Re: Slander & Defamation?

[Tom Vogt]

Declan McCullagh wrote:
> 
> Actually Mattel yesterday was talking about a class action suit against the
> *cphack mirror site operators*.

this becomes more and more similiar to the decss case. one of the news
articles about it started with "...it's like a class-action lawsuit,
only in reverse" when talking about the MPAA/DVD-CCA basically suing the
internet at large.

No Subject

[Secret Squirrel]

Subject: gamecos sue Yahoo

Lawyers and arms dealers always win,
no matter how bogus the conflict.

Video-Game Makers Sue Yahoo 
 08:06EST 

 03/29/00 

 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The nation's three
 top-selling makers of video games are suing the
 most popular portal to the Web, alleging that Yahoo!
 knowingly created a market for pirated copies of
 games and the computer hardware needed to run
 them. 

 Sega, Nintendo and Electronic Arts allege in U.S.
 District Court that counterfeit versions of their
 best-selling games are being sold in Yahoo!'s
 auction area and by online retailers leasing space
 on the Santa Clara company's site. 

 The suit filed Tuesday seeks an injunction against
 the sales, as well as compensatory damages of up
 to $100,000 per copyright violation and up to
 $2,500 for each sale of the hardware devices. 

 Electronic Arts Inc. of
 Redwood City is the top
 American video game
 maker, followed by
 Nintendo Co. and Sega
 Enterprises Ltd., both
 based in Japan.

 "Yahoo! has created a
 virtual flea market for
 thieves to sell stolen
 property,'' said Jeff
 Brown, a spokesman for
 Electronic Arts. "If there
 was a store in the mall selling counterfeit copies of
 games, we'd call the police and that store owner
 would be held accountable for it.''

 Yahoo! officials declined to comment, saying they
 had not read the lawsuit.

 The lawsuit is just one of several fronts on which
 those who hold copyrights to intellectual property
 are fighting online companies.

 In the same court, the Recording Industry
 Association of America, which represents record
 companies, is suing Napster Inc. for its operation,
 which allows people to trade music over the Web.

 The Interactive Digital Software Association, a
 video game industry trade group, estimates that
 U.S. game publishers lost $3.2 billion worldwide last
 year due to piracy of software. 

None

[anonymous]

Subject: node vs. server


Here the popular press refers to 
distributed file sharing server-client
programs as "clients", implying that 
no "server setup" (whatever that means) 
means you're not a server.

Re a thread a while back on "servers"
on cable modems.


"Fans of Hotline (for the PC or the Mac) are used to the idea of
  sharing files with unknown parties, but these new applications are different: you
  don't have to set yourself up as a server in order to share your files. Installing 
the
  client is all you need to do, because files go from user to user with only indexing
  information passing through the central server."

http://www.cnet.com/consumerelectronics/0-1577583-7-1582832.html?st.ce.1582831.txt.1577583-7-1582832

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Fw: GPL may not hold up in court

[Marcel Popescu]

X-Loop: openpgp.net
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 8:53 PM
Subject: [Freenet-chat] GPL may not hold up in court


> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,35258-2,00.html describes
> recent legal maneuvering with the "cphack" program, which decodes the
> data from one of those site-blocking programs.  To get out of hot water,
> the cphack authors signed the rights over to Mattel, the plaintiff.
> However the original program was released under the GPL, which is intended
> to grant open source rights irrevocably.
>
> Well, it turns out that this may not work.  Apparently one problem is
> that the GPL grant of license may not be valid unless it is signed with
> pen and paper:
>
>The law requires "a written instrument signed by the owner of the
>rights licensed."
>
>"This is one of the reasons why the Free Software Foundation strongly
>urges authors of free software to assign their rights to FSF. It does
>them no harm and it provides us with precisely the signed instrument,"
>said Eben Moglen, FSF general counsel and a law professor at Columbia
>University.
>
>"What has happened here is that these gentlemen [may have] left
>themselves open ... because they made no signed assignment of their
>rights under GPL to anybody," Moglen said.
>
> In fact there may be a worse problem, even if the signed document exists:
>
>Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, said that Mattel might be
>able to argue that the GPL is invalid because users don't pay for
>the free software.
>
>"Nonexclusive licenses given for free are generally revocable, even if
>they purport to be irrevocable," Volokh said. "Even if the GPL license
>in cphack is treated as signed and is covered by 205(e), it might still
>be revocable by Mattel as the new owners of the cphack copyright."
>
>"It is unfortunately not quite as solid a case for the good guys as
>the GNU license theory would have at first led us to believe," he said.
>
> Freenet is under the GPL, and as a program which might well face legal
> attacks in the future, you might want to consider doing this FSF signover.
> I don't know if there is a downside, like whether it would somehow give
> RMS control over the project.
>
> Hal
>
> ___
> Freenet-chat mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freenet-chat
>

RE: IE5 for Mac only available with 128 bit SSL

[Lucky Green]

I must say that I derive a certain sense of gratification from reading
Microsoft's product announcement. We *have* made progress:

"Answer: Instead of releasing two versions (40 bit and 128 bit) of Internet
Explorer 5, this new version of Internet Explorer has been released with the
128 bit encryption built right in as a helpful, time-saving service to all
of our customers".

In fact, the "helpful, time-saving service to all of our customers" line is
downright making me chuckle.

Folks, Microsoft is *obsoleting* weak crypto in their browsers. You want
weak crypto? You will find and install an obsolete version of a browser
that's no longer even being distributed. This is a Good Thing.

The last year has brought major changes in how strong crypto is being
integrated into operating systems and applications. The Windows 2000 release
date didn't quite leave enough time to include strong crypto by default
since the regs had changed, but if you ever run Windows Update (which you
should to do anyway periodically to load vendor security patches), it will
prompt you to install the 128 bit upgrade. Wanna bet the first Windows 2000
service pack will include a 128 bit upgrade by default?

As for the free operating systems, the various *BSD seem to now ship with
strong crypto. I don't know what the situation is in the Linux world, but I
hope they aren't trailing far behind. And if they are trailing behind, then
probably not for long.

Apple seems to be lagging a bit behind the crypto curve and their abysmal
choice of selecting 40 bit crypto and a non-standard hash function for their
AirPort IEEE 802.11 products will probably haunt them for years to come, but
I certainly have my hopes up that these screw-ups will be fixed with the
release of OS X.

In addition, strong crypto is creeping into the OS from another, so far
unnoticed by all but a few, direction: the recent releases of several *BSD
all include IPv6 stacks with *mandatory* support for IPSEC. In addition,
MSFT just moved their IPv6 stack from research status to technology preview.
They are even providing an IPv6 code migration tool. While the current rev
of the Microsoft stack doesn't support IPSEC, there is little doubt that the
release version will. IPv6 is clearly on the release track over there at
Microsoft. Other OS vendors should pay attention...

Now some will say that IPv6 may never happen. They don't know what they are
talking about. The major growth in Internet access devices will not come
from personal computers. In fact, there is a good chance that within 5 years
PC's will be in the minority. The growth will come from wireless access
devices, such as mobile phones and PDA's. There are some 250 million PC's
(or users, depending on who you ask) connected to the Internet worldwide.
There are 450 million digital mobile phones. Every single one of them will
need an IP address before long. You do the math.

In my day job, I have talked with numerous customers over the last 6 months
that each are looking to roll out ten's of millions of new devices, mostly
in Europe, that provide Internet access. Now one certainly could go to RIPE
and ask for 10 million IPv4 addresses. But asking for those addresses isn't
going to get you anywhere than perhaps to a quiet place in the countryside
where the men in white suits are taking care of your every needs...

So IPv6 will happen. And the stacks will support IPSEC. Out of the box.

It is all good,
--Lucky Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

  "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look
   upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
  - Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pg 446
  http://www.citizensofamerica.org/missing.ram


> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
> Of Bill Stewart
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 01:05
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: Re: IE5 for Mac only available with 128 bit SSL
>
>
> At 11:53 PM 03/28/2000 -0800, Marshall Clow wrote:
> >They didn't make a 40 bit version.
> >
> >For meaningless blather, see
> > 
>
> Yahoo!  Microsoft finally making the right security decision!
> Of course, previous versions of IE have had many blatant security
> problems, but at least they're getting this part right.
>
>
>
>
>   Thanks!
>   Bill
> Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
>
>
>

RE: GPL may not hold up in court

[Lucky Green]

Commercial entities that that have integrated "free" software code into
their offerings might take note of these quotes by no other than the Free
Software Foundation's own attorney: the "free" software authors are likely
able to yank the "royalty free" license from underneath you once your
product succeeds in the marketplace. Talk about bait-and-switch.

--Lucky Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

  "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look
   upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
  - Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pg 446
  http://www.citizensofamerica.org/missing.ram


> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
> Of Marcel Popescu
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 14:08
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: Fw: GPL may not hold up in court
>
>
> X-Loop: openpgp.net
> From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 8:53 PM
> Subject: [Freenet-chat] GPL may not hold up in court
>
>
> > http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,35258-2,00.html describes
> > recent legal maneuvering with the "cphack" program, which decodes the
> > data from one of those site-blocking programs.  To get out of hot water,
> > the cphack authors signed the rights over to Mattel, the plaintiff.
> > However the original program was released under the GPL, which
> is intended
> > to grant open source rights irrevocably.
> >
> > Well, it turns out that this may not work.  Apparently one problem is
> > that the GPL grant of license may not be valid unless it is signed with
> > pen and paper:
> >
> >The law requires "a written instrument signed by the owner of the
> >rights licensed."
> >
> >"This is one of the reasons why the Free Software Foundation strongly
> >urges authors of free software to assign their rights to FSF. It does
> >them no harm and it provides us with precisely the signed
> instrument,"
> >said Eben Moglen, FSF general counsel and a law professor at Columbia
> >University.
> >
> >"What has happened here is that these gentlemen [may have] left
> >themselves open ... because they made no signed assignment of their
> >rights under GPL to anybody," Moglen said.
> >
> > In fact there may be a worse problem, even if the signed
> document exists:
> >
> >Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, said that Mattel might be
> >able to argue that the GPL is invalid because users don't pay for
> >the free software.
> >
> >"Nonexclusive licenses given for free are generally
> revocable, even if
> >they purport to be irrevocable," Volokh said. "Even if the
> GPL license
> >in cphack is treated as signed and is covered by 205(e), it
> might still
> >be revocable by Mattel as the new owners of the cphack copyright."
> >
> >"It is unfortunately not quite as solid a case for the good guys as
> >the GNU license theory would have at first led us to
> believe," he said.
> >
> > Freenet is under the GPL, and as a program which might well face legal
> > attacks in the future, you might want to consider doing this
> FSF signover.
> > I don't know if there is a downside, like whether it would somehow give
> > RMS control over the project.
> >
> > Hal
> >
> > ___
> > Freenet-chat mailing list
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freenet-chat
> >
>
>
>
>
>