DigitalMillenniumCopyrightAct
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You can now legally hack your own car or smart TV
Researchers can now probe connected devices, computers and cars for security vulnerabilities without risking a lawsuit. Last Friday, the FTC authorized changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that will allow Americans to do hack their own electronic devices. Researchers can lawfully reverse engineer products and consumers can repair their vehicle's electronics, but the FTC is only allowing the exemptions for a two-year trial run.
EFF sues US government to void 'onerous' copyright rules
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has sued the US government in an attempt to overturn a part of the DMCA that it says violates the First Amendment. The provisions, contained in Section 1201, restrict user access to purchased content including videos, music and the software used in cars, appliances and devices. "The First Amendment preserves our right to ... research and talk about the computer code that controls so much of our world," says EFF Staff Attorney Kit Walsh. "Section 1201 threatens ordinary people with financial ruin or even a prison sentence for exercising those freedoms."
Publishers are fighting to keep abandoned games dead
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group that defends civil liberties in the digital world, is facing off against the Entertainment Software Association, the organization that represents most major video game publishers in the US. The EFF wants to allow players to put abandoned games back online and has asked the US Copyright Office for an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This would allow players to legally modify the code of online games that are no longer supported by publishers, in the hope of reconnecting these titles to new, third-party servers. This includes games like Battlefield 1942, Star Wars: Battlefront, SOCOM 4, Resistance: Fall of Man and Mario Kart Wii. Many modern games rely on servers to function; if Activision pulled the plug on Destiny, for example, even its single-player campaign would disappear, since the entire game needs an online connection.
DMCA update shuts down new phone unlocking next year, allows rooting (but not for tablets)
And so it passed that Congress didst layeth its blessing on the jailbreaking and rooting of all manner of devices; the hacking community saw the miracle and rejoiced. But that amendment to the DMCA two years ago was just a temporary exemption and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been vigorously lobbying to get it reinstated. The Library of Congress has now done just that through a new three year extension, but with some serious caveats: After 90 days, unlocking of new phones will be verboten and all tablet mods will still be illegal. This differs from the 2010 decision which did allow unlocking, because the Librarian decided that a recent copyright ruling means fair use rules no longer apply to a handset's OS. It also said the exception isn't needed anymore because carrier rules regarding unlocking are now more liberal -- although the lawmaker may be confounding chicken with egg by that reasoning.
Viacom wins appeal against YouTube, gets another chance to prove copyright infringement
It's been almost two years since YouTube's triumph in its copyright infringement case against Viacom. As is the way of things, Viacom appealed the decision, and now the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has decided to breathe new life into Viacom's case. Apparently, the appeals judge didn't see eye to eye with the District Court's ruling that no reasonable jury could have found that YouTube had actual knowledge or awareness of infringement on its site.You see, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requires such awareness for service providers like YouTube to be guilty of copyright infringement, and that safe harbor provision was the grounds for YouTube's victory on summary judgment. Furthermore, to succeed on summary judgment, YouTube had to prove that no reasonable jury could find that it knew of any infringing activity. While the lower court felt that YouTube carried that burden, the appeals judge disagreed, and has remanded the case back down for the District Court to determine if YouTube knew about or willfully ignored the infringement. What does this mean? All we can say for sure is that it'll expend more judicial resources and make more money for the attorneys involved. The result could very well end up, once again, in YouTube's favor, but we'll have to wait and see.
Jailbreaking exemption to DMCA is about to expire, EFF would rather it didn't
Back in 2010, the US Copyright Office added a set of anti-circumvention exemptions to the DMCA, effectively making it legal for smartphone users to jailbreak and/or root their devices. These exemptions, however, were never made permanent and now, they're about to expire. The EFF doesn't want this to happen, which is why it's decided to launch a campaign dedicated to the jailbreaking cause. With this initiative, the EFF is hoping to convince the Copyright Office to renew its exemptions and expand them to a wider range of devices, including tablets and videogame consoles. To achieve this, the organization is calling upon programmers and other jailbreaking enthusiasts to contact the Copyright Office directly, explaining why the ability to freely modify software is so vital to their lives or livelihoods. As the EFF argues, "Concrete examples will help show the Copyright Office why they should renew and expand the exemptions for jailbreaking." If you're interested in getting involved, you can contact the Copyright Office at the coverage link below, though all comments are due by February 5th. Hit up the source link for more details on the EFF's involvement.
SCEA vs. Geohot: Sony wins a not-quite flawless victory
Well, after all the talk of TROs, tweets, and YouTube user info, it seems that the SCEA vs. Geohot litigation has come to a rather uneventful conclusion. According to Sony's Playstation Blog, the case has been settled, and Hotz has agreed to a permanent injunction preventing him from distributing his PS3 jailbreak hack ever again. Of course, while this settlement has cowed the man who did the initial distribution deed, the jailbreak genie's out of the bottle, and no court order can ever put it back. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Judge in Sony vs. Geohot orders YouTube and others to give up users' personal info
Remember when Sony sued Geohot and demanded that YouTube hand over the user info of all the folks who posted comments to Geohot's PS3 jailbreak video? Well, score a victory for SCEA, as the judge overseeing the case's jurisdictional discovery process has ruled that Sony can get what it wanted -- information from: Bluehost (who hosts Geohot's website) regarding who downloaded the jailbreak, Twitter regarding any tweets made by Hotz, Google Blogspot regarding comments made on his blog, and the aforementioned YouTube user data. Keep in mind that Sony's getting this information to show that many of the downloaders and commenters are from Northern California and that Hotz's hacking efforts were aimed at Californians -- meaning the case should remain in the Bay Area instead of moving to New Jersey where Geohot hacked his PS3. With this new information at its disposal, Sony's better equipped to oppose Hotz's motion to dismiss in a hearing early next month, but this doesn't mean the company will succeed in its bid to keep the litigation a West Coast affair. We'll have to wait and see if this latest victory helps Sony win the war. Stay tuned.
Sony vs. Geohot litigation heats up, SCEA demands YouTube give up Hotz and Fail0verflow's personal info
Now that Sony has started gathering the evidence it needs via discovery in the lawsuit over Hotz and friends' PS3 jailbreak, the company has dropped a hammer by moving to reduce the amount of time the hackers have to get Sony the information it wants. Sony filed the motion -- which will be heard by the court tomorrow -- to better arm itself with information to oppose Geohot's motion to dismiss, scheduled to be heard in early March. Casting its evidence-gathering net far and wide, SCEA has demanded that YouTube surrender not only information for Hotz's account where his jailbreak video was posted, but also how many users accessed the video, the usernames of those with access to the video, and all usernames and IP addresses of everyone who posted or published comments to the vid. In addition to hitting up YouTube for dirt, Wired reports that Sony has demanded Twitter hand over the personal info of fail0verflow's members -- we're waiting for Sony's lawyers to don TSA gear as the next step in their search. Geohot's attorney thinks the requests seem a bit much, but we think they make sense given Sony's strategy of going after the entire fail0verflow team. While these goings-on make for fairly standard legal tactics, they won't do much for Sony's public image.
Sony follows up, officially sues Geohot and fail0verflow over PS3 jailbreak
We figured Sony would follow up last night's temporary restraining order against Geohot and fail0verflow for distribution of the PS3 jailbreak with a copyright infringement lawsuit, and well, here it is. It's actually pretty straightforward, as far as these things go -- Sony alleges that George Hotz, Hector Martin Cantero, Sven Peter, and the rest of fail0verflow are: Violating §1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids bypassing access control measures; Violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which forbids accessing computers without authorization; Guilty of contributory copyright infringement for encouraging and helping others to crack PS3s as well; Violating the California Computer Crime Law, which is the state computer fraud act (think of this as a backup fraud claim); Violating the PlayStation Network's Terms of Service (which feels meaningless, really); Interfering with Sony's relationships with other PSN customers (also meaningless); Trespassing on Sony's ownership right to the PS3 (this one feels weak) and; Misappropriating Sony's intellectual property (another weak argument, but there in case the copyright argument fails). Sony's asking the court to forbid Geohot and fail0verflow from distributing the jailbreak and turn over all computer hardware and software that contain the jailbreak code, as well as unspecified damages and attorneys' fees. Yep, these boys done got sued -- and we're sure there'll be some serious fireworks once they lawyer up and fight right back. Update: And here we go -- Carnegie Mellon professor David Touretzky has posted up the first mirror of Geohot's code as a First Amendment protest, openly challenging Sony to take action. That's moxie -- we love it. [Thanks, Pedro G]
Italy rules YouTube and other video sites are like TV stations, are liable for content
Strange policy changes are afoot in Italy, where the government's Communications Authority has just issued two resolutions that effectively turn YouTube and other video services into TV stations subject to stricter regulation -- and stricter liability for the content they host. Under the new rules, any site that exercises even the smallest amount of editorial control over its content will be considered an "audiovisual service," and have to pay additional taxes, take down videos within 48 hours if anyone complains of slander, and -- most oddly of all -- somehow refrain from broadcasting videos "unsuitable for children" at certain times of the day. (No, we have no idea how that works with an online video site.) Making matters worse, the new rules give creedence to the notion that video service providers are somehow directly responsible for what their users post to the site -- even if the only "editorial control" they exercise is automated and not overseen by actual humans. We'd expect it the new rules to be challenged in Italian court sometime soon, since they effectively make it impossible to run an online video service in the country, and seem to be in opposition to EU rules that protect internet service providers -- and we'll see if YouTube remains available to Italian IP addresses for very much longer. Oh, and if you're worried this sort of insanity will cross over to the US, you should chillax -- the laws you love to hate are on your side. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and Section 512 of the DMCA provide "safe harbor" to internet service providers, making it extremely hard to go after them for the actions of their users. You might remember Section 512, actually -- it played a starring role in knocking down Viacom's lawsuit against Google and YouTube back in June. You, the DMCA and the CDA, all hanging out and watching YouTube together -- sounds like a lovely afternoon, doesn't it? [Thanks, Matthew]
Console hacker arrested, faces up to ten years in jail
Just when you thought it was safe to get out your soldering irons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants you to know that its agents are still out there, on the lookout for for even more mod chip-wielding nogoodniks and their non-DMCA compliant consoles. According to the AP, a 27-year-old CSU student named Matthew Crippen was recently arrested for "modifying Xbox, PlayStation and Wii consoles in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act" and released Monday on $5,000 bond. The dime was dropped on this perp by the Entertainment Software Association, and the raid conducted by Customs agents sometime in May. He will be arraigned on August 10th, and if convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Let this be a lesson to you: while the ICE may have its hands full with human slavery, drug trafficking, transnational gangs, and stolen artifacts, there is always time to make an example out of a man that knows his way around the inside of a Playstation.
US Copyright Office grants abandonware rights
Here's something abandonware enthusiasts can be thankful for: the Library of Congress yesterday approved six exemptions to US copyright. The one most pertinent to gamers is that, for archival purposes, copy protection on software no longer being sold or supported by its copyright holder can be cracked. What does this mean? Well, those retro games -- classic or otherwise -- that you can't seem to find anywhere can now be preserved without fear of ramifications. Although it is still unlawful to distribute the old games, free or otherwise, rarely do any abandonware cases go to court. The ruling is more symbolic than anything, but a step in the right direction. Other rulings involved the rights of consumers to crack cell phone software locks for use on other carriers, the rights of educators to make compilations of DVD scenes, and the rights of blind people to use third-party software in order to read copy-protected electronic books. These rulings come as clarifications of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). All new rules take effect on Monday and last for three years.
