EFFector Vol. 21, No. 19 June 11, 2008 editor@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : In our 472nd issue: * URGENT ACTION ALERT: TELL CONGRESS "NO DEAL ON TELECOM IMMUNITY"! Recent intelligence indicates that high-ranking Republicans and Democrats are hoping that a "compromise" foreign intelligence surveillance bill can be rushed through both the House and the Senate before the July 4th holiday -- maybe even next week. The drafting process has been secretive, but one thing is clear: the "compromise" is almost certain to contain blanket immunity for phone companies that assisted in the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program and prevent any court from ruling on whether they broke the law. We've stopped telecom immunity in its tracks before, but the empty "compromise" rhetoric surrounding this bill makes it extremely dangerous. Please contact your Senators and Congressperson to remind them that we're watching, and that we won't accept any false compromises on immunity for lawbreaking telecoms! http://www.eff.org/action/no-false-compromises * IN ANOTHER BATTLE AGAINST ABUSIVE DMCA TAKEDOWNS, EFF has asked a federal court to protect the free speech rights of an animal welfare group after its video critiques of animal treatment at rodeos were removed from YouTube due to sham copyright claims. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) filed takedown demands for 13 videos from the group Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), claiming that the videos infringed their copyrights -- even though the PRCA has no copyright claim in live rodeo events. The lawsuit is part of EFF's No Downtime for Free Speech Campaign, a response to increasing misuse of the DMCA to demand that material be removed from the Internet without providing any proof of infringement. http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/06/09-0 * EFF WELCOMES LEADING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ATTORNEY MICHAEL KWUN, who brings years of copyright, trademark, and patent litigation experience to EFF's legal team. A long-time geek, Kwun worked on early DMCA cases and, as Google's litigation managing counsel, defended Google in copyright cases about YouTube, Google Book Search, and Google Image Search; trademark cases about Google AdWords; and patent cases in connection with a wide variety of Google products. http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/06/09 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : EFF Updates * Supreme Court Victory for Patent First Sale Doctrine Supreme Court backs the patent world's version of the "you bought it, you own it" principle. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/supreme-court-victory-patent-first-sale-doctrine * Laser Printers Found Guilty of "Making Available" Crimes Researchers at the University of Washington discover severe flaws in the mass collection of IP addresses for the entertainment industry's DMCA takedown campaign. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/laser-printers-found-guilty-making-available-crime * McCain Revises Stance on Warrantless Wiretapping, Again Between voicing skepticism and completely embracing the administration's flawed legal justifications for warrantless wiretapping, McCain settles on describing the President's actions as "ambiguous." http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/mccain-revises-stance-warrantless-wiretapping * McCain Campaign Staffed By Telecom Immunity Lobbyists Strong connections between telecom immunity lobbyists and the McCain campaign raise serious questions about McCain's about-face on warrantless wiretapping. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/mccain-campaign-staffed-telecom-immunity-lobbyists * Fair Use Defense Ruled "Likely to Prevail" in "Imagine" Copyright Infringement Suit Filmmakers making use of John Lennon's "Imagine" win the first round in a copyright infringement suit brought by Yoko Ono. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/fair-use-defense-ruled-likely-prevail-imagine-copy : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : miniLinks ~ What the FISA Debate Is Not About Marty Lederman asks why reverting to the old FISA rules is supposedly such a problem for the intelligence community. http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-fisa-debate-is-not-about.html ~ ISP Plan to Block Child Porn -- Will There Be Chilling Effects? The New York Attorney General says 3 major ISPs have agreed to block child porn -- but the plan could set a precedent that challenges the Communications Decency Act's protections for online content hosts. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/analysis-commun.html ~ Movies on Cable Before DVD? A plan would bring movies to cable faster -- but you won't be able to watch on a high-def TV, and don't even think about TiVo. http://opinion.latimes.com/bitplayer/2008/06/movies-on-cable.html ~ Wiki for Listing Legitimate Uses of P2P A wiki has been set up to collect all the various legitimate uses for P2P software. http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/06/wiki-for-listing-leg.html For more miniLinks: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/06/minilinks-2008-06-10 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Announcements * EFF at RoboGames Can't get enough extreme robot action? Neither can we! EFF will be at the 2008 RoboGames at Fort Mason in San Francisco on June 13-15: http://www.eff.org/calendar/2008/06/12/eff-robogames * Music Benefit for EFF in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 18th http://www.eff.org/calendar/2008/06/18/sf-wiretap-music-benefit-eff * EFF at Personal Democracy Forum 2008 Visit EFF at Personal Democracy Forum 2008 in New York City on June 23-24, 2008. http://www.eff.org/calendar/2008/06/23/eff-personal-democracy-forum-2008 * EFF at Velocity Velocity is the new O'Reilly conference for people building at Internet scale, taking place on June 23-24, 2008, at the San Francisco Airport Marriott in Burlingame, California. http://www.eff.org/calendar/2008/06/23/eff-velocity-2008 * Second Annual Institute on CyberLaw in Washington D.C. June 19-20, the American Bar Association, in cooperation with the Association for Computing Machinery, presents a conference on cutting-edge legal topics: copyright enforcement, the future of ICANN, and much more. http://www.abanet.org/cle/programs/n08ceh1.pdf : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Administrivia EFFector is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/about Editor: Richard Esguerra, EFF Activist richard@eff.org Membership & donation queries: membership@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy, or online resources queries: information@eff.org Back issues of EFFector are available at: http://www.eff.org/effector/
