Cyberlaw

…and one EULA to rule them all…

Sorry for the geeky title but when I came across this over on Boing Boing it struck me that licensing is going way, way beyond contract theory in an attempt to control the rights over the users. From Boing Boing:

The Software may contain third party software which requires notices and/or additional terms and conditions. Such required third party software notices and/or additional terms and conditions are made a part of and incorporated by reference into this EULA. By accepting this EULA, you are also accepting the additional terms and conditions, if any, set forth therein.

Most EULAs (end user license agreements) tend to make sure that the user has little or no rights at all. EULA’s can also conveniently be changed without notifying the user of the changes. This means that the software user should consider herself lucky if her equipment works at all.

The example above goes beyond that. By agreeing to the EULA you also agree to any terms or conditions of third party software the original company may choose to install. This makes it impossible for the user to even attempt to control her rights against the software manufacturers.

For more on EULA’s see, for example, this article I wrote on Spyware.

Posted on by mklang

Congratulations Luxembourg

 Luxembourg is the 40th Jurisdiction to adopt the Creative Commons licensing suite worldwide.

An event to commemorate the launch will be held on October 15th at the Public Research Center Henri Tudor (CRP) in Luxembourg, featuring speeches by John Buckman, founder and CEO of Magnatune.com and Board Member of Creative Commons; Paul Keller, Project Lead for Creative Commons Netherlands; Laurent Kratz, founder Luxembourg’s Jamendo, one of the largest music portals offering Creative Commons-licensed works; and Lionel Maurel, scientific coordinator from the National Library of France. (via the Creative Commons blog)

Congratulations Luxembourg!

Posted on by mklang

7 Ways To Ruin A Technological Revolution

Here is an online talk by one of the most interesting of tech-lawyers, the intellectual James Boyle talk is on YouTube and the subject is 7 Ways To Ruin A Technological Revolution. From the abstract:

If you wanted to undermine the technological revolution of the last 30 years, using the law, how would you do it? How would you undercut the virtuous cycle that results from access to an open network, force technological innovation into stagnation, diminish competition, create monopolies over the basic building blocks of knowledge? How many of those things are we doing now?

Boyle has been an impressive figure since his book Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society came out in 1997 since then his writings include Papers on the Public Domain (James Boyle ed. 2003) and Bound by Law – A ‘Graphic Novel’ (a.k.a. comic book) on Fair Use.

He has also been central in the launching of Creative Commons and Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

(via DigitalKoans)

Posted on by mklang

Anarchist Cookbook Terrorism Material

A 17-year-old was arrested in England for “collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism”. This is naturally terrible. But when you find out that the information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism was the book The Anarchist Cookbook! This is really stupid. Not only is the information simply a collection of readily information but the book is also available online and also on the Amazon UK page. So why should this get you arrested.

Picture 17-4 The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000.The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year.

The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.

Amazon.com’s page for The Anarchist Cookbook contains a note from the author, William Powell, who says “The book, in many respects, was a misguided product of my adolescent anger at the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight in a war that I did not believe in.” (via BBC & Boing Boing)

What kind of terrorist needs to a buy this silly book? It’s available via links from Wikipedia and its available for download here (among other places). If possession of this book is a violation of the Terrorism Act then would linking to the same be aiding and abetting?

Posted on by mklang

ISP Liability in Sweden

Yesterday, the Cecilia Renfors presented the results of her investigation on copyright issues in relation to the Internet (press release in Swedish). The investigation entitled Music and Film on the Internet – threat or possibility? (Musik och film på Internet – hot eller möjlighet?). The purpose of this investigation was to understand and to create a way in which illegal file-sharing would decrease and users would be encouraged to pay for the downloading of video and audio.

The main suggestion in this investigation is to hold the ISP’s liable for users’ treatment of copyrighted material. In reality this would entail that the ISP would move from being an anonymous carrier of information to being actively involved in the content their customers desire. Cecilia Renfors suggests that the ISP’s should be forced to, for example, close accounts for users involved in illegal file sharing.

These suggestions have not been accepted quietly. Naturally the ISP’s are protesting – they don’t want to chase their own customers. But there is a wider issue at stake here.

Suppose that an Internet account is terminated because it has been used for illegal file sharing. This punishment does not fit the crime. Considering the drive towards e-government and the amount of services which are moving wholly online the loss of one’s Internet connection is too high a punishment. Another question is who actually carried out the downloading? Was it the underage child? Or is it a neighbor abusing an open network?

Most users do not know enough about their technology to control their own Internet accounts. In addition they do not know enough about the complexities of copyright law in relation to the Internet. A study (pdf here – in Swedish) user’s rights (paid for by an ISP), also presented yesterday, shows that most people do not know which actions in relation to the copying of copyrighted material are legal or not. This latter study shows that 83% of Swedish teenagers download music from the Internet. Half of them believe that when they make a copy of music for a friend or family member that this act is also illegal.

An example of scenarios presented in the examination:

My friend has bought a song on the internet. She plays it for me on her mp3 player and I would like to copy the song to my mp3 player. Is this act legal?

Teenagers answer
* No: 51%
* Yes: 29 %
* Don’t know: 21%

Teenagers parents answer:
* No: 55%
* Yes: 21 %
* Don’t know: 24%

The correct answer is that this act is legal. Sharing a legally purchased song with friends and family is permissible. It is not permissible to share it to the general public nor is it legal to circumvent technical protection measures to copy the song.

The lack of legal and technical information makes this a sensitive issue. Naturally everyone within a society is expected to know the laws which applies to them. Ignorance of the law can never be a defence. However, the fact is that few people really know whats what in copyright and online environments.

If we create an environment where we begin closing access to Internet we are taking a step back in the information society. Access to Internet today is arguably more important than being connected to a telephone system. Not that I would like to give up either.

Posted on by mklang

Dutch Innovation

The Dutch collecting societies support CC – this is a great leap forward, I cannot help but wonder what the Swedish societies will do now? Probably try to continue to ignore technology, innovation, the commons, and reality…

From Paul Keller – CC Netherlands Project Lead:

On August 23, 2007, Dutch collecting societies Buma and Stemra and Creative Commons Netherlands launched a pilot project that seeks to provide Dutch musicians with more opportunities to promote their own repertoire. This project enables members of Buma/Stemra to use the 3 non-commercial CC licenses for non-commercial distribution of their works. It also allows Dutch composers and lyricists who already use the CC NonCommercial license to join Buma/Stemra and have them collect their royalties for commercial use of their works.

Before now Dutch authors have not been able to make their work available online under the CC NC license while at the same time having Buma/Stemra collect their royalties for commercial use of those works. The Netherlands is the first country to bring such a collaboration between a music copyright organization and Creative Commons, a move applauded by Lawrence Lessig, the founder and chairman of Creative Commons International, as “the first step towards more freedom of choice in the field of exploiting music works in the digital world.”

The press release by Creative Commons Netherlands and Buma Stemra can be found here. And for more information about what’s going on in the Netherlands check out CC Netherlands website.

Posted on by mklang

Regulating Violence

Is the regulation of violence in video/computer games censorship? Or is it a question of protecting the innocent? Naturally paternalism in all forms includes a “pappa knows best” attitude however there are cases of censorship/control/paternalism which we can accept and other forms which we tend to react against.

The forms of Internet censorship (more here) displayed by states such as China and Saudi Arabia are usually criticized as forms of censorship unacceptable in democratic societies while they themselves argue the need to protect their cultures and citizens against the corrupting influences online. It is, it may seem, a question of perspectives.

Then what of the regulation of violent computer games? Are computer games supposed to be seen as forms of speech to be protected? Or are we on a dangerous slippery slope when we start excluding forms of speech? The New York Times has an article showing that the US courts tend to find laws against computer game unconstitutional.

Considering the US approach to Free Expression this is not surprising. The European approach – in particular the French, German and Scandinavian models could not be as clear cut in this question. This only means that the US is against censorship and feels the cost of this decision is worth it, while many other jurisdictions feel that the damage caused by this extreme acceptance of free expression may cause discomfort and hardship to individuals and groups beyond the eventual benefits of the speech.

The ever eloquent Judge Posner is quoted in the article:

“Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low,” he wrote. “It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.”

The problem is that there is often great value (moral rather than economic) in quixotic pursuits and the practice of subjecting people to hardships in order to prepare them for eventual future hardships is really only useful in military training and never a satisfactory way of raising children.

Posted on by mklang

God Bless You

Ok – I will confess. Sometimes, only sometimes, I read spam. Not always and not all of it but enough. My reason for reading it is that I often find it fascinating. My favorite spam is not the helpful tips for member enlargement or the false degrees (even though the latter is kind of amusing considering how much time I have spent at university), no my favorite is the Nigerian 419*

Today I was reading one of these and was amused that people fall for these things. Naturally people do. I had a boss many, many years ago when I worked in a pet store who used to say:

Remember, people are not as stupid as you think – they are much stupider!

Words of wisdom from the bottom of the fish tank. Anyway badly written online scams amaze me. They make me think of the poor stupid saps who fall for them. Today for example I received an email from a Mr Harry Thomas, the Director of Operations for Barclays Bank in London. He naturally wanted me to email him all sorts of information about my account:

Do update me back in Details so that we can proceed further how to Transfer your funds Directly to your Bank Account, and you will have to come Down to our Bank so that you can make some Signing so that your funds will be wired to you.

Your Reply is Needed.

Beyond the bad grammar and the fake email address (who would fall for: barclaysbankmails@i.ua) – the thing that really gave it all away was the way in which he ended the letter

God Bless you.

No Way! A bank was all of a sudden concerned about my spiritual well-being 🙂

Obviously I should not read spam. But I do feel a desire to correct there most glowing errors. I don’t know why – its just that a pathetic attempt to do anything kind of cries out for help.

—-
*Online scammers pretending to be deposed presidents or corrupt oil company employees often contact people in an attempt to establish contact for a future scam. The reason this is called a Nigerian 419 is that many of these scammers were traditionally based in Nigeria and 419 is the fraud section of the criminal code.

Posted on by mklang

Technology doesn't lie

Via Bruce Schneier I read an article from the BBC about the growth of car cloning in the UK. This is basically when someone mimics the number plate of another car to avoid being fined for speeding or avoiding the congestion charges.

What struck me was the interesting part of the story

Tony Bullock’s car was cloned even though his plates were not physically stolen, and he was threatened with prosecution after “his” car was repeatedly caught speeding in Leicester.

He said: “It was horrendous. You are guilty until you can prove you’re not. It’s the first time that I’ve thought that English law is on its head.”

Here is the problem. Technology does not lie and unfortunately, we tend to believe, that technology is infallible.

The problem is that the technology in question does not take into account that the license plate may be cloned and therefore the socio-technical system (i.e. the stakeholders involved in the system) need to be aware that the technology may create false positives.

Unfortunately in this case an unfair burden of proof is placed on the clone victim to prove that neither she/he nor her/his car were involved in the illegal activities.

Naturally the most powerful actors in this scenario is the legal system which for some reason prefers to believe in the convenient fiction that the technology is correct.

Posted on by mklang

Robot Ethics

Some people seem not to be able to find anything to write about. Me on the other hand I am stuck with the problem of finding too many things fascinating. The topic of Robot Ethics is one which I would love to have time to engage in. I was reminded of this by the Humlab Blog

Peter Asaro will present a lecture on â??Robot Ethicsâ?? in the HUMlab.

This lecture will be an overview of his research at the HUMlab on Robot Ethics, particularly on the ethics of military robots. Peter is one of the new Postdoctoral Fellows at the HUMlab and the Department of Philosophy.

His film Love Machine will be shown in HUMlab at 15:30 on this Friday, June 1.
This is part of the â??Love, War & Robots Film Seriesâ??

Love Machine flyer

Love Machine (2001), directed by Peter Asaro, 110 min,

My fascination with robot ethics is the border between man and machine. When does a machine become complex enough to be granted rights on its own? Some may argue that no matter how sophisticated the software the machine will always be a machine. Fair point. But what happens when we begin to mix tissue in the machine. What happens when we begin to put more foreign objects into the human body. At what stage will the limits between man and machine become blurred enough for us to seriously discuss the limits of the man/machine dichotomy.

I have used some of these questions in my computer ethics courses but I never seem to have the time to explore this more deeply.

Posted on by mklang