
    Linux operating system. The court held that since the software could
    be used to pirate DVDs, it was in violation of the DMCA.

    Finally, the impact on science could be quite severe, since those who
    seek to do encryption research that could be used for circumvention by
    others must effectively clear their work ahead of time with the
    content industry or face liability for publishing it. Science rarely
    works that way, even where the results could impact national defense.

    The problem presented by section 1201 of the DMCA is that if
    circumventing encryption or providing tools that can circumvent is
    illegal, then you never get to the "use" at all, even if it would be
    deemed fair use. Put another way, it simply doesn't matter if you
    could copy the work legally if accessing the work is itself illegal.
    Similarly, if the providing of tools that allow access to the work is
    banned, then there is no way for most people to exercise the right of
    fair use.

    For further information on EFF's Campaign for Audiovisual Free
    Expression (CAFE), also see EFF's website:
    http://www.eff.org/cafe

      _________________________________________________________________


Administrivia

    EFFector is published by:

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation
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    Editors:
    Katina Bishop, EFF Education & Offline Activism Director
    Stanton McCandlish, EFF Technical Director/Webmaster
    editors () eff org

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      _________________________________________________________________



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