From tim at reinhouse.freeserve.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 03:02:00 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 03:02:00 +0100 From: Timothy Baldwin tim at reinhouse.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protests On Monday 30 July 2001 10:27 pm, C. Scott Ananian cananian at lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu wrote: > On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Richard Kay wrote: > > I think the best way to get the possibility of decent numbers on > > this protest by Saturday is to broaden the issue so that those involved > > in anti WTO activities generally are willing to adopt > > Free-Sklyarov and anti-DMCA as a cause directly connected with theirs, > > rather than this being an issue understood only by a very narrow and > > specialised group of hacktivists. I think some research into UK based > > anti-WTO lists and education there about the WTO extension of > > corporate intellectual property rights might enable a fairly quick > > escalation of support. I am confident they will, even if WTO isn't involved. It seems the WTO, IMF or WB or involved in most bad things. However 3 days is not much time to build a demostration! Well I found out about this list from gnu.misc.disscus via freesklyarov.org. > [I'm out-of-country, just monitoring this list for freesklyarov.org, but > couldn't resist...] > > There *is* a link here. The U.S. DMCA was passed *explicitly* to > implement provisions of the WIPO treaty; the WTO and WIPO have a > "cooperative agreement". Many other countries are going to be > "encouraged" to implement similar laws "to comply with the WIPO" --- in > all likelihood they will not realize the pernicious effects of the > proposed anti-circumvention language until after it is passed. > > I can rant more on the WTO-DMCA link, if anyone's curious. Please do so. (rather tired at present) -- Timothy Baldwin Member of WYLUG, WACG, SWP, SA and GR 2nd year Computer Science, University of Leeds From Gus.Reid at motorola.com Wed, 1 Aug 2001 09:35:18 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 09:35:18 +0100 From: Reid Angus-BAR04Z Gus.Reid at motorola.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest Hi, I just joined the list yesterday (after the reminder on the main free-sklyarov list). I'm thinking of attending the demo in London, but I might be a little late. How long were you planning on it lasting? Cheers, Gus Reid From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 09:45:04 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 09:45:04 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest Ah, and that _is_ an interesting question. I've just heard back from the police and apparently there is going to be a Palestinian demonstration outside the US embassy starting at 3:30pm. The police also _suggest_ that it would be good if we finish our protest by then, both for us, as we may be swamped by the larger number of Palestinian protetors and for them as they believe the Paletinian protest may well be more 'vigorous' than ours and require more active policing and they wouldn't want to get us mixed up. I suggest that we demonstrate outside the embassy from 1.00 pm to 3.30pm and then if we still have pamphlets left to distribute, walk back to the corner Hyde Park where there are always crowds of people. The police would like to know what time we are planning to finish, so is it okay if I say 3.30? cheers dan -----Original Message----- From: Reid Angus-BAR04Z [mailto:Gus.Reid at motorola.com] Sent: 01 August 2001 09:35 To: 'free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org' Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest Hi, I just joined the list yesterday (after the reminder on the main free-sklyarov list). I'm thinking of attending the demo in London, but I might be a little late. How long were you planning on it lasting? Cheers, Gus Reid _______________________________________________ Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 09:52:14 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 09:52:14 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest > The police would like to know what time we are planning to finish, so is it > okay if I say 3.30? Sounds reasonable. anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 10:16:43 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 10:16:43 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > The police would like to know what time we are planning to finish, so is it > > okay if I say 3.30? Agreed. As you say, we can continue handing leaflets out on Hyde Park corner for a while afterward. And, in the interests of supporting another great British tradition, we could then retire to a nearby hostelry for a quiet pint or two. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 11:02:02 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 11:02:02 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says all we want it to say? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:30:01 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:30:01 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer I've just spoken to Alex Katalov. There are almost no news: Yesterday Dmitry was still in Oklahoma, Alex says his spirit is still good. More important - EFF have decided they will not pay the bail even if it will be allowed. They do not take part in Dmitry's defence. Dmitry and Alex have signed a contract with one lawyer company and EFF is not involved at all. I'm not blaming EFF, it is just for us to know exactly what to tell people (if they ask). anton "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and > Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says > all we want it to say? > > Julian > > -- > Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org > Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 11:41:57 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 11:41:57 +0100 From: Telsa Gwynne hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 11:02:02AM +0100 or thereabouts, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and > Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says > all we want it to say? It's a probably a bit late to spot this :( But the fact that this is a US law which is being applied to acts outside the US is only apparent when you read the quotes from people. It's not in the main explanation. You mention "is a Russian citizen" and "was arrested after giving a presentation in Las Vegas" but that doesn't really make it plain that he was living and working in Russia and merely visited the US to go to a conference. Plenty of people work abroad, so it's not clear that he wasn't doing the same. Telsa From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 11:53:31 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 11:53:31 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer >But the fact that this is a US law which is being applied to acts outside the US is only apparent when you read the quotes from people. It's not in the main explanation. >It's a probably a bit late to spot this :( Hmm, it shouldn't be, Julian or Anton can you make changes as appropriate ? btw I was thinking we could print one of the versions of the De-CSS source code on the back of the flyers, and tell people they could be arrested for having that peice of paper if they ever went to America. What does everyone think ? dan -----Original Message----- From: Telsa Gwynne [mailto:hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk] Sent: 01 August 2001 11:42 To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org Subject: Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 11:02:02AM +0100 or thereabouts, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and > Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says > all we want it to say? It's a probably a bit late to spot this :( But the fact that this is a US law which is being applied to acts outside the US is only apparent when you read the quotes from people. It's not in the main explanation. You mention "is a Russian citizen" and "was arrested after giving a presentation in Las Vegas" but that doesn't really make it plain that he was living and working in Russia and merely visited the US to go to a conference. Plenty of people work abroad, so it's not clear that he wasn't doing the same. Telsa _______________________________________________ Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From wayne at penguinpowered.org.uk 01 Aug 2001 11:31:45 +0100 Date: 01 Aug 2001 11:31:45 +0100 From: Wayne Pascoe wayne at penguinpowered.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest Just to let the relevant humans know that I'll be there for the protest. I'll bring a digital camera and get some pics together. Any idea of numbers so far? I'm about to send an e-mail round the company I work at explaining the DMCA and the Skylarov case to people here. -- - Wayne Pascoe | I laugh in the face of danger... wayne at penguinpowered.org.uk | Then I run and hide until it goes away! http://www.penguinpowered.org.uk | From john.hearns at framestore.co.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:52:44 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:52:44 +0100 From: john.hearns at framestore.co.uk john.hearns at framestore.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > > And, in the interests of supporting another great British tradition, we > could then retire to a nearby hostelry for a quiet pint or two. > The Great British Beer Festival is on at Olympia http://www.gbbf.org/2001/index4.htm I'm told that it is air conditioned this year - and its easy to reach on the bus from Hyde Park Corner. How about rounding things off there? From aef at cloudband.com Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:56:54 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:56:54 +0100 From: Anthony Fisher aef at cloudband.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer > "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > > > I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and > > Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says > > all we want it to say? Hi all, I've just joined the list, so please forgive me if this has already been covered, but I have query regarding the part which reads "He has committed no crime." Now, as I (perhaps wrongly) understand it, Sklyarov was arrested because he passed on information at the conference (through his talk) which contravened the DMCA, not for actions he took while in Russia. If I am correct, this would leave "He has committed no crime." as a legal opinion which is somewhat open to debate. I would certainly agree that the clauses (of the DMCA) in question are morally wrong, inconsistent, contrary the the US's own constitution, etc, but I am wary of making factual errors which could be taken up and used by the opposition. Anthony Fisher From aef at cloudband.com Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:58:53 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:58:53 +0100 From: Anthony Fisher aef at cloudband.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer Dan Ackroyd wrote: > btw I was thinking we could print one of the versions of the De-CSS source > code on the back of the flyers, and tell people they could be arrested for > having that peice of paper if they ever went to America. What does everyone > think ? Along with black-and-yellow danger stripes and "Warning - Live Munitions"? Anthony Fisher From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 12:11:35 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 12:11:35 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer Anthony Fisher wrote: > Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > btw I was thinking we could print one of the versions of the De-CSS source > > code on the back of the flyers, and tell people they could be arrested for > > having that peice of paper if they ever went to America. What does everyone > > think ? > > Along with black-and-yellow danger stripes and "Warning - Live > Munitions"? I was initially going to print one copy in black and white and then do others on xerox. I think there is no problems with double sides, but I cannot do colours. Regarding the text, could someone else do it, not me. All I want is: 1. Main issue - free Dmitry 2. Brief explanation of the story 3. Quotations from UK scientists / academics 4. Potential danger for everyone I'd be very happy if someone would do this instead of me anton From rich at copsewood.net Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:31:12 -0400 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:31:12 -0400 From: Richard Kay rich at copsewood.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer I gather there is a difference in US legality between a "crime" in the narrow sense that counties, states and in this case congress can pass very arbitrary laws, and "crimes" in the stricter sense that the Supreme Court will uphold these laws when appealed. In the sense that it is very likely (in my view) that the Supreme Court would refuse to uphold a conviction against Dmitry, on the grounds that the DMCA conflicts with the US Constitution, (maybe after he has been wrongfully imprisoned for a couple of years if that's how long it takes to get it to the Supreme Court ...) Dmitry has no business being in jail at all and has committed no crime. However, a flyer in support of a demonstration has to be simple, straightforward and grab rapid attention much more than being pedantically correct in every interpretation. In this sense it is fair comment and necessary for us to proclaim Dmitry's innocence and demand his immediate release. Richard Kay rich at copsewood.net On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 11:56:54AM +0100, Anthony Fisher wrote: > Now, as I (perhaps wrongly) understand it, Sklyarov was > arrested because he passed on information at the > conference (through his talk) which contravened the DMCA, > not for actions he took while in Russia. If I am correct, > this would leave "He has committed no crime." as a legal > opinion which is somewhat open to debate. I would > certainly agree that the clauses (of the DMCA) in > question are morally wrong, inconsistent, contrary the > the US's own constitution, etc, but I am wary of making > factual errors which could be taken up and used by the > opposition. > > Anthony Fisher > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:17:24 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:17:24 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer Hi Anthony, welcome to the group, >Now, as I (perhaps wrongly) understand it, Sklyarov was >arrested because he passed on information at the >conference (through his talk) which contravened the DMCA, >not for actions he took while in Russia. The full 'Affidavit for complaint' can be found at: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/20010707_complaint.html The relevant part of it is from the end: Based on the foregoing, I believe Dmitry Sklyarov, ... has willfully and for financial gain imported, offered to the public, provided, and otherwise trafficked in a technology, product, service, and device that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumvention a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work Dmitry wrote part of the program in Russia and it was the company he worked for which sold the software over the internet. All the actions of Dmitry and Elcomsoft (the company who he works for) are legal in Russia, where you are allowed by law to make backup copies of your data. The affidavit seems to imply that it was the actions of Elcomsoft that he was arrested for. The only things Dmitry did in the US were: 1) To talk about the program 2) Give out about 15 demo disks with a limited version of the program that will de-crypt the first 10% of an e-Book. but as the affidavit was completed on 10th of July, five? days before he gave his speech and handed the disks out, it seems that these were irrelevant to his arrest. (But boy will they get mentioned at his trial, if he doesn't get out first) So in summing, the FBI decided to arrest Dmitry before he even reached America and gave his speech, as they thought he had broken a US law in, er, Russia. cheers dan >From slashdot.org http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/07/30/1731253&cid=35 Bizarro Earth: Where a talented engineer who has been imprisoned by a repressive USA government longs to return to Russia so he can be free. Could any of us imagined this scenario 15 years ago? -Patric -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Fisher [mailto:aef at cloudband.com] Sent: 01 August 2001 11:57 To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org Subject: Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer > "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > > > I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and > > Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says > > all we want it to say? Hi all, I've just joined the list, so please forgive me if this has already been covered, but I have query regarding the part which reads "He has committed no crime." Now, as I (perhaps wrongly) understand it, Sklyarov was arrested because he passed on information at the conference (through his talk) which contravened the DMCA, not for actions he took while in Russia. If I am correct, this would leave "He has committed no crime." as a legal opinion which is somewhat open to debate. I would certainly agree that the clauses (of the DMCA) in question are morally wrong, inconsistent, contrary the the US's own constitution, etc, but I am wary of making factual errors which could be taken up and used by the opposition. Anthony Fisher _______________________________________________ Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:02:39 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:02:39 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Telsa Gwynne wrote: > On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 11:02:02AM +0100 or thereabouts, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and > > Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says > > all we want it to say? > > It's a probably a bit late to spot this :( No - there's plenty of time to spot this - the flyer is on the website at the moment mostly so that we can discuss it and ensure we get it right before we print it for distribution at the protest on Friday. > But the fact that this is a US law which is being applied to acts > outside the US is only apparent when you read the quotes from people. > It's not in the main explanation. I'll edit it to make this clearer. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 13:06:48 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 13:06:48 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer Shall we add something like "Dmitry should be free" in bold, in the end of the text and before the quotes? I think it is important to have a concluding remark anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:07:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:07:44 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > So in summing, the FBI decided to arrest Dmitry before he even reached > America and gave his speech, as they thought he had broken a US law in, er, > Russia. Exactly, and just to make it completely clear, Dmitry's alleged crime was nothing to do with speaking at the conference, but was that he wrote [assisted in writing] a piece of software that circumvented a copyright protection measure, and then offered this piece of software for sale in the USA. In fact, he merely helped to write the software, and it was the company that he worked for that sold it in the USA, so it's hard to see how he could be construed as having committed the crime of trafficking in a circumvention mechanism. This is what we mean we say he has 'committed no crime'. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:09:15 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:09:15 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More press interest: Newsnight I've just been contacted by a reporter from Newsnight, who is considering running a story on the protests tomorrow. It's not certain yet, but he will let me know at some point tomorrow if it's going to go ahead. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:11:16 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:11:16 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest On 1 Aug 2001, Wayne Pascoe wrote: > Just to let the relevant humans know that I'll be there for the > protest. I'll bring a digital camera and get some pics together. > Any idea of numbers so far? Difficult to say for certain - I think we are getting toward the 15-20 mark now. Membership of the list has risen to 45 since the Register article yesterday. > I'm about to send an e-mail round the company I work at explaining the > DMCA and the Skylarov case to people here. Great stuff, All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:12:18 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:12:18 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest On Wed, 1 Aug 2001 john.hearns at framestore.co.uk wrote: > "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > > > > And, in the interests of supporting another great British tradition, we > > could then retire to a nearby hostelry for a quiet pint or two. > > > > The Great British Beer Festival is on at Olympia > http://www.gbbf.org/2001/index4.htm > I'm told that it is air conditioned this year - > and its easy to reach on the bus from Hyde Park Corner. > > How about rounding things off there? That could be a plan ;-) Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From alex at frustum.clara.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:20:32 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:20:32 +0100 From: Aleksandar Simic' alex at frustum.clara.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protest On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 01:11:16PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > On 1 Aug 2001, Wayne Pascoe wrote: > > > Just to let the relevant humans know that I'll be there for the > > protest. I'll bring a digital camera and get some pics together. > > Any idea of numbers so far? > > Difficult to say for certain - I think we are getting toward the 15-20 > mark now. Membership of the list has risen to 45 since the Register > article yesterday. Hi, I just want to say that you can count me in too. Later, --Alex From iwontworkformaggiesma at hotmail.com Wed, 01 Aug 2001 12:23:02 +0000 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 12:23:02 +0000 From: Im Not Giving My Name To A Mecheene iwontworkformaggiesma at hotmail.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London yer if everything gos fine then i will hopefully be able to make it to london. if i cant make it then good luck to you all. also isnt it perfectly legal to make a no violent protest, its how democracy works so what are the police gonna do? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:25:03 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:25:03 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Macworld article The Macworld article has appeared as promised: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=3276 It links to the main Free Sklyarov site, but, disappointingly, not the the UK protest one... Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:27:28 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:27:28 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Im Not Giving My Name To A Mecheene wrote: > yer if everything gos fine then i will hopefully be able to make it to > london. Great! Hope you can. > also isnt it perfectly legal to make a no violent protest, its how democracy > works so what are the police gonna do? It is indeed perfectly legal to protest non-violently - it's a courtesy to inform the police beforehand though (a sign of good faith, as much as anything); at least with a representative or two of the Police we are guaranteed an audience ;-) Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From aef at cloudband.com Wed, 01 Aug 2001 13:39:44 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 13:39:44 +0100 From: Anthony Fisher aef at cloudband.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > It is indeed perfectly legal to protest non-violently - it's a courtesy to > inform the police beforehand though (a sign of good faith, as much as > anything); at least with a representative or two of the Police we are > guaranteed an audience ;-) It's rather off topic, but I think it's worth saying given the apparent complete lack of understanding of these things by the media and general public. Peaceful protest is perfectly legal. You can protest in a way which is non-violent but also not peaceful (say, by sitting down in the road and obstructing traffic). This can be illegal. My understanding is that this will be a perfectly peaceful, legal and relatively polite protest (which is, after all, the only sane way of doing it in this case.) Hopefully, I'll be able to come along, but I may not know until the day. Anthony Fisher From rich at copsewood.net Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:58:10 -0400 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:58:10 -0400 From: Richard Kay rich at copsewood.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer I thought Alan Cox's view below very hard hitting and straightforward. How about including (a possibly slightly edited version or extract from ) this ? (Is this OK Alan ?) http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/thoughts.html Richard K. rich at copsewood.net >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Researcher Detained By Government Agents A brilliant young researcher who was invited to give a talk on the other side of the former iron curtain has been detained by government agents. As he left for the airport following the event he was seized and is now being held without even a bail hearing having occurred. His crime, to speak truths that were unpopular with powerful groups funding the political apparatus. While his wife and young children are left in tears desperate for information he faces five years in jail under a law pushed through by politicians bribed hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. Even the prosecutor is tangled in this twisted mess. He has promotion to the head of the government internal security sevice resting on how he handles this case. A series of protests have begun. Even right thinking natives are organising protests against this abuse of the values of freedom we all hold dear. This dreadful warning to anyone thinking of crossing to police states on the wrong side of the former iron curtain has already sent conference organisers scrambling to move their events. One conference has already relocated for next year, fearing further attacks. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 01:02:39PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Telsa Gwynne wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 11:02:02AM +0100 or thereabouts, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > I've put a copy of Anton's flyer on the web page in PDF, Postscript and > > > Word formats. Could people have a quick look at it and check that it says > > > all we want it to say? > > > > It's a probably a bit late to spot this :( > > No - there's plenty of time to spot this - the flyer is on the website at > the moment mostly so that we can discuss it and ensure we get it right > before we print it for distribution at the protest on Friday. > > > > But the fact that this is a US law which is being applied to acts > > outside the US is only apparent when you read the quotes from people. > > It's not in the main explanation. > > I'll edit it to make this clearer. > > All the best, > > Julian > -- > Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org > Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From feyerabend1 at ntlworld.com Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:48:54 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:48:54 +0100 From: Z feyerabend1 at ntlworld.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re:london I will be there on Friday. If anyone is interested in Copying aebr1.zip onto some floppies for distribution at demonstration please mail me at peterkro(remove).mail.ru Peter Kropotkin Virus Free AVP scanned From aef at cloudband.com Wed, 01 Aug 2001 14:03:19 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 14:03:19 +0100 From: Anthony Fisher aef at cloudband.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer Richard Kay wrote: > In this sense it is fair comment and necessary for us > to proclaim Dmitry's innocence and demand his immediate release. Fair point. Some random suggestions, and they may well be rubbish, but: * Can we get the word 'victim' into the first sentence, and maybe drop the mention of "software development" (I would expect tech savvy people to already know about this, and the general public not to care too much)? Maybe we can also adjust the language slightly to give an impression of big bully Adobe preventing people from using Braille terminals. * Maybe mention again in the text that it was the FBI who arrested him and refer to him as a "software engineer" (or whatever). Hopefully give an impression of the FBI vs an engineer, rather than America vs Dmitry, international super-villain :) * At the top, extend the list of events by putting "On Adobe filed a complaint" (or whatever) at the beginning and "On Dmitry Sklyarov is still in jail". As I said, just random ideas. Anthony Fisher From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 14:17:17 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 14:17:17 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Anthony Fisher wrote: > Richard Kay wrote: > > > In this sense it is fair comment and necessary for us > > to proclaim Dmitry's innocence and demand his immediate release. > > Fair point. > > Some random suggestions, and they may well be rubbish, but: > > * Can we get the word 'victim' into the first sentence, and > maybe drop the mention of "software development" (I would > expect tech savvy people to already know about this, and > the general public not to care too much)? Maybe we can also > adjust the language slightly to give an impression of big > bully Adobe preventing people from using Braille terminals. > > * Maybe mention again in the text that it was the FBI who > arrested him and refer to him as a "software engineer" (or > whatever). Hopefully give an impression of the FBI vs an > engineer, rather than America vs Dmitry, international > super-villain :) > > * At the top, extend the list of events by putting "On > Adobe filed a complaint" (or whatever) at the > beginning and "On Dmitry Sklyarov is > still in jail". Some useful ideas there - I'm going to continue gathering people's thoughts, and then redo the flyer some time this evening. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 14:25:14 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 14:25:14 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer Yes, it is very good, but we cannot possibly fit this all in one flyer. We can print this separatelly or put only some parts ex. "His crime, to speak truths that were unpopular with powerful groups funding the political apparatus." About an open letter to the ambassador; I think we can use Richard Kay's letter as a base ( http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-July/000027.html ) , maybe slightly changed. Is it ok, Richard? anton Richard Kay wrote: > I thought Alan Cox's view below very hard hitting and > straightforward. How about including (a possibly slightly > edited version or extract from ) this ? (Is this OK Alan ?) > > http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/thoughts.html > > Richard K. > rich at copsewood.net > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > Researcher Detained By Government Agents > > A brilliant young researcher who was invited to give a talk on the other > side of the former iron curtain has been detained by government agents. > As he left for the airport following the event he was seized and is now > being held without even a bail hearing having occurred. > > His crime, to speak truths that were unpopular with powerful groups > funding the political apparatus. > > While his wife and young children are left in tears desperate for > information he faces five years in jail under a law pushed through by > politicians bribed hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. Even the > prosecutor is tangled in this twisted mess. He has promotion to the head > of the government internal security sevice resting on how he handles > this case. > > A series of protests have begun. Even right thinking natives are > organising protests against this abuse of the values of freedom we all > hold dear. > > This dreadful warning to anyone thinking of crossing to police states on > the wrong side of the former iron curtain has already sent conference > organisers scrambling to move their events. One conference has already > relocated for next year, fearing further attacks. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> From rich at copsewood.net Wed, 1 Aug 2001 15:34:08 -0400 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 15:34:08 -0400 From: Richard Kay rich at copsewood.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 02:25:14PM +0100, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Yes, it is very good, but we cannot possibly fit this all in one flyer. We can print this > separatelly or put only some parts ex. "His crime, to speak truths that were unpopular with > powerful groups funding the political apparatus." > > About an open letter to the ambassador; I think we can use Richard Kay's letter as a base ( > http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-July/000027.html ) > , maybe slightly changed. Is it ok, Richard? Yes certainly. Regards, Richard > > anton > > Richard Kay wrote: > > > I thought Alan Cox's view below very hard hitting and > > straightforward. How about including (a possibly slightly > > edited version or extract from ) this ? (Is this OK Alan ?) > > > > http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/thoughts.html > > > > Richard K. > > rich at copsewood.net > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > Researcher Detained By Government Agents > > > > A brilliant young researcher who was invited to give a talk on the other > > side of the former iron curtain has been detained by government agents. > > As he left for the airport following the event he was seized and is now > > being held without even a bail hearing having occurred. > > > > His crime, to speak truths that were unpopular with powerful groups > > funding the political apparatus. > > > > While his wife and young children are left in tears desperate for > > information he faces five years in jail under a law pushed through by > > politicians bribed hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. Even the > > prosecutor is tangled in this twisted mess. He has promotion to the head > > of the government internal security sevice resting on how he handles > > this case. > > > > A series of protests have begun. Even right thinking natives are > > organising protests against this abuse of the values of freedom we all > > hold dear. > > > > This dreadful warning to anyone thinking of crossing to police states on > > the wrong side of the former iron curtain has already sent conference > > organisers scrambling to move their events. One conference has already > > relocated for next year, fearing further attacks. > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 15:41:07 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 15:41:07 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] open letter Dear all, Following is an open letter to the US ambassador. The idea is to ask people to sign it during our protest and then pass it to the embassy. So it can be a one page letter and attached pages for signatures (hopefully there will be more than a page of them). Here is a draft of this open letter based on the letter written by Richard Kay. Please feel free to make corrections. Maybe it contains some technical details which can confuse people on the street. Maybe we can change those to something else to make this letter easier to understand and more appealing to the humane side of this injustice. anton --------- beginning of the letter ----------------- Dear Ambassador, We are writing to express our disgust concerning the way the FBI has conducted itself with regards to Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian programmer now wrongfully imprisoned in the US. Mr. Sklyarov gave a talk at a computer security conference in the US on the security weaknesses of Adobe's eBook product, which were apparently easily discovered. Instead of thanking Mr. Sklyarov for his work, the Adobe software company complained to the FBI who detained Mr. Sklyarov for allegedly violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). We do not dispute the principle that copyright holders should be free to apply encryption technology to secure their works. However, it is obvious (thanks to Elcomsoft, the Russian company Mr Sklyarov works for) the protection given by Adobe's eBook products is substandard and easily overcome. The field of study Mr Sklyarov is engaged in has entirely legitimate usages, for example, enabling Adobe eBook products to be used by blind people and those with other disabilities. The imprisonment of Mr Sklyarov - and this use of the DMCA - represents a threat to the freedom of expression of programmers and software academics everywhere, should we express our views on security issues affecting substandard products which the DMCA is apparently intended to protect and then be foolish enough to visit the US. It also presents a situation for programmers resident in the US which denies them basic freedoms which your constitution claims to protect. Software academics and programmers can, for certain purposes, only effectively express themselves to their colleagues through the discussion and publication of program source code. Suppression of this right cannot be justified on the same or similar grounds that make slander, libel or shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre offences. Those who deny fundamental human rights of freedom of expression become tyrants, and the countries they misrule become police states. We might also mention that developing competitive parts, systems or peripherals which comply with proprietary interfaces has long been considered fair use rather than a breach of copyright. Would you imprison consumer product reviewers if they published weaknesses in proprietary door locks to encourage substandard lock manufacturers to improve their products ? If not, then Dmitry Sklyarov should be freed and the DMCA must be repealed or amended if the good reputation of the US, as a place of freedom of expression and democracy, is not to suffer. ------------- end of the letter ----------------- From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 01 Aug 2001 16:12:02 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 16:12:02 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe UK / slogans Is it a good idea to contact Adobe UK at some point? Does anyone know if their software in this country is the same as in the USA? I mean can it be the case that the UK version allowes to make backup copies? I'm preparing two 1m x 2.5m double-sided cloth banners. I'd like to write on one "Free Dmitry" on one side and "Free Sklyarov" on the other side. So, what shall I write on the other one? Any ideas? I want it to be something powerful, but possibly polite. What about: 1. test your laws on you sitizens 2. don't go to the USA 3. want to be in prison? - attend a conference What do you think? anton From martin at pkl.net Wed, 1 Aug 2001 16:15:16 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 16:15:16 +0100 From: Martin Ling martin at pkl.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe UK / slogans On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 04:12:02PM +0100, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > I'm preparing two 1m x 2.5m double-sided cloth banners. I'd like to > write on one "Free Dmitry" on one side and "Free Sklyarov" on the other > side. So, what shall I write on the other one? Any ideas? I want it to > be something powerful, but possibly polite. What about: > > 1. test your laws on you sitizens > 2. don't go to the USA > 3. want to be in prison? - attend a conference > > What do you think? Possibly the best I've seen was used on a banner at the SF protest. It is simply 'IF YOU CAN READ THIS - GO TO JAIL' in mirror writing. Martin From aef at cloudband.com Wed, 01 Aug 2001 16:15:10 +0100 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 16:15:10 +0100 From: Anthony Fisher aef at cloudband.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe UK / slogans "I gave a technical lecture and all I got was this lousy prison sentance." Anthony Fisher From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 16:26:21 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 16:26:21 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe UK / slogans On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Martin Ling wrote: > On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 04:12:02PM +0100, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > > > I'm preparing two 1m x 2.5m double-sided cloth banners. I'd like to > > write on one "Free Dmitry" on one side and "Free Sklyarov" on the other > > side. So, what shall I write on the other one? Any ideas? I want it to > > be something powerful, but possibly polite. What about: > > > > 1. test your laws on you sitizens > > 2. don't go to the USA > > 3. want to be in prison? - attend a conference > > > > What do you think? > > Possibly the best I've seen was used on a banner at the SF protest. > > It is simply 'IF YOU CAN READ THIS - GO TO JAIL' in mirror writing. Yes - definitely like this one. I wouldn't recommend bringing Adobe into it any more (officially, they now want Dmitry to be released as well). We should concentrate on Dmitry and the DMCA itself. How about: "Land of the Free" with 'Free' crossed out and DMCA written next to it (optionally, with some prison bars underneath)? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From cananian at lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:07:35 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:07:35 -0400 (EDT) From: C. Scott Ananian cananian at lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyer On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Anthony Fisher wrote: > > > Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > > > btw I was thinking we could print one of the versions of the De-CSS source > > > code on the back of the flyers, and tell people they could be arrested for > > > having that peice of paper if they ever went to America. What does everyone > > > think ? > > > > Along with black-and-yellow danger stripes and "Warning - Live > > Munitions"? The 'munitions' law was a different one. DeCSS is not illegal because it is a munition, indeed the encryption involved is laughably weak. More accurate would be "warning - electronic photocopier". (less charitably, "electronic lockpick", but neither the photocopier nor the lock pick are illegal to *manufacture* in America; DeCSS is illegal to manufacture *and* "traffic in") --s assassination OVER THE HORIZON RADAR kibo World Trade Center Philadelphia colonel algorithm Semtex DNC plutonium Legion of Doom assassination politics ( http://lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu/~cananian ) -- "These students are going to have to find out what law and order is all about." -- Brig. General Robert Canterbury, Noon, May 4, 1970, minutes before his troops shot 13 unarmed Kent State students, killing 4. -- [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/] #!/usr/bin/perl -w # 526-byte qrpff, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz # MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout # arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order $_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if(( at a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5; $_=unxb24,join"", at b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])} at ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d= unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=($t=255)&($d >>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9 ,$_=(map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t ^=(72, at z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0, at z)[$_%8]}(16..271)) [$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for at a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*", at a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 17:10:02 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 17:10:02 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Map I've put a link to a map showing the route from Hyde Park Corner to the US embassy on the website at http://www.freesklyarov.org/. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 1 Aug 2001 17:11:33 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 17:11:33 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe UK / slogans On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > How about: "Land of the Free" with 'Free' crossed out and DMCA written > next to it (optionally, with some prison bars underneath)? I've knocked up a quick example of this at: http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/landofthefree.png Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From cananian at lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:15:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:15:10 -0400 (EDT) From: C. Scott Ananian cananian at lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re:london On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Z wrote: > I will be there on Friday. If anyone is interested in Copying aebr1.zip onto > some floppies for distribution at demonstration please mail me at i've found that a wget of dr. touresky's "decss" and "adobe alternatives" pages, which include multiple copies of decss as well as aebpr, fits nicely tarred and gzipped onto a floppy -- if you remove the two large .mp3s of people singing decss lyrics. this has the added benefit of being (arguably) "published research" and thus more arguably "free speech" than the bare executables, even though the executables are included on the disk. --s Ortega COBRA JANE assassinate quiche KGB shotgun non-violent protest DC cracking explosives Yeltsin Sabana Seca FBI Echelon fissionable ( http://lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu/~cananian ) -- "These students are going to have to find out what law and order is all about." -- Brig. General Robert Canterbury, Noon, May 4, 1970, minutes before his troops shot 13 unarmed Kent State students, killing 4. -- [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/] #!/usr/bin/perl -w # 526-byte qrpff, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz # MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout # arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order $_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if(( at a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5; $_=unxb24,join"", at b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])} at ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d= unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=($t=255)&($d >>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9 ,$_=(map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t ^=(72, at z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0, at z)[$_%8]}(16..271)) [$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for at a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*", at a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval From cananian at lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:18:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:18:12 -0400 (EDT) From: C. Scott Ananian cananian at lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe UK / slogans On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > I'm preparing two 1m x 2.5m double-sided cloth banners. I'd like to > write on one "Free Dmitry" on one side and "Free Sklyarov" on the other > side. So, what shall I write on the other one? Any ideas? I want it to > be something powerful, but possibly polite. What about: our second banner in boston protests proclaims our group as celebrating a "FUNERAL FOR FAIR USE" smaller letters: "no more: quotes for book reports, copies of tapes for your car, taping a show for later, ...". This worked especially well in conjunction with our cardboard coffin; your milage may vary. but maybe something along the 'death of freedom' lines will work for you. --s AP NSA nuclear Yeltsin Hager Boston PLO direct action Nazi DNC Milosevic COBRA JUDY class struggle RNC colonel President atomic operation radar ( http://lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu/~cananian ) -- "These students are going to have to find out what law and order is all about." -- Brig. General Robert Canterbury, Noon, May 4, 1970, minutes before his troops shot 13 unarmed Kent State students, killing 4. -- [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/] #!/usr/bin/perl -w # 526-byte qrpff, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz # MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout # arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order $_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if(( at a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5; $_=unxb24,join"", at b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])} at ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d= unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=($t=255)&($d >>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9 ,$_=(map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t ^=(72, at z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0, at z)[$_%8]}(16..271)) [$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for at a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*", at a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval From alex at frustum.clara.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 20:46:53 +0100 Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 20:46:53 +0100 From: Aleksandar Simic' alex at frustum.clara.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Map On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 05:10:02PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > I've put a link to a map showing the route from Hyde Park Corner to > the US embassy on the website at http://www.freesklyarov.org/. Just in case somebody needs it, here is a detailed map of the place we are supposed to meet: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=528425&Y=179866&A=Y&Z=1 Later, --Alex From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 01:26:30 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 01:26:30 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Map On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Aleksandar Simic' wrote: > On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 05:10:02PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > > I've put a link to a map showing the route from Hyde Park Corner to > > the US embassy on the website at http://www.freesklyarov.org/. > > Just in case somebody needs it, here is a detailed map of the place we > are supposed to meet: > > http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=528425&Y=179866&A=Y&Z=1 Thanks - I've added a link to this to the map page. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 20:06:15 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 20:06:15 +0100 (BST) From: Edward Welbourne eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Police informed of protest > They would like to know before hand, roughly how many people are coming, Count me in. I just hope they don't bounce me off my head this time. It's softer than it was when I was an undergraduate opposing loans ... Eddy. From eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Wed, 1 Aug 2001 20:20:03 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 20:20:03 +0100 (BST) From: Edward Welbourne eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] flyer > The list probably won't complain (it has a size limit, but you'll know > if you hit that, I think it's around 50kb), but the subscribers might > if too many attachments go out. and please bear in mind that if the reason for the attachment is that it's easier for you to just attach a word/pdf/... document to your mail than to put it in some inter-OS portable form on a website, your recipients may decide that it's easier to delete your message than to work out how to extract and read the attachment. It's always better to send an e-mail with a one-paragraph summary and a URL than to attach the document to the e-mail. Especially when some of your recipients are still connecting to the internet by antique modem and phone line. Pass by portable reference in preference to proprietary copy ! Eddy. From AMeyer at cinci.rr.com Thu, 2 Aug 2001 01:31:59 -0400 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 01:31:59 -0400 From: Arthur Meyer AMeyer at cinci.rr.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Reality I have read all of the current information. My conclusion is to fry his ass. Albert Meyer Cincinnati, Ohio From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:23:59 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:23:59 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Reality On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Arthur Meyer wrote: > I have read all of the current information. > My conclusion is to fry his ass. Ah, the reasoned logic of intelligent debate. I'm assuming you're a troll, but it's good practice to rehearse some of the arguments we may want to explain to interested parties tomorrow, so you'll get an answer anyway. There are a number of issues here: 1. Dmitry is charged with 'trafficking in a cirumvention device', yet he never made the decision to sell the offending software in the United States - this was done by officers of his company. If the US must prosecute someone over this, they should be pursuing the company, not the individual. 2. Until the DMCA, copyrighted works could be used according to the principles of fair use- allowing for example, me to copy a CD on to a cassette to listen to it in the car, or to read a book aloud to a blind relation. The DMCA prevents fair use by allowing companies to distribute their works with copyright protection mechanisms that don't permit fair use. The software sold by Elcomsoft gave back the ability to make fair use of their eBooks to those who had bought them. It is true, that in so doing it made it easier for people to illegally copy eBooks, but this was not its purpose. If you make illegal copies, you can be prosecuted for so doing under standard copyright law - there's no need for the DMCA to make it illegal to write a program which allows you to make legitimate copies. Similarly, if I wish to burgle a house, I can use a crowbar to assist me, but it's not illegal for the local hardware shop to sell me one. Likewise, I can use a photocopier or scanner to make illegal copies of documents, but neither of these devices are illegal, nor are Minidisc recorders, video recorders and tape recorders. For this reasons we believe that Dmitry is unjustly imprisoned, and should be released as soon as possible. Julian Midgley -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 10:34:57 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 10:34:57 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmirty's lawyers "Sklyarov's defense attorney Joe Burton said he is in the process of establishing a formal legal defense fund, but said it was up to Adobe as to whether or not the company would contribute." "Another rally in support of Sklyarov is planned for Friday morning in outside the U.S. Embassy in London according to a Web site organized by his backers. (http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/). " http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1381352l.htm JOseph M Burton's profile: http://www.duanemorris.com/about/index.html anton From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:40:54 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:40:54 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage Silicon.com has picked up on the UK protests in a brief leader article: http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?REQUNIQ=996745116&30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=21046 The UK protests also made the end of another story sent out by Reuters, which has reached several sites include Yahoo, Excite, and C|Net's News.com (the link back to the UK protest page survived in each case, happily): http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1381352l.htm http://news.excite.com/news/r/010801/22/net-tech-hacker-dc http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010801/wr/tech_hacker_dc_5.html http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6747964.html?tag=mn_hd Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:44:54 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:44:54 +0100 From: kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage Silly question? Can we get our hands on a copy of the DMCA to burn? (We'd also need a wind-proof lighter!) Regards Kieran From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:49:49 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:49:49 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk wrote: > Silly question? > > Can we get our hands on a copy of the DMCA to burn? Though it's a nice idea (and I'm sure a Google search would turn up a copy), I'd rather we didn't burn things, as doing so makes it utterly trivial for the police to demand that the protest break up (and since burning things in the street probably involves commiting several offences, it also makes it far too easy for people to be arrested, which we would like to avoid). All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 11:13:09 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 11:13:09 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage Julian T J Midgley wrote: > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk wrote: > > > Silly question? > > > > Can we get our hands on a copy of the DMCA to burn? > > Though it's a nice idea (and I'm sure a Google search would turn up a > copy), I'd rather we didn't burn things, as doing so makes it utterly > trivial for the police to demand that the protest break up (and since > burning things in the street probably involves commiting several offences, > it also makes it far too easy for people to be arrested, which we would > like to avoid). I agree. This is probably what the palestinian protesters (they are at the US embassy after us) will do: burn amerian flags, burn "uncle Sam" etc. I'd like to distant from this. I think that we'll have much bigger impact on the embassy itself if we'll be totally peaceful. anton From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:18:40 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:18:40 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Organisational Things In the interests of ensuring we have enough of everything (banners, placards, flyers, etc), it would be useful if people could state what they intend to bring along tomorrow: I intend to print off 500-1000 flyers (B&W); if I have time and can lay my hands on appropriate broom handles etc, I'll also try to knock up some placards. Does anyone have access to a volume colour printer or copier- it would be nice to have some coloured fliers if possible? What are other people's plans? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:22:51 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:22:51 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage --ikeVEW9yuYc//A+q Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk wrote: > > > Can we get our hands on a copy of the DMCA to burn? > > > > Though it's a nice idea (and I'm sure a Google search would turn up a > > copy), I'd rather we didn't burn things, as doing so makes it utterly > > trivial for the police to demand that the protest break up (and since > > burning things in the street probably involves commiting several offenc= es, > > it also makes it far too easy for people to be arrested, which we would > > like to avoid). >=20 > I agree. > This is probably what the palestinian protesters (they are at the US emba= ssy > after us) will do: burn amerian flags, burn "uncle Sam" etc. I'd like to > distant from this. I think that we'll have much bigger impact on the emba= ssy > itself if we'll be totally peaceful. Yep. I also think it's important to stay focused on the issue at hand and not degenerate into random "rah, rah, US bad, kill, kill" stuff. theo --ikeVEW9yuYc//A+q Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO2kp+kV+lYNqtIdrEQJytwCgjW3Lqu0NnUsvdQr+ec8hJEOS4ZIAn2L3 WBoZrIah51yPYtraaew6Ywmy =21K4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --ikeVEW9yuYc//A+q-- From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 11:28:28 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 11:28:28 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Organisational Things "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > In the interests of ensuring we have enough of everything (banners, > placards, flyers, etc), it would be useful if people could state what they > intend to bring along tomorrow: > > I intend to print off 500-1000 flyers (B&W); if I have time and can lay my > hands on appropriate broom handles etc, I'll also try to knock up some > placards. > > Does anyone have access to a volume colour printer or copier- it would be > nice to have some coloured fliers if possible? > > What are other people's plans? I made two banners, with two sticks at each side, each banner to be carried by two people. One - "free Dmitry", another - "visit usa - go to jail". I've got only a very slow colour printer, so I can probably do 20-30 colour flyers. I can print b/w flyers; have we agreed about the text? anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:30:11 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:30:11 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Organisational Things On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > > "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > > > In the interests of ensuring we have enough of everything (banners, > > placards, flyers, etc), it would be useful if people could state what they > > intend to bring along tomorrow: > > > > I intend to print off 500-1000 flyers (B&W); if I have time and can lay my > > hands on appropriate broom handles etc, I'll also try to knock up some > > placards. > > > > Does anyone have access to a volume colour printer or copier- it would be > > nice to have some coloured fliers if possible? > > > > What are other people's plans? > > I made two banners, with two sticks at each side, each banner to be carried by > two people. One - "free Dmitry", another - "visit usa - go to jail". > > I've got only a very slow colour printer, so I can probably do 20-30 colour > flyers. > I can print b/w flyers; have we agreed about the text? Not quite yet - I'm applying some finishing touches at the moment - I want to a bit of UK spin on it so that people understand why this issue actually affects them as well. I'll shout as soon as I'm done. (Not that this should stop anyone from writing some alternative flyers as well). Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:39:29 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:39:29 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Organisational Things >if I have time and can lay my hands on appropriate broom handles etc, I'll also try >to knock up some placards. Yesterday, I went out and bought enough supplies to make about 12 placards. Obviously I wouldn't be able to carry that many, so does anybody want a placard making? I'm going to make the banners double-sided so each side can carry a different message. If you do want a banner making, I'll need to know what you want on it. The guide to making placards below suggests no more than four words on a placard. I've made one that simply says "Free Dmitry, Repeal DMCA", with large text that fills the picket and the four word guide does seem to be quite a good rule of thumb. I'll also try and make a few spares. btw Making the placards does take some time, so if you're nearby and have some spare time either tonight or tomorrow morning and want to help make placards, I live near Barons Court tube on the Piccadily line. Email directly if you want to help out. Also if you want to make your own placards this http://csua.berkeley.edu/%7Ealexf/sklyarov/Picket-Signs-mini-HOWTO gives a good description of what is needed. cheers dan -----Original Message----- From: Julian T. J. Midgley [mailto:jtjm at xenoclast.org] Sent: 02 August 2001 11:19 To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Organisational Things In the interests of ensuring we have enough of everything (banners, placards, flyers, etc), it would be useful if people could state what they intend to bring along tomorrow: I intend to print off 500-1000 flyers (B&W); if I have time and can lay my hands on appropriate broom handles etc, I'll also try to knock up some placards. Does anyone have access to a volume colour printer or copier- it would be nice to have some coloured fliers if possible? What are other people's plans? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F _______________________________________________ Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:51:55 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 11:51:55 +0100 From: kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 11:13:09AM +0100, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > > Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 kb1 at oisin.snaz.co.uk wrote: > > > > > Silly question? > > > > > > Can we get our hands on a copy of the DMCA to burn? > > > > Though it's a nice idea (and I'm sure a Google search would turn up a > > copy), I'd rather we didn't burn things, as doing so makes it utterly > > trivial for the police to demand that the protest break up (and since > > burning things in the street probably involves commiting several offences, > > it also makes it far too easy for people to be arrested, which we would > > like to avoid). > > I agree. > This is probably what the palestinian protesters (they are at the US embassy > after us) will do: burn amerian flags, burn "uncle Sam" etc. I'd like to > distant from this. I think that we'll have much bigger impact on the embassy > itself if we'll be totally peaceful. > I'm not an expert, but: I think that the main goal of a picket like this is press coverage. There will _not_ be a diplomatic pouch going back saying "There's geeks outside: repeal DMCA at once!" So we need to be reasonably visual. Burning a copy of a statute at the end of the picket gives something visual to get on the news. Especially if the press are briefed. There is the public order side of things, as pointed out. And since we're trying to get Dmitry freed, rather than the DMCA repealed, this could cause a lot of confusion. What else can we do that would make a visual impact? Regards Kieran From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:08:14 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:08:14 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage > > > > > I'm not an expert, but: > > > I think that the main goal of a picket like this is press coverage. There > will _not_ be a diplomatic pouch going back saying "There's geeks outside: > repeal DMCA at once!" > > So we need to be reasonably visual. Burning a copy of a statute at the end > of the picket gives something visual to get on the news. Especially if > the press are briefed. > > > There is the public order side of things, as pointed out. > And since we're trying to get Dmitry freed, rather than the DMCA repealed, > this could cause a lot of confusion. > > > What else can we do that would make a visual impact? Agreed absolutely that we should try to make a visual impact. It would defintely be nice to do so without running any risks of having the demo stopped. The US protests came up with several nice 'visuals' - at one they brought along a 'coffin' with "RIP Fair Use" (or similar, can't remember the details) written on - this attracted quite a lot of attention. At another they had a short piece of street theatre, which is very effective - it attracted an audience who then get more easily drawn in to ask questions about the protest afterwards. We could certainly do this- the text of the playlet is at: http://lm.lcs.mit.edu/%7Ecananian/hypermail/dmitry-boston/0328.html Other ideas, anyone? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 12:24:35 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 12:24:35 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA play > http://lm.lcs.mit.edu/%7Ecananian/hypermail/dmitry-boston/0328.html This is really great! Let's do this! We need only 4 people and a sign. Actually my "free Dmitry" banner is 100% visible from the other side as "YRTIMD EERF", since it is a cheap thin cloth. I was a bit upset when I found yesterday that I cannot write anything on the other side, but now this is very useful. Shall we appoint the roles today for people to practice? It's mostly P and A, B and C are much less "talkative". I can be B or C. I'll bring the "DMCA" book as well. anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:37:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:37:44 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA play On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > http://lm.lcs.mit.edu/%7Ecananian/hypermail/dmitry-boston/0328.html > > This is really great! Let's do this! We need only 4 people and a sign. > Actually my "free Dmitry" banner is 100% visible from the other side > as "YRTIMD EERF", since it is a cheap thin cloth. I was a bit upset > when I found yesterday that I cannot write anything on the other side, > but now this is very useful. This is quite good, but just to avoid any confusion, (since people may be able to see the back of the sign), Dan, could you make one up with "!yrtimD eerF" on it? > Shall we appoint the roles today for people to practice? It's mostly P > and A, B and C are much less "talkative". I can be B or C. I'll bring > the "DMCA" book as well. I'm quite happy to do any of the roles, but I'll let others volunteer first (I've just heard that Newsnight will be interviewing me (and possibly some others from Cambridge) later today, so it only seems fair to let someone else get air time ;-) ). Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 12:40:41 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 12:40:41 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA play > I'm quite happy to do any of the roles, but I'll let others volunteer > first (I've just heard that Newsnight will be interviewing me (and > possibly some others from Cambridge) later today, so it only seems fair to > let someone else get air time ;-) ). Yes, of course, if there will be someone else.. anton From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:47:10 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:47:10 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA play > -----Original Message----- > From: Anton Chterenlikht [mailto:a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk] > > > I'm quite happy to do any of the roles, but I'll let others > volunteer > > first (I've just heard that Newsnight will be interviewing me (and > > possibly some others from Cambridge) later today, so it > only seems fair to > > let someone else get air time ;-) ). > > Yes, of course, if there will be someone else.. > > anton > There should be a reasonable number of people there. Not wanting to count any chickens to early, but from the number of people who said they would come, we should have 12-17 people. Obviously this doesn't include any people who haven't emailed saying they're coming. (and if we have two policemen and a reporter along that's 20 ;) > Dan, could you make one up with "!yrtimD eerF" on it? No problem, I'll put 'Read this sign, go to Jail' on the other side. cheers dan From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:16:31 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:16:31 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Update website? --5mCyUwZo2JvN/JJP Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline I've just sent out a note about the protest to the Imperial College computing students list, and got back a reply asking if the rally was still going ahead since Adobe backed down. We might want to make it clear on the website that the rally is still necessary despite Adobe's action. theo --5mCyUwZo2JvN/JJP Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO2lEnkV+lYNqtIdrEQIy1QCcDsYB1fBR4+PQBMiyIvOw/vXL8TsAoN9o VwfuUTn6iVx5t4/5uCeVH+5D =hGrr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --5mCyUwZo2JvN/JJP-- From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:21:56 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:21:56 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Update website? On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Theodore Hong wrote: > I've just sent out a note about the protest to the Imperial College > computing students list, and got back a reply asking if the rally was still > going ahead since Adobe backed down. We might want to make it clear on the > website that the rally is still necessary despite Adobe's action. Yes - I'll do this. It's important to note, of course, that we are NOT protesting against Adobe (they have also asked publicly for Dmitry to be freed), but against the US Department of Justice who are responsible for Dmitry's imprisonment (and secondarily, against the DMCA itself). Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From rich at copsewood.net Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:37:57 -0400 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:37:57 -0400 From: Richard Kay rich at copsewood.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] [rich at copsewood.net: London protest about anti-preservation DMCA law] Here is a copy of a message sent to a digital preservation group. We need to get information professionals on our side. Please copy/post anywhere you consider appropriate. I will try and memorise some lines for the play on the way down to London tomorrow focussing on P if thats OK. Anyone have a kiddies/joke police helmet ? Also is anyone driving down from the North, likely to pass Coventry on the way to London, who is able to give me a lift ? Richard Kay ----- Forwarded message from Richard Kay ----- Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:26:22 -0400 From: Richard Kay To: preservation at jisc.ac.uk Subject: London protest about anti-preservation DMCA law To all those concerned with digital preservation. I know this is very short notice, but those who are concerned about future knowledge of the past are likely to be interested in a demonstration occuring tomorrow (3rd August) against a US law which has anti-preservation effects, known as the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, near Hyde Park, London starting at 1PM. Protests are taking place in many places worldwide against the wrongful imprisonment of Dmitry Sklyarov in the US who has been charged with an offence under the DMCA. The DMCA makes it a criminal offence in the US to publish details of the scrambling or encryption methods used to lock digital content to the hardware used to read it. Try and imagine what the future would hold for libraries, if in order to be able to read a book you had to maintain the instance of a digital reading device in working order for which your copy of the book was exclusively encoded. The DMCA allows exemptions for decoding for digital preservation purposes, but in practice this decoding is less likely to be economically viable unless it can be provided for all fair uses of the digital content protected, e.g. for allowing for interfaces to braille readers and users to keep their own backups. More to the point, such decoding is much less likely to be possible for digital content preservation unless the information needed to do this decoding can legitimately be made more generally available. The Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who was arrested a fortnight ago in the US ago had been invited to speak at a computing security conference in Las Vegas. He is currently in prison awaiting trial on a charge relating to his Russian employer (Elcomsoft) having developed and sold software which can be used to interface the Adobe Ebook product to braille readers and to allow purchasers of Ebook content to take backup copies. Software sold in Russia must by law enable users to be able to take backups so - to the extent Dmitry was involved in writing this software - this was completely legal where this software was written. The DMCA attempts to override a long tradition of fair use of copyrighted materials, for example allowing people to sell second-hand copies of books, borrow books from libraries and allowing teachers to photocopy small parts of books for distribution to students. I think you will also find the DMCA threatens our ability to archive in future the knowledge of the past for the reasons stated above. Even if you are unable to inform others within the UK library community of this protest in time for tomorrow, it would be useful for information about the DMCA to be disseminated and discussed in order to raise awareness of these issues. It would be of very great assistance to those within the software-engineering community who are attempting to defend the rights to freedom of expression and liberty of our colleagues if you could use the networks available to information professionals to help us in this activity. You will find more information under the references: http://freesklyarov.org/ and http://anti-dmca.org/ . Many thanks for your consideration, Yours sincerely, Richard Kay Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering, Technology Innovation Centre, University of Central England, Perry Barr, Birmingham B42 2SU rich.kay at uce.ac.uk also rich at copsewood.net ----- End forwarded message ----- From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:42:54 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:42:54 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] [rich at copsewood.net: London protest about anti-preservation DMCA law] On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Richard Kay wrote: > Here is a copy of a message sent to a digital preservation > group. We need to get information professionals on our side. Splendid stuff! > Please copy/post anywhere you consider appropriate. A minor, but important point - when doing so, please amend it to include references to the UK Freesklyarov site (http://uk.freesklyarov.org/), to ensure that people are easily able to find the details of the London protest. Julian > I will try and memorise some lines for the play on the way > down to London tomorrow focussing on P if thats OK. Anyone have a > kiddies/joke police helmet ? > > Also is anyone driving down from the North, likely to pass > Coventry on the way to London, who is able to give me a lift ? > > Richard Kay > > ----- Forwarded message from Richard Kay ----- > > Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:26:22 -0400 > From: Richard Kay > To: preservation at jisc.ac.uk > Subject: London protest about anti-preservation DMCA law > > To all those concerned with digital preservation. > > I know this is very short notice, but those who are concerned about > future knowledge of the past are likely to be interested in > a demonstration occuring tomorrow (3rd August) against a US law > which has anti-preservation effects, known as the DMCA (Digital > Millenium Copyright Act), outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor > Square, near Hyde Park, London starting at 1PM. > > Protests are taking place in many places worldwide against the wrongful > imprisonment of Dmitry Sklyarov in the US who has been charged > with an offence under the DMCA. > > The DMCA makes it a criminal offence in the US to publish > details of the scrambling or encryption methods used to lock > digital content to the hardware used to read it. > Try and imagine what the future would hold for libraries, if > in order to be able to read a book you had to maintain the > instance of a digital reading device in working order for > which your copy of the book was exclusively encoded. The > DMCA allows exemptions for decoding for digital preservation > purposes, but in practice this decoding is less likely to be > economically viable unless it can be provided for all fair > uses of the digital content protected, e.g. for allowing for > interfaces to braille readers and users to keep their own > backups. More to the point, such decoding is much less likely > to be possible for digital content preservation unless the > information needed to do this decoding can legitimately be > made more generally available. > > The Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, who was arrested a fortnight > ago in the US ago had been invited to speak at a computing > security conference in Las Vegas. He is currently in prison > awaiting trial on a charge relating to his Russian employer > (Elcomsoft) having developed and sold software which can be used to > interface the Adobe Ebook product to braille readers and to > allow purchasers of Ebook content to take backup copies. > Software sold in Russia must by law enable users to be able > to take backups so - to the extent Dmitry was involved in writing > this software - this was completely legal where this software > was written. > > The DMCA attempts to override a long tradition of fair use > of copyrighted materials, for example allowing people to > sell second-hand copies of books, borrow books from libraries > and allowing teachers to photocopy small parts of books for > distribution to students. I think you will also find the DMCA > threatens our ability to archive in future the knowledge of > the past for the reasons stated above. > > Even if you are unable to inform others within the UK library community of > this protest in time for tomorrow, it would be useful for information > about the DMCA to be disseminated and discussed in order to raise > awareness of these issues. It would be of very great assistance to > those within the software-engineering community who are attempting to > defend the rights to freedom of expression and liberty of our colleagues > if you could use the networks available to information professionals > to help us in this activity. > > You will find more information under the references: > http://freesklyarov.org/ and http://anti-dmca.org/ . > > Many thanks for your consideration, > > Yours sincerely, > > Richard Kay > Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering, > Technology Innovation Centre, > University of Central England, > Perry Barr, > Birmingham B42 2SU > rich.kay at uce.ac.uk > also rich at copsewood.net > > > ----- End forwarded message ----- > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:43:22 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:43:22 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA play --/04w6evG8XlLl3ft Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > I'm quite happy to do any of the roles, but I'll let others volunteer > > first (I've just heard that Newsnight will be interviewing me (and > > possibly some others from Cambridge) later today, so it only seems fair > > to let someone else get air time ;-) ). >=20 > Yes, of course, if there will be someone else.. I'm happy to do B if no one else wants to volunteer. theo --=20 Theodore Hong Department of Computing, Imperial College t.hong at doc.ic.ac.uk 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ PGP key: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~twh1/ --/04w6evG8XlLl3ft Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO2lK6kV+lYNqtIdrEQIiEgCggBIpwhtYlzvJg9NzhS/9QyYn49sAn1OC GwIwDl/b1i76uyiNHoTT2JlH =sE5h -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --/04w6evG8XlLl3ft-- From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:52:15 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:52:15 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] news groups Does anyone knows a suitable newsgroup(s), where we can post a mesage about our protest? I've checked our University, but there is no serious gorups - 1-10 messages max. anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:59:00 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:59:00 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] news groups On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Does anyone knows a suitable newsgroup(s), where we can post a mesage about our > protest? I've checked our University, but there is no serious gorups - 1-10 > messages max. It might be worth sending one to uk.comp.os.linux - feel free to use the following email to the UK Linux Usergroups as a guide: You might also want to include some of the text from Richard Kay's recent post to the list, which went into more detail on the issues involved. Julian Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:32:57 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley To: uklugs at lug.org.uk Subject: UK Free Dmitry Sklyarov Protest I'm writing to let you know of the UK "Free Dmitry" protests which are scheduled to happen tomorrow outside the US Embassy in London. If you think it appropriate, I should be very grateful if you would forward the following to the UK Linux user groups, in the hope that at least some of the members will be able to make the protests tomorrow. Announcement: UK Free Dmitry Sklyarov Protest ============================================= Dmitry Sklyarov's imprisonment in the United States is a matter of particular concern to the UK Linux community, since many of the pieces of software we use, from video drivers to Linux DVD players depend on the reverse engineering of protocols and algorithms which the DMCA makes illegal. Those of us in the UK who engage in such reverse engineering, or cryptography research, and then visit the USA are at risk of being sued or imprisoned. Alan Cox resigned his seat on the USENIX Committee, and called for Conference organisers to hold their conferences outside the USA after hearing of Dmitry Sklyarov's imprisonment. We think it important that those in power in the US realise that their laws are threatening legitimate research and software design, and making UK citizens think twice about visiting the States. We are therefore holding a protest outside the US Embassy at 1300 tomorrow, at which we will be calling for Dmitry Sklyarov to be freed, and aiming to raise awareness of the problems surrounding the DMCA. Full details of the protest (including maps) are available at: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ And there is a mailing list which we encourage those interested to join (whether they can attend the protest or not) at: http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk The protesters will be gathering at 1230 at the Hyde Park Corner Tube Station, and marching from there to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square at 1300. The protest will finish at 1530 (after which some of us thought we might head to the Beer Festival at Olympia). Julian Midgley -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From rsimpson at ewrcsdra.demon.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:17:56 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:17:56 +0100 From: Richard Simpson rsimpson at ewrcsdra.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Street theatre Hi, I hope that I can attend the demo tomorrow. I only just got back from holiday so it might be a bit of a rush, but I'll do my best. Questions: i) I can print a small number of A5 flyers on a colour laser. Will this help? ii) I have done a lot of amateur acting and am sure that I could tackle the suggested street theatre routine. However, we will need three other people. I have asked a computer/theatre friend, but I doubt that he will be available at such short notice. iii) Any particular ideas for placards? Regards, Richard Simpson -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Simpson Farnborough, Hants, Uk Fax: 01252 455596 rsimpson at ewrcsdra.demon.co.uk From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:26:14 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:26:14 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Street theatre I just nipped out and got some handcuffs for the street theatre*. Does anyone coming have any of those toy plastic police helmets ? It'd be good to have one of those for the enactment. Dan *and more importantly a set of keys as well > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Simpson [mailto:rsimpson at ewrcsdra.demon.co.uk] > Sent: 02 August 2001 14:18 > To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Street theatre > > > > ii) I have done a lot of amateur acting and am sure that I > could tackle the > suggested street theatre routine. However, we will need > three other people. > I have asked a computer/theatre friend, but I doubt that he > will be available > at such short notice. > > > Regards, > > Richard Simpson > > -- > -------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- > > Richard Simpson > Farnborough, Hants, Uk Fax: 01252 455596 > rsimpson at ewrcsdra.demon.co.uk > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 14:32:24 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 14:32:24 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Street theatre Dan Ackroyd wrote: > I just nipped out and got some handcuffs for the street theatre*. Does > anyone coming have any of those toy plastic police helmets ? I'll get one anton From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:30:02 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:30:02 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Street theatre > From: Richard Simpson [mailto:rsimpson at ewrcsdra.demon.co.uk] > i) I can print a small number of A5 flyers on a colour > laser. Will this > help? yes, if we could have some large colour copies of pictures of Dmitry with his family that would be FANTASTIC! There are several different versions at: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/Graphics/ Can you let me know if you can bring these along ? cheers dan From jason at uklinux.net Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:32:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:32:38 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Attending the Free Skylavov London demo I intend to attend tomorrows Free Skylarov demo. Jason Clifford From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 14:39:39 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 14:39:39 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Announcement: UK Free Dmitry Sklyarov Protest I've sent the annoncement message to the folowing newsgroups. Any other ideas? anton uk.comp.os.linux uk.comp.sys.mac uk.comp.sys.sun uk.adverts.computer uk.adverts.computer.mac From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:36:55 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:36:55 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Ideas for placards > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Simpson [mailto:rsimpson at ewrcsdra.demon.co.uk] > Sent: 02 August 2001 14:18 > To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > iii) Any particular ideas for placards? How about: R.I.P. Fair use Coding is not a crime Reading is not a crime Free Dmitry Repeal DMCA Free Speech. Free Dmitry Reading is NOT a crime The year is 1984/Welcome to 1984 Double sided sign with "!yrtimD eerF", on one side and "This sign is Encrypted" or "Read this sign, go to jail!" on the other side". "Source Code == Free Speech" If any body else has good ideas please post 'em! cheers dan From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:48:16 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:48:16 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > The US protests came up with several nice 'visuals' - at one they brought > along a 'coffin' with "RIP Fair Use" (or similar, can't remember the > details) written on - this attracted quite a lot of attention. >=20 > At another they had a short piece of street theatre, which is very > effective - it attracted an audience who then get more easily drawn in to > ask questions about the protest afterwards. I also like their DMCA song (http://www.freesklyarov.org/dmca-song.html), if anyone can play guitar or has a boombox and a tape of Y-M-C-A. I have a guitar but don't know how to play it. theo --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO2laH0V+lYNqtIdrEQIFGACgu5jk8CkABsht4laQEPLbRLPzI4gAoP1L daVuogvghHjxcLFNoIJkZn+c =ZgwG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7-- From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:49:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:49:38 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Ideas for placards On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > If any body else has good ideas please post 'em! I would definitely like a "USA - Land of the Free^H^H^H^H DMCA" (With the ^H's merely indicating that Free should be crossed out). I'm hoping to get a number of people from Cambridge down to help you out in making them, but timing could be an issue - if we leave Cambridge at 9, we would probably be with you by 1130, but that only leaves an hour before we meet at Hyde Park Corner. (Can't head off much earlier, unfortunately, as I have an interview with ITN radio at 0745, and have to drop my car into the garage to get the air con fixed before I leave). Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:51:33 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:51:33 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Ideas for placards > I would definitely like a "USA - Land of the Free^H^H^H^H DMCA" > (With the ^H's merely indicating that Free should be crossed out). Thats a good one, but it might be better to cross Free out, as not that many techy people know that ^H means delete :) Dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Julian T. J. Midgley > [mailto:free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org] > Sent: 02 August 2001 14:50 > To: Dan Ackroyd > Cc: 'Richard Simpson'; free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: RE: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Ideas for placards > > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > > If any body else has good ideas please post 'em! > > I would definitely like a "USA - Land of the Free^H^H^H^H DMCA" > (With the ^H's merely indicating that Free should be crossed out). > > I'm hoping to get a number of people from Cambridge down to > help you out > in making them, but timing could be an issue - if we leave > Cambridge at > 9, we would probably be with you by 1130, but that only leaves an hour > before we meet at Hyde Park Corner. (Can't head off much earlier, > unfortunately, as I have an interview with ITN radio at 0745, > and have to > drop my car into the garage to get the air con fixed before I leave). > > Julian > > -- > Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org > Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:55:14 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 14:55:14 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Ideas for placards On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > I would definitely like a "USA - Land of the Free^H^H^H^H DMCA" > > (With the ^H's merely indicating that Free should be crossed out). > > Thats a good one, but it might be better to cross Free out, as not that many > techy people know that ^H means delete :) That's what I meant ;-) I was just using the ^H's in the email to represent a real crossing out on the actual sign. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From martin at pkl.net Thu, 2 Aug 2001 15:14:26 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 15:14:26 +0100 From: Martin Ling martin at pkl.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Placards, flyers, legal specifics... On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 02:17:56PM +0100, Richard Simpson wrote: > > iii) Any particular ideas for placards? I reiterate: "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, GO TO JAIL", written in mirror writing - the more I consider it, the more it seems ideally effective. I suspect it will immediately attract people's attention and cause them to inquire about the protest. It also helps us raise the point of how *utterly* trivial the 'encryption' involved was, and hence the dubious state of the DMCA in relation to legitimate security work. Also, to all: I strongly recommend Bruce Schneier's piece on the matter: http://cryptome.org/dmitry-bruce.htm - in particular, the note that provisions made in the DMCA itself to allow for security/encryption testing and research [as in Sklyarov's case], as well as for reverse engineering for interoperability purposes [as in the DeCSS case] are present and *IGNORED*. Look around pages 8-9 and related sections of the DMCA: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/hr2281.pdf Regardless of the dubious constitutional status of the DMCA, we have strong grounds for demanding Dimitry's release on his innocence alone rather than seeking repeal of the DMCA - especially with strong suspicion the fairness of trial will be in question (denied bail hearing, and now a pawn in a political situation). Oh, and for purposes of numbers: I'm coming. Martin From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 15:38:11 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 15:38:11 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Placards, flyers, legal specifics... On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Martin Ling wrote: > I reiterate: > > "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, GO TO JAIL", written in mirror writing - the more > I consider it, the more it seems ideally effective. I suspect it will > immediately attract people's attention and cause them to inquire about > the protest. It also helps us raise the point of how *utterly* trivial > the 'encryption' involved was, and hence the dubious state of the DMCA > in relation to legitimate security work. Agreed - seems good to me. > Also, to all: I strongly recommend Bruce Schneier's piece on the matter: > http://cryptome.org/dmitry-bruce.htm - in particular, the note that > provisions made in the DMCA itself to allow for security/encryption > testing and research [as in Sklyarov's case], as well as for reverse > engineering for interoperability purposes [as in the DeCSS case] are > present and *IGNORED*. Yes - an excellent article - I've written to Bruce Schneier to ask for his permission to use it on some flyers tomorrow. > > Oh, and for purposes of numbers: I'm coming. Splendid. I think we should have about 30 or so, based on people who've said they will be there on and off the list, which is quite respectable. With any luck there'll be a few more who'll decide to come between now and then. It seems likely that BBC Newsnight will be covering the protests tomorrow, and there have been sounds of interest from other news agencies. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F From andrew at zpok.demon.co.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:12:29 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:12:29 +0100 From: Andrew Simmons andrew at zpok.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Press Coverage Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Silicon.com has picked up on the UK protests in a brief leader article: > > http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?REQUNIQ=996745116&30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=21046 There's another piece (or the same one? I haven't checked) on Silicon: http://www.silicon.com/public/door?6004REQEVENT=&REQINT1=46196&REQSTR1=silicon.com ...which has a remarkably ill-judged subhead: "Some might say 'if you can't do the time, don't do the crime'..." The copy itself is pretty neutral. \a -- ===( PGP key: http://pgpkeys.mit.edu ===( My employer just went bust without paying salaries. ===( http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/doc/cv.txt From andrew at zpok.demon.co.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:22:45 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:22:45 +0100 From: Andrew Simmons andrew at zpok.demon.co.uk Subject: [Fwd: Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Organisational Things] Dan Ackroyd wrote: >>if I have time and can lay my hands on appropriate broom handles >>etc, I'll also try to knock up some placards. >> > > Yesterday, I went out and bought enough supplies to make about > 12 placards. Obviously I wouldn't be able to carry that many, > so does anybody want a placard making? Yes please. ...in reply to Julian who wrote: > In the interests of ensuring we have enough of everything (banners, > placards, flyers, etc), it would be useful if people could state > what they intend to bring along tomorrow: > > I intend to print off 500-1000 flyers (B&W); if I have time and can lay I haven't got access to a printer or indeed anything else useful, so put me down for some flier distribution too. \a -- ===( PGP key: http://pgpkeys.mit.edu ===( My employer just went bust without paying salaries. ===( http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/doc/cv.txt -- ===( PGP key: http://pgpkeys.mit.edu ===( My employer just went bust without paying salaries. ===( http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/doc/cv.txt From Ronan at footle.com Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:40:18 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:40:18 +0100 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? Hello all, Just signed up for the list today. I totally support the march in London, but being in Edinburgh it doesn't look like I or my friends will be able to make it. I checked the digest to see if anyone had mentioned the following possibility, and didn't see anything like it (apologies if I'm repeating a previous idea). Basically, there's an American Consulate (like a mini-embassy?) in Edinburgh on Regent Terrace (about 100 yards from the east end of princes street) and I'd like to organise a similar demo to the one in London for about 2 weeks from now (or maybe sooner if we can get organised). I thought perhaps we could present the consulate staff with a cdrom, containing the names of all those opposed to the DMCA and Adobe's actions in an appropriate (open!) format. I'd appreciate the irony of such an action. A little march with placards and leafleting would also be part of the planned demo. Asking around my friends, everyone (ok, all 5 of them) say they'd come. What sort of support could we count on from those in the area (Scotland, north of England)? If it looks like we would have a reasonable turn out then I think it'd be a worthy thing to do (if only to let us fierce notherners express our sincere displeasure with the DMCA, etc in person without having to travel hundreds of miles to do it). Any thoughts on the suitability / appropriateness of this idea? Who'd be interested in coming? Kind Regards, Ronan -- Ronan Burnett Director, Footle Ltd Ronan at footle.com From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 16:28:32 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 16:28:32 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? Ronan Burnett wrote: > Hello all, > > Just signed up for the list today. I totally support the march in London, > but being in Edinburgh it doesn't look like I or my friends will be able to > make it. I checked the digest to see if anyone had mentioned the following > possibility, and didn't see anything like it (apologies if I'm repeating a > previous idea). Ronan, There was at least one person: http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-July/000082.html It is great! A lot of people stated before that sevaral actions in different places at the same time insrease the impact significantly. It would be great therefore if you could do something there tomorow. I do undersatnd, that the time is almost over and there are not that many supporters, but maybe just small flyer-distribution action for 1 hour. Julian, Would it help if we put something like "and Possibly Edinborough" about tomorrow protest. Or something like "Edinborough protest is planned". I think it will greatly encourage people close to Edinborough. anton From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 16:31:45 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 16:31:45 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest I've made 300 flyers, on yellow, green and blue paper, 100 of each. They look more attractive that the white ones, but the picture is not that good. I think it will be really very good if someone could print a big good quality picture of Dmitry with or without the family. I've got a plastic police helmet, 8 feet usa bunting for Mr A, and 4 small russian flags (not sure if we'll use them). Are we allowed to make noise? What about the whistles or drums then? anton From Ronan at footle.com Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:58:57 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:58:57 +0100 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? > > There was at least one person: > http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-July/000082.html Ah-ha! A tardis member beat me to it, I should have known.... > > It is great! A lot of people stated before that sevaral actions in > different places at the same time insrease the impact significantly. It > would be great therefore if you could do something there tomorow. I guess we could distribute flyers, but I've seen so many pathetic protests (usually courtesy of the socialist workers) and I thought that maybe it might be better to put some more planning in to it. Alternatively, if we could get say, 25 people together by tomorrow it might be worthwhile. Any takers? > Would it help if we put something like "and Possibly Edinborough" about > tomorrow protest. Or something like "Edinborough protest is planned". I > think it will greatly encourage people close to Edinborough. For now, how about 'Edinburgh protest planned' and if by the end of today we have enough confirmed people it should probably be updated.... Of course, we could flyer tomorrow and have a proper protest in a week or two, there's no reason why we couldn't do both. R. From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:45:00 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:45:00 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest - Schedule, phone numbers, and recovery plans Hi all, Here just to make sure everyone is completely clear is the schedule for tomorrow. Schedule -------- 1230 - 1300 : Assemble Hyde Park Corner tube station, on the NORTH side of the station, approximately where the green dot is on this map http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/map.html 1300 : March to US Embassy, protesting as we go 1315(ish) - 1530: PROTEST OUTSIDE EMBASSY 1530 : Protest Ends After leaving the embassy we have several options. We can walk back to Hyde Park corner and distribute any remaing flyers amongst the tourists there, and if anybody fancies it we can proceed to a local hostelry for a quiet drink or two. Phone numbers -------------- For all problems with getting to the protest, or if you get lost on the way ring, or if you would like a custom placard made: Protest Lead - Dan Ackroyd - 07803 121 569 For all press contact please contact: Press Liasion - Julian Midgley - 07713 166000 What to do if things go wrong ? ------------------------------- 1) You arrive at the tube station after 1.00pm. In that case proceed directly to the US embassy. This map http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?grid2map?X=528250&Y=180250&zoom=1 shows the detailed plan of the streets 2) You arrive at the tube station between 12.30 and 1.00 but can't find anyone waiting outside. Check to make sure you are at the north entrance. If you are, either give me a ring on 07803 121 569, or wait untl 1.00 and make your way to the embassy. 3) If anything else goes wrong, just proceed to the Embassy for 1.15pm See you all tomorrow. cheers Dan From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:49:38 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:49:38 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest Making noise should not be a problem....I suggest people bring whatever noise making equipment they feel like, but I guess whistles and drums would probably be good as they will sound good when played together by agroup of people and don' t require that much musical coordination. dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Anton Chterenlikht [mailto:a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk] > Sent: 02 August 2001 16:32 > To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest > > > I've made 300 flyers, on yellow, green and blue paper, 100 of > each. They look > more attractive that the white ones, but the picture is not > that good. I think > it will be really very good if someone could print a big good > quality picture > of Dmitry with or without the family. > > I've got a plastic police helmet, 8 feet usa bunting for Mr > A, and 4 small > russian flags (not sure if we'll use them). > > Are we allowed to make noise? What about the whistles or drums then? > > anton > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:01:23 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:01:23 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? > For now, how about 'Edinburgh protest planned' and if by the end of today we > have enough confirmed people it should probably be updated.... I've updated the website with details of the Edinburgh protest. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.sklyarov.org/ From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:55:22 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:55:22 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? > Asking around my friends, everyone (ok, all 5 of them) say > they'd come. That is more than enough to hold a protest. Even if you just distribute flyers for an hour or so, it adds another capital city where protests have taken place. Also please remeber to get some pictures, as it's a good way of encouraging more people to protest. Dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Ronan Burnett [mailto:Ronan at footle.com] > Sent: 02 August 2001 16:40 > To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? > > > Hello all, > > Just signed up for the list today. I totally support the > march in London, > but being in Edinburgh it doesn't look like I or my friends > will be able to > make it. I checked the digest to see if anyone had mentioned > the following > possibility, and didn't see anything like it (apologies if > I'm repeating a > previous idea). > > Basically, there's an American Consulate (like a > mini-embassy?) in Edinburgh > on Regent Terrace (about 100 yards from the east end of > princes street) and > I'd like to organise a similar demo to the one in London for > about 2 weeks > from now (or maybe sooner if we can get organised). I > thought perhaps we > could present the consulate staff with a cdrom, containing > the names of all > those opposed to the DMCA and Adobe's actions in an > appropriate (open!) > format. I'd appreciate the irony of such an action. A > little march with > placards and leafleting would also be part of the planned demo. > > Asking around my friends, everyone (ok, all 5 of them) say > they'd come. What > sort of support could we count on from those in the area > (Scotland, north of > England)? If it looks like we would have a reasonable turn > out then I think > it'd be a worthy thing to do (if only to let us fierce > notherners express our > sincere displeasure with the DMCA, etc in person without > having to travel > hundreds of miles to do it). > > Any thoughts on the suitability / appropriateness of this > idea? Who'd be > interested in coming? > > Kind Regards, > > Ronan > > -- > Ronan Burnett > Director, Footle Ltd > Ronan at footle.com > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From martin at pkl.net Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:06:58 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:06:58 +0100 From: Martin Ling martin at pkl.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 04:49:38PM +0100, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > Making noise should not be a problem....I suggest people bring whatever > noise making equipment they feel like, but I guess whistles and drums would > probably be good as they will sound good when played together by agroup of > people and don' t require that much musical coordination. If anyone desperately wants to do 'D.M.C.A' I'll drag a guitar. But *I* won't sing :-) Martin From Ronan at footle.com Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:39:04 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:39:04 +0100 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? On Thursday 02 August 2001 4:55 pm, you wrote: > > Asking around my friends, everyone (ok, all 5 of them) say > > they'd come. > > That is more than enough to hold a protest. Even if you just distribute > flyers for an hour or so, it adds another capital city where protests have > taken place. Ok, provisionally we're going to be at the east end of Princes Street (near the Burger King and Waterstones) to coincide with the London embassy protests at around 1pm. > > Also please remeber to get some pictures, as it's a good way of encouraging > more people to protest. Digital camera will be in tow... Ronan From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:22:27 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:22:27 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Ronan Burnett wrote: > On Thursday 02 August 2001 4:55 pm, you wrote: > > > Asking around my friends, everyone (ok, all 5 of them) say > > > they'd come. > > > > That is more than enough to hold a protest. Even if you just distribute > > flyers for an hour or so, it adds another capital city where protests have > > taken place. > > Ok, provisionally we're going to be at the east end of Princes Street (near > the Burger King and Waterstones) to coincide with the London embassy protests > at around 1pm. Right - I'll stick this up on the website - if you can find a link to a map showing the location (streetmap.co.uk and multimap.com are probably good bets here), I'll add that one as well. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.sklyarov.org/ From rich at copsewood.net Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:40:41 -0400 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:40:41 -0400 From: Richard Kay rich at copsewood.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest If Martin brings his guitar can someone print off a few copies of the words I and others can sing. cheers, Richard. On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 05:06:58PM +0100, Martin Ling wrote: > On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 04:49:38PM +0100, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > > Making noise should not be a problem....I suggest people bring whatever > > noise making equipment they feel like, but I guess whistles and drums would > > probably be good as they will sound good when played together by agroup of > > people and don' t require that much musical coordination. > > If anyone desperately wants to do 'D.M.C.A' I'll drag a guitar. But *I* > won't sing :-) > > > Martin > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:35:09 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:35:09 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Richard Kay wrote: > If Martin brings his guitar can someone print off a few > copies of the words I and others can sing. Will do, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.sklyarov.org/ From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:39:50 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 17:39:50 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] London protest --PNTmBPCT7hxwcZjr Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Richard Kay wrote: > If Martin brings his guitar can someone print off a few > copies of the words I and others can sing. I've got 20 copies of the words, and I'm making 400 A5 flyers on fluorescent paper. theo --PNTmBPCT7hxwcZjr Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO2mCVkV+lYNqtIdrEQJ8ewCgo85oJSr9P5gpnOlOEpnm1l1El8kAn2ex xShMWEcE0fhMero/0orO+8do =efgV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --PNTmBPCT7hxwcZjr-- From tim at reinhouse.freeserve.co.uk Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:41:10 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 16:41:10 +0100 From: Timothy Baldwin tim at reinhouse.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protests On Monday 30 July 2001 2:24 pm, Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk wrote: > I'm very concerned about anti WTO organisations. What are these? If these > are > > "Globalise Resistance" or "Socialist Alliance" I would rather prefer not to > inform them > of our actions at all bearing in mind their attitude of getting the aim at > all costs. I do > think that these people can only make it worse for Dmitry. I do not want to > give the prosecution any chance to associate Dmitry with any violent > protest. Globalise Resistance are not violent except possibly for self-defence, altougth they obstructed the passage of conference delegates. The Socialist Alliance is also not violent except for self-defence. Both of these are simply not stupid enough to use violence in this situation. Any reports that these organisations are violent is an attempt to discredit them. Almost all violence at Genoa was from the police and fascists (and possibly Black Block who may have been present), some of which were disguised as protesters (typically as Black Block). If the prosecution wanted to associate Dmitry with a violent protest, they could arrange for undercover police, secret agents or fascists to join the protests and commit acts of violence. -- Timothy Baldwin Member of WYLUG, WACG, SWP, SA and GR 2nd year Computer Science, University of Leeds From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 18:20:28 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 18:20:28 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Protests Sorry Timothy, I did not want to offend anyone with my quoted passage. I agree, I do not know that much for calling GR and SA violent. I guess this is only the impression I get from media. I do understand that this impression might be totally wrong. My apologies anton Timothy Baldwin wrote: > On Monday 30 July 2001 2:24 pm, Anton Chterenlikht > a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk wrote: > > I'm very concerned about anti WTO organisations. What are these? If these > > are > > > > "Globalise Resistance" or "Socialist Alliance" I would rather prefer not to > > inform them > > of our actions at all bearing in mind their attitude of getting the aim at > > all costs. I do > > think that these people can only make it worse for Dmitry. I do not want to > > give the prosecution any chance to associate Dmitry with any violent > > protest. > > Globalise Resistance are not violent except possibly for self-defence, > altougth they obstructed the passage of conference delegates. The Socialist > Alliance is also not violent except for self-defence. Both of these are > simply not stupid enough to use violence in this situation. > > Any reports that these organisations are violent is an attempt to discredit > them. Almost all violence at Genoa was from the police and fascists (and > possibly Black Block who may have been present), some of which were disguised > as protesters (typically as Black Block). > > If the prosecution wanted to associate Dmitry with a violent protest, they > could arrange for undercover police, secret agents or fascists to join the > protests and commit acts of violence. > > -- > Timothy Baldwin > Member of WYLUG, WACG, SWP, SA and GR > 2nd year Computer Science, University of Leeds > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 20:25:41 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 20:25:41 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More flyers, and minor disaster I've put two more flyers up on the website, entitled "What is the DMCA?", and "A Security Technologist's View" (a copy of Bruce Scheneier's article mentioned earlier). I had intended to print these back to back, and distribute them as a single, double-sided sheet. The "What is the DMCA" flyer provides just enough background to act as a nice lead in to Bruce's article. As luck wouldn't have it, however, the photocopier I was intending to use to perform this feat has chosen this evening to sulk, and refuses to do anything but make ugly sounding grinding noises at me. If anyone else is able to print them instead, I'd be very grateful. (I was originally intending to print around 500, but I'd be happy to settle for as many as you're able to print). Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From permanganate at planethalflife.com Thu, 2 Aug 2001 21:14:37 +0100 Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 21:14:37 +0100 From: Permanganate permanganate at planethalflife.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers? This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0001_01C11B98.23F719A0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I only just heard about this protest this afternoon, so I haven't heard any talk about the sort of numbers of people that will show up tomorrow; any guesses as to what they are? I'm seriously considering going; the DMCA needs to be stopped before other countries make their own versions. Graham Weir ------=_NextPart_000_0001_01C11B98.23F719A0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Numbers?

I only just heard about this protest = this afternoon, so I haven't heard any talk about the sort of numbers of = people that will show up tomorrow; any guesses as to what they are? I'm = seriously considering going; the DMCA needs to be stopped before other = countries make their own versions.

Graham Weir

------=_NextPart_000_0001_01C11B98.23F719A0-- From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 2 Aug 2001 21:56:18 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 21:56:18 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers? On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Permanganate wrote: > > I only just heard about this protest this afternoon, so I haven't heard > any talk about the sort of numbers of people that will show up tomorrow; > any guesses as to what they are? I'm seriously considering going; the > DMCA needs to be stopped before other countries make their own versions. We're looking at somewhere around 20-30 people (I think - it's difficult to be precise- I expect there are several who will turn up who've not said so publicly). If you can make it, it would be great to have you along. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 22:12:30 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 22:12:30 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] links http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2800985,00.html http://www.sfbg.com/SFLife/tech/70.html anton From zmower at btinternet.com Fri, 03 Aug 2001 00:05:05 +0100 Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 00:05:05 +0100 From: Chris Moore zmower at btinternet.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Go geeks! Hi, Sorry I can't be there tomorrow; work commitments. I'm surprised the US embassy seems to have no email addresses at all on their website. Otherwise I would have mailed them saying "Imagine I'm outside now giving you stick" :-) Here's my mime: if this arrest is valid then by analogy we should be arresting all hand-gun owning Americans as they get off the plane. Oh, I've faxed my MP (although it was late and I badly mis-spelt/pronounced his name; Dimitry Skylarov). Good luck, Chris "zmower" Moore -- Sig pending! From andrew at andrewr.co.uk Thu, 02 Aug 2001 23:59:22 +0100 Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 23:59:22 +0100 From: AndrewR andrew at andrewr.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh USA consulate march? Ronan Burnett wrote: > Any thoughts on the suitability / appropriateness of this idea? Who'd be > interested in coming? > I'm hoping to go to the London one tomorrow, and on Saturday I'm going up to Edinburgh for a week and a half to sample to delights of the Fringe (getting free food and accommodation in return for 'volunteering' at the Quaker Meeting house, which has a cafe & theatre during the fringe ) so if yours is between the 5th and the 14th of August (the dates I am in Edinburgh and not chasing or recovering from trains) i might be able to be there. Potentially (although I'm not promising anything) I could find a corner of my bag to take some things up. Andrew -- WARNING: Curiosity may be harmful to your cat's health. http://www.AndrewR.co.uk - AndrewR Software - Windows apps, VB controls, and QBASIC and visual BASIC things. Email address is spam trapped. ICQ 53186881 From jtjm at xenoclast.org Fri, 3 Aug 2001 00:01:39 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 00:01:39 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Travelling from Cambridge For those travelling down from Cambridge, several of us will be meeting at the station at 0900, and travelling down shortly thereafter. Anyone else travelling from Cambridge is welcome to meet us there. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From warwick.harvey at btinternet.com Fri, 3 Aug 2001 00:07:07 +0100 Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 00:07:07 +0100 From: Warwick Harvey warwick.harvey at btinternet.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers? I'm coming, and bringing at least one other (I sent an email around at work this evening, but most people had gone home already --- hopefully there'll be one or two more in the morning). See you tomorrow, Warwick From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Fri, 03 Aug 2001 07:09:36 +0100 Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 07:09:36 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers? Guys, Here is an idea for yet another flyer. Maybe someone will find it interesting and print some copies. ------------------- 4 reasons why Dmitry's accusation is total crap. Dmitry was arrested because FBI thought that he "( here should be the last paragraph of the affidavit )" There are at least 4 false statements in this accusation. 1. The program Dmitry took part in writing is primarily designed to help legitimate software users to exsersise thir right of fair dealing and to help blind people to read a book with breugel terminals. 2. It circumvents the technological measure only because Adobe used this measure to restrict users access to their rights. 3. The technological measure itself is so weak and stupid (here should be the brief description of ROT-13 (I still cannot believe they used it!!)) that almost everyone else, noy only an expert in electronic security could circumvent it. 4. There is no evidence of finantial gain. Even after 16 days since the arrest no one could give any evidence that Dmitry was selling this program. Simply because he was not. Thus Dmitry did not break DMCA (even if we forget for a moment how terrible DMCA is). Hi is indeed innocent ------------------------------------- I would've print it but it was too late yesterday and today I'll leaving in 10 minutes. Hope to see you all there today. Free Dmitry! anton From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Fri, 3 Aug 2001 11:24:45 +0100 Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 11:24:45 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More flyers, and minor disaster --G4iJoqBmSsgzjUCe Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline I've printed 400 of the new flyers, double-sided. theo -- Theodore Hong Department of Computing, Imperial College t.hong at doc.ic.ac.uk 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ PGP key: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~twh1/ --G4iJoqBmSsgzjUCe Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO2p77EV+lYNqtIdrEQIF/QCbBAYeOPMfD1VOpllLdKq3Q8pHKJoAn2S6 GxC8UVUSkSZsURaiTe0KZpcJ =yoMF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --G4iJoqBmSsgzjUCe-- From mk270-skl at no.ucant.org Fri, 3 Aug 2001 17:38:32 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 17:38:32 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270-skl at no.ucant.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] place to upload pictures of the demo Anonymous FTP upload to ftp://uk.sklyarov.org/pub/incoming Mk From mk270 at no.ucant.org Fri, 3 Aug 2001 17:42:06 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 17:42:06 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at no.ucant.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] place to upload pictures of the demo Before you forget and overwrite the pictures from those cameras ... :) Anonymous FTP upload to ftp://uk.sklyarov.org/pub/incoming Mk From jtjm at xenoclast.org Fri, 3 Aug 2001 20:09:31 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 20:09:31 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Excellent Work! See http://www.ntk.net/ for a typically amusing report of this afternoon's protest at the US Embassy in London. The protest should be covered in some depth on Newsnight at 1030 on BBC2- it looks like they are planning to run with it, since we are mentioned in the programme for tonight at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/newsnight/newsid_248000/248099.stm Aside from the BBC camera crew, reporters from NTK, Silicon.com, the New Scientist and at least one other magazine (if anyone could remind me which, I'd be grateful, my brain appears to have suffered from the surfeit of shouting) attended the protest, which went extremely smoothly. Attendance varied as people came and went from work, with a core of 25-30 protestors, probably peaking somewhere between 35 and 40 on the initial march through Hyde Park (or, more accurately, the yoyoing back and forth in front of the BBC's camera in Hyde Park, for several takes). I estimate that we handed out over a thousand flyers. There were several renditions of the DMCA song (see http://www.freesklyarov.org), the last few really beginning to get quite tuneful, and a couple of performances of the DMCA playlet in Grosvenor Square. All in all, a very successful day. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From Ronan at footle.com Fri, 03 Aug 2001 20:42:51 +0800 Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 20:42:51 +0800 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] outcome of Edinburgh protest Well, as I expected it wasn't exactly a huge demonstration. Some stats for you: In the end, 7 dedicated souls turned up (thanks everyone!). Between us, we distributed 907 'Free Dmitry' flyers to the general public and a handful of the other two flyer designs to the most interested of our victims. We took 8 digital photos and 11 conventional. We didn't march up to the consulate as probably no one would have noticed if we had. Thoughts for potential future action: Find a cheaper source of photocopying onto coloured paper! It looks quite likely that we could organise something a little more impressive for a couple of weeks time... we'll see what happens, all suggestions welcome. Ronan From hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk Fri, 3 Aug 2001 23:29:40 +0100 Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 23:29:40 +0100 From: Telsa Gwynne hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Excellent Work! On Fri, Aug 03, 2001 at 08:09:31PM +0100 or thereabouts, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > See http://www.ntk.net/ for a typically amusing report of this > afternoon's protest at the US Embassy in London. > > The protest should be covered in some depth on Newsnight at 1030 on BBC2- ... > Attendance varied as people came and went from work, with a core of 25-30 > protestors, probably peaking somewhere between 35 and 40 on the initial > march through Hyde Park (or, more accurately, the yoyoing back and forth > in front of the BBC's camera in Hyde Park, for several takes). I estimate I did wonder how much rehearsing that section required :) I think it was worth it, because it came over well on the report. Everyone who spoke was very articulate and clear. Was it my mishearing, or did Kirsty Wark initially refer to "the DMCA, an anti-copyright law"? :) Shame that the link to Robin Gross cut out. No-one around to counter some of the other guy's more dubious comments in the studio after. Apparently anyone who missed it can watch it in real video off the BBC site. Since it mentions the "latest programme" button I don't know how long it will last, but I found that off http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/newsnight/newsid_248000/248099.stm > All in all, a very successful day. Congratulations. Very swiftly-organised, and it came over well. Telsa From jtjm at xenoclast.org Sat, 4 Aug 2001 00:58:02 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 00:58:02 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] First set of photographs up on the website. John Kozak has sent in some photos of the protest today- you'll find them linked from the main web page. To prevent W4r3z d00ds attempting to upload their dubious offerings to the anonymous ftp server, which Martin advertised earlier, I've shut it down. If the others with photographs could just drop me an email, I'll provide them with an alternative means of uploading them. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Sat, 4 Aug 2001 12:00:08 +0100 Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 12:00:08 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Excellent Work! --T4sUOijqQbZv57TR Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Aside from the BBC camera crew, reporters from NTK, Silicon.com, the New > Scientist and at least one other magazine (if anyone could remind me > which, I'd be grateful, my brain appears to have suffered from the surfeit > of shouting) attended the protest, which went extremely smoothly. ZDNet, I believe: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2092570,00.html (hey, we were only 45 minutes late! =) theo -- Theodore Hong Department of Computing, Imperial College t.hong at doc.ic.ac.uk 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ PGP key: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~twh1/ --T4sUOijqQbZv57TR Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO2vVt0V+lYNqtIdrEQK0rQCcD8x8HuAqHJ5TX8o7QH2lCqROuHkAn3SE EOPcQE/A5BQA5erMFGhgKaRX =pJdB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --T4sUOijqQbZv57TR-- From jason at uklinux.net Sat, 4 Aug 2001 13:58:51 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 13:58:51 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/info page I felt that the leaflets we were handing out yesterday, while very good in and of themselves, had a bit too much of a US bias in them so I've started writing something to offer as an additional choice and, once it's finished, as a bit of an online essay on the dangers of protecting "Technical Protection Measures". It's online at http://www.jasonclifford.com/copyright.html I'd welcome any suggestions/corrections from folks here so as to ensure it's accurate and helpful. Jason From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Sat, 04 Aug 2001 14:14:46 +0100 Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 14:14:46 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/info page Jason Clifford wrote: > I felt that the leaflets we were handing out yesterday, while very good in > and of themselves, had a bit too much of a US bias in them so I've started > writing something to offer as an additional choice and, once it's > finished, as a bit of an online essay on the dangers of protecting > "Technical Protection Measures". > > It's online at http://www.jasonclifford.com/copyright.html > > I'd welcome any suggestions/corrections from folks here so as to ensure > it's accurate and helpful. Jason, It is very good indeed. I think it should also include the danger for researchers and free competiton. We should think what is the best way to use this document, maybe try to send it to e-media firstly. anton From jason at uklinux.net Sat, 4 Aug 2001 14:21:10 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 14:21:10 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/info page On Sat, 4 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > It is very good indeed. I think it should also include the danger for > researchers and free competiton. Good point. I'm trying to think through suitable wording to clearly state our case. I've also been thinking about mentioning that those who are protesting most loudly against DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive are holders of copyrights - I certainly am and I expect that most folks who were there yesterday are too. I think this is important so as to stress that we're very much in favour of copyright laws and our opposition to the DMCA type laws is partly that it's bad for artists and developers as well as consumers and freedom generally. > We should think what is the best way to use this document, maybe try to send > it to e-media firstly. Certainly once we've reached a stage where the document is useful and accessable for those who are not familiar with the issue. My concern at the moment is that I'm not the best writer in the world or a lawyer so I'd like some help making the document as good as possible. Jason From jtjm at xenoclast.org Sat, 4 Aug 2001 17:49:41 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 17:49:41 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More Photos Anton has sent in some more phots, including some nice ones of the street theatre. Thumbnails linked off the website as before. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Sat, 4 Aug 2001 18:33:42 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 18:33:42 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Excellent Work! On Sat, 4 Aug 2001, Theodore Hong wrote: > Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > Aside from the BBC camera crew, reporters from NTK, Silicon.com, the New > > Scientist and at least one other magazine (if anyone could remind me > > which, I'd be grateful, my brain appears to have suffered from the surfeit > > of shouting) attended the protest, which went extremely smoothly. > > ZDNet, I believe: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2092570,00.html > (hey, we were only 45 minutes late! =) And it really is worth pointing out just how effective those 45 minutes were (for those who weren't there, the delay was caused by time taken out for the Newsnight crew to shoot some footage of the march and conduct an interview in Hyde Park). At the beginning of the week, I thought we'd be quite lucky to get some decent coverage in the trade press (zdnet, the Register, etc). If anyone had suggested that we would have succeeded in getting the mainstream media to take even the briefest interest, I would have thought they were pulling my leg. But in fact, not only did we manage to distribute leaflets to 1000 or so people in Hyde Park and outside the Embassy and deliver a petition to the US Ambassador, but also helped get the Sklyarov/DMCA issue covered pretty competently on national television. Adam Livingstone (the Newsnight director/producer (not quite sure which)) tells me that the second slot in Newsnight typically gets around 1.3 million viewers. And, wait for it, it's quite likely to get rebroadcast on BBC World, where the audience is closer to 100 million. Not bad going for a first protest ;-) Telsa, - I've just had an another look at the Newsnight piece, and you're quite right, Kirsty did call the DMCA an "anti-copyright law" ;-) Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From ian at maul.deepsky.com Sat, 4 Aug 2001 18:34:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 18:34:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Ian Firla ian at maul.deepsky.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] bail hearing on august 6! Dear All, I've just noticed this posted on /. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/04/2150240&mode=thread Congratulations to everyone who organised the protest on Monday. The spirit and atmosphere were terrific. Having newsnight and the other media representatives there is a testament to the organisers determination and, no doubt, perseverance, in making sure that the right people knew about it. Let's hope the Newsnight programme makes it to BBC World and let's hope that on August 6th, the American judicial system does something just. Best wishes, Ian ---- Dr Ian Firla Robert Graves Trust St John's College, Oxford http://www.robertgraves.org From jtjm at xenoclast.org Sun, 5 Aug 2001 01:17:01 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 01:17:01 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Articles I've put up a page of links to press articles about the UK protests at: http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/press_coverage.html If you come across any others, let me know and I'll add them to the list. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Sun, 5 Aug 2001 11:11:12 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 11:11:12 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/web page After reading up a bit more on UK copyright law I'm going over my initial ramblings to add a little more factual content. I'm a but worried however that I may end up making it too distant or dull to be of value. I also have a bad tendancy to ramble and go off at tengents so I'd appreciate it if others can keep an eye on the changes I am making and point out when I start to fubar the document. Cheers, Jason From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Sun, 5 Aug 2001 11:55:56 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 11:55:56 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/web page On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > After reading up a bit more on UK copyright law I'm going over my initial > ramblings to add a little more factual content. > I'm a but worried however that I may end up making it too distant or > dull to be of value. I also have a bad tendancy to ramble and go off at > tengents so I'd appreciate it if others can keep an eye on the changes I > am making and point out when I start to fubar the document. You state that copyright is relatively new (two centuries); I'd thought it was considerably older as a concept, and that it was only the implementation which is modern. You probably want to reference the Berne Treaty, as one of the "sources" as academic lawyers call them. I'd avoid using language which treats the subject with something less than respect, e.g., "the supposed purpose of copyright", as this will lead readers who aren't completely sympathetic to think you're biased. Your assertion as to the purpose is not necessarily correct, either: European and American conceptions of copyright differ in their claimed purposes (the remuneration of authors and artists, and the production of useful works for the public, respectively). One has also got to take into account the effect of the passage of time; two centuries after the US Constitution, we can point at that document and say "the purposes stated in the Constitution are the reasons we have copyright", OR assert "the world has changed, and copyright serves a different but still beneficial role, but there's no point amending the Constitution". My preferred position is to ignore the purported purposes of legislation and argue about the legislation itself and its effects, not its inteded purpose, the two of which may unforeseeably have widely diverged. Mk From jason at uklinux.net Sun, 5 Aug 2001 11:57:26 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 11:57:26 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Sat, 4 Aug 2001, Ian Firla wrote: > I'd suggest adding into the 'fair use' section of the new leaflet a line > or two about copying a recording from LP or CD to cassette for playing in > one's car stereo. That's something that almost anyone can understand and > if mechanisms (legal or as in the case of Sony and some CD > producers, physical) were put into place that prevented one from doing so, > there'd be quite the outcry. I've been told that this activity is not considered to be protected however time shifting - recording TV programmes to video for later watching - is so I've added a bit about that. I'm going to link to a copy of the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act which is the current UK law on copyright as well. I've got two screaming children here as well as my wife who's rather insistant that I spend time with them rather than on this so I'm not going to get much done on this today. Hopefully the initial draft of the document can be done this week. If anyone has any more suggestions or would like to help write the document please let me know. Jason From jason at uklinux.net Sun, 5 Aug 2001 12:00:47 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 12:00:47 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/web page On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Martin Keegan wrote: > I'd avoid using language which treats the subject with something less than > respect, e.g., "the supposed purpose of copyright", as this will lead > readers who aren't completely sympathetic to think you're biased. Good point. Thanks. > Your > assertion as to the purpose is not necessarily correct, either: European > and American conceptions of copyright differ in their claimed purposes > (the remuneration of authors and artists, and the production of useful > works for the public, respectively). I'm basing that on a paper I've just read that states that modern copyright law in the UK was drafted for those purposes as well as protecting authors from publishers. > One has also got to take into account the effect of the passage of time; > two centuries after the US Constitution, we can point at that document and > say "the purposes stated in the Constitution are the reasons we have > copyright", OR assert "the world has changed, and copyright serves a > different but still beneficial role, but there's no point amending the > Constitution". My preferred position is to ignore the purported purposes > of legislation and argue about the legislation itself and its effects, not > its inteded purpose, the two of which may unforeseeably have widely > diverged. I can see your point however from being in the company of lots of lawyers I've come to appreciate that intention is a factor that's always involved when interpreting laws in the UK. Maybe it would be best to scale back that section to what it was yesterday Jason From jtjm at xenoclast.org Sun, 5 Aug 2001 13:26:51 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 13:26:51 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet > On Sat, 4 Aug 2001, Ian Firla wrote: > > > I'd suggest adding into the 'fair use' section of the new leaflet a line > > or two about copying a recording from LP or CD to cassette for playing in > > one's car stereo. That's something that almost anyone can understand and > > if mechanisms (legal or as in the case of Sony and some CD > > producers, physical) were put into place that prevented one from doing so, > > there'd be quite the outcry. > > I've been told that this activity is not considered to be protected > however time shifting - recording TV programmes to video for later > watching - is so I've added a bit about that. I believe this activity is implicitly protected: Section 198 of the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act lists the offences under the Act, which essentially require that an offence is committed only if one of a number of infringing activities is conducted for commercial reasons, or such that a copyrighted work is shown in public. Domestic and private use are explicitly excluded from the prohibition on importing illicit recordings, and I can't say any way of reading any of the other provisions that would make it an offence to copy a copyrighted work in your own home for private use. Reading back through the Act a section, Section 197 defines 'illicit recording', and explicitly excludes copies made for 'private purposes' from those considered to be illicit. Therefore, I think Ian was quite right to state that place-shifting (for private purposes) is permitted (eg. copying a CD to a mini-disc so as to be able to listen to it whilst jogging). I've also read up a little more on the anti-circumvention provisions of the 1988 CDPA, and compared it with the DMCA. The DMCA is certainly more broad-reaching than the CDPA. Under the CDPA, the person distributing copies of an electronic work protected by a copyright protection mechanism has the same rights as a copyright owner (eg. civil right to sue) against someone who, knowing or having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies, makes, imports, sells or lets for a hire a device specifically designed to circumvent the copy-protection or publishes information intended to enable or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection. I don't believe that there is anything that makes it a criminal offence to circumvent a copy-protection device. Under the DMCA, there is no clause to the effect of "knowing or having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies". It is either a tort or a criminal offence to circumvent a copy-protection, regardless of the reasons for which it is done (with a few, largely ineffective exceptions for academic research). The difference, as I see it (and a lawyer may well correct me), is, for example, that it would be legal in the UK to write a program which broke the eBook protection in order to perform text to speech conversion, provided that program didn't also deliver a plain text copy of the work, since it then couldn't be used to make infringing copies. Also, it would be legal to break the copy protection for private purposes, since copies made for private purposes are not deemed infringing. The Elcomsoft product might still be on slightly dodgy ground, since it could be used to make infringing copies. Nonetheless, if Dmitry had visited the UK rather than the US, I don't think he would have been at risk of being imprisoned - merely sued (and I suspect that Elcomsoft rather than Dmitry himself would be the subject of any action). Nonetheless, it looks like the CPDA could render academics (or others) who publish details of copy protection mechanisms in the UK liable to civil suits. There is a nicety that might help them - if the purpose of their publishing the information was to assist academic research, and not to 'enable or assist persons to circumvent...', it's just possible it would be excused. If there any lawyers on the list, I would really appreciate their opinions on all this, however, as I am certainly not one. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From rich at copsewood.net Sun, 5 Aug 2001 13:42:14 -0400 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 13:42:14 -0400 From: Richard Kay rich at copsewood.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] prayer request: Dmitry To all members of Coventry Christian Fellowship. Copy to members of the Free-Sklyarov UK campaign. Over the last 2 weeks I have become involved in a campaign for the release from prison in the US of a Russian programmer, Dmitry Sklyarov. Those of us who are involved in the campaign for his release believe him to be completely innocent. This campaign has involved legitimate and peaceful protests in many cities around the world, see http://www.freesklyarov.org/ for full details. This included a demonstration demanding his release outside the US Embassy in London on Friday. We handed in a petition, sang a protest song and engaged in some street theatre. This protest was legal, peaceful and effective in that it has received very good press coverage, including getting onto Newsnight on Friday with an estimated 1.3 million TV viewers. Dmitry has been in prison for 3 weeks based on charges concerning some programming he carried out (legally in Russia) and spoke about in the US. The law under which he has been charged (The Digital Millenium Copyright Act DMCA) potentially outlaws many activities which we now normally consider as basic rights, e.g. to do with the fair uses of copyright designs and materials including such things as: * Being able to buy and sell books second hand, or borrow old books from a library. * Being able to buy competitive replacement parts and accessories for proprietary machinery, provided by suppliers other than the original machine designers. * Being able to photocopy a few pages of a book to give out with lecture notes or make a copy of our old LPs so we can listen to them while driving. * My interest as a teacher of computer programming is also that in order for us to be able to program securely there needs to be freedom of discussion and information concerning software security. This doesn't exist if discussion of the means by which security is broken is outlawed. An analogy is that as a consumer of domestic locks you have a right to be able to publish and read comparative product reviews in magazines such as Which. The DMCA, and proposed European equivalents, make part of what I have to do and teach to do my job well, potentially into a criminal offence. I see the DMCA as part of a gathering spiritual darkness associated with the worship of mammon, dominance of corporate greed and the consequent global abuse of human rights and attacks on democracy which the Bible prophesies as something which will occur and which must in time be broken, see Revelation 18 concerning the fall of Babylon. In particular Rev 18:23 states: "Your merchants were the world's great men. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray". This passage describes how governments are being made increasingly subservient to the demands being made upon them for laws and regulations which favour global corporations, and Revelation chapter 18 describes how this demonic situation will ultimately be broken. Dmitry has a wife and two very young children in Moscow. He is in jail thousands of miles away and missing his family. A bail hearing is occuring on Monday in San Jose, California at 11AM local Time (EDT) (about 7PM here I think). Please pray for justice to be done in respect of democratic rights which are threatened by bad laws sponsored by corporate greed and political manipulation. Please pray also specifically for Dmitry's release at this hearing. God bless you all, Richard. From jason at uklinux.net Sun, 5 Aug 2001 13:47:12 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 13:47:12 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Domestic and private use are explicitly excluded from the prohibition on > importing illicit recordings, importing is a different issue surely. > and I can't say any way of reading any of > the other provisions that would make it an offence to copy a copyrighted > work in your own home for private use. I've asked in uk.legal to see if anyone is willing to offer qualified opinion on this. > Reading back through the Act a section, Section 197 defines 'illicit > recording', and explicitly excludes copies made for 'private purposes' > from those considered to be illicit. > > Therefore, I think Ian was quite right to state that place-shifting (for > private purposes) is permitted (eg. copying a CD to a mini-disc so as to > be able to listen to it whilst jogging). If we can be sure of this then I'll be more than happy to include reference to this. One of the key issues we're going to have to address if we want to gather effective resistance to the EU Copyright Directive is getting support from those outside of our own rather small communities. By that I mean that it is essential to garner the support of the man in the street and, perhaps more importantly, of other copyright holders such as authors and recording artists. > copyright owner (eg. civil right to sue) against someone who, knowing or > having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies, > makes, imports, sells or lets for a hire a device specifically designed to > circumvent the copy-protection or publishes information intended to enable > or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection. UK law on this is fairly sane in my view. It is only an offence when done knowingly or having reason to believe that it is specifically for breach of copyright. > The difference, as I see it (and a lawyer may well correct me), is, for > example, that it would be legal in the UK to write a program which broke > the eBook protection in order to perform text to speech conversion, > provided that program didn't also deliver a plain text copy of the work, > since it then couldn't be used to make infringing copies. Whether it can or cannot be used to infringe is not necessarily the issue. It's whether it is knowingly written to facilitate infringement that matters so a program that outputs a bitstream from protected format A into unprotected format B would not be considered an offence if it was specifically marketed so as to suggest legitimate use only. > The Elcomsoft product might still be on slightly dodgy ground, since it > could be used to make infringing copies. Down entirely to the marketing angle they've adopted in my view. > Nonetheless, it looks like the CPDA could render academics (or others) who > publish details of copy protection mechanisms in the UK liable to civil > suits. I think there is case law which proves protection under the "fair dealing" provisions for such activities under the CPDA. Jason From jtjm at xenoclast.org Sun, 5 Aug 2001 14:01:20 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 14:01:20 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > Domestic and private use are explicitly excluded from the prohibition on > > importing illicit recordings, > > importing is a different issue surely. Indeed it is - I was merely stating the full facts of what the law says on the matter. > > copyright owner (eg. civil right to sue) against someone who, knowing or > > having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies, > > makes, imports, sells or lets for a hire a device specifically designed to > > circumvent the copy-protection or publishes information intended to enable > > or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection. > > UK law on this is fairly sane in my view. It is only an offence when done > knowingly or having reason to believe that it is specifically for breach > of copyright. Not quite true (there is no 'specifically' involved)- it applies to someone who knows or has reason to believe that [a device/program] will be used to make infringing copies. Now, if I write a program that I intend to be used for one (legitimate) purpose, but which can also be used to make infringing copies, and I distribute it for free from my website, I think it might reasonably be argued that that I was aware that it would be used for making infringing copies by those less law-abiding than myself. But I agree that there is room for a certain amount of interpretation here, and I don't know what a judge would be likely to say on the matter. > > The difference, as I see it (and a lawyer may well correct me), is, for > > example, that it would be legal in the UK to write a program which broke > > the eBook protection in order to perform text to speech conversion, > > provided that program didn't also deliver a plain text copy of the work, > > since it then couldn't be used to make infringing copies. > > Whether it can or cannot be used to infringe is not necessarily the issue. > It's whether it is knowingly written to facilitate infringement that > matters so a program that outputs a bitstream from protected format A into > unprotected format B would not be considered an offence if it was > specifically marketed so as to suggest legitimate use only. Again, I don't think this is true, it's not important whether it was knowingly written to facilitate infringement, but whether the person who wrote or distributes it 'has reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies', which is a different matter altogether. > > The Elcomsoft product might still be on slightly dodgy ground, since it > > could be used to make infringing copies. > > Down entirely to the marketing angle they've adopted in my view. Again, I disagree for the reasons stated above. > > Nonetheless, it looks like the CPDA could render academics (or others) who > > publish details of copy protection mechanisms in the UK liable to civil > > suits. > > I think there is case law which proves protection under the "fair dealing" > provisions for such activities under the CPDA. Excellent. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Sun, 5 Aug 2001 15:09:04 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 15:09:04 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > One of the key issues we're going to have to address if we want to gather > effective resistance to the EU Copyright Directive is getting support from > those outside of our own rather small communities. This legislation has already been passed by the Council of Ministers (around April 2001), which means it's only a matter of time before the UK Government introduces legislation to implement it within UK law. There may already be a White Paper. I don't know; I've not checked. If the UK government can't get the legislation through within some timeframe, the UK will be in breach of its European treaty obligations and subject to sanctions. I don't know how many EU directives have fallen down due to domestic political opposition. How much political opposition is required to convince the UK government to push for a renegotiation of an EU directive which has already been in the pipeline for two years is unknown, but we can safely assume it'll be quite large. Getting the man on the street to understand the esoteric issues surrounding the DMCA and EUCD is going to be hard, without broadening and diffusing the issues, which is a bad idea. Initially one wants to concentrate on the press, academics and CTOs, outside the core group of the sort of people who are already on this mailing list. Mk From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Sun, 05 Aug 2001 20:16:12 +0100 Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 20:16:12 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/info page Dear all, I was speaking with Alex Katalov recently. He said that because the case will probably (unfortunately) reach the jury, it is still very important to create the positive public opinion about Dmitry. So, we are doing something really important. Also he said that it would be very good if we (someone) could inform French people. The main issue for them is that the prosecution will try to claim that the crime was committed under the usa jurisdiction because the website through which Elcomsoft was distributing their soft was registered in the USA. So, in simple words, they want to make all internet American. French people were opposed to the "Americanisation" of the internet since the very beginning of it. They are already very annoyed by the American attitude towards the non-american net users. And sometimes they proved they can get what they want. I know at least one example: they stopped nazi auctions through yahoo in France. Well, you probably know these things better than me. Probably I mix different issues together. Anyway if someone have any contacts with French computer people, could you please let them know about this case. With any questions regarding this you can ask Alex Katalov directly at akatalov at elcomsoft.com anton From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Mon, 6 Aug 2001 00:06:45 +0100 Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 00:06:45 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New leaflet/info page --AhhlLboLdkugWU4S Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Also he said that it would be very good if we (someone) could inform > French people. The main issue for them is that the prosecution will try > to claim that the crime was committed under the usa jurisdiction because > the website through which Elcomsoft was distributing their soft was > registered in the USA. So, in simple words, they want to make all > internet American. >=20 > French people were opposed to the "Americanisation" of the internet since > the very beginning of it. They are already very annoyed by the American > attitude towards the non-american net users. And sometimes they proved > they can get what they want. I know at least one example: they stopped > nazi auctions through yahoo in France. Well, although the general point about French people and "Americanisation" is probably true, the specific example is actually the opposite of what we want. In the Yahoo case, items which were legal under US law were being offered on a US site (yahoo.com, not yahoo.fr) to US customers, but the French government claimed a crime was being committed under French law -- sound familiar? Of course the more people we can get involved the better, so by all means contact French people. It's just that that particular case is a bad precedent for us. theo -- Theodore Hong Department of Computing, Imperial College t.hong at doc.ic.ac.uk 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ PGP key: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~twh1/ --AhhlLboLdkugWU4S Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO23RhEV+lYNqtIdrEQIY4gCeLoD02pKWhpBCeJocDspBEp7NWe8An2SI 5W39B+Bc89zNE2DngiecIwLN =a/gm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --AhhlLboLdkugWU4S-- From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 6 Aug 2001 02:05:21 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 02:05:21 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] The other side of the debate Below you will find one of the best pieces arguing for the DMCA that I have yet seen. It doesn't convince me, by any stretch of the imagination, but I had to think quite hard to identify the precise flaws in the argument that could be used to pick it apart. Ultimately, it is this standard of argument that we *must* be able to refute if we are to win the battle, not the wishy-washy persistent evasion of the issue exhibited by those such as Mark Bohannan on Newsnight. In particular, it identifies the reasons why it was felt necessary to make all circumvention of copyright protection mechanisms illegal, quite deliberately without any provisions for fair use. I would suggest that it's required reading for anyone concerned about the DMCA or the European Copyright Directive. I'm not going to attempt to refute it now (because it's 2am and I have to go to work tomorrow), except to say that I think the most critical weakness exists in the claim that technological protections would be futile in the absence of a law prohibiting their circumvention. On a related note, there's a nice article in the St Petersburg Times that brings a welcome touch of realism to the debate: http://www.sptimes.com/News/080501/Columns/Internet_copyright_ti.shtml (With thanks to Declan McCullagh who found both these articles, and had them forwarded to the US freesklyarov mailing list.) Julian A note from the American Association of Publishers to USACM (forwarded via Dave Farber's interesting-people list). ********** August 1, 2001 TO: U.S. ACM Public Policy Committee FR: Allan Adler, VP for Legal and Governmental Affairs, AAP RE: Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") This memorandum is intended to respond to the letter dated July 26, 2001 which was sent to AAP President Pat Schroeder by Barbara Simons and Eugene Spafford, Co-Chairs of the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery ("ACM"), regarding ACM's opposition to the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA. AAP is aware that ACM has "consistently opposed" the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. During Congressional consideration of the DMCA in 1998, I recall accepting an invitation to attend a meeting of ACM's Public Policy Committee to debate a representative of the American Library Association regarding the merits of the then-pending legislation. Although the ALA representative failed to participate, I used the opportunity to have a lively discussion of differing AAP and ACM viewpoints with Committee members. Still, not all AAP members see eye-to-eye on every issue that AAP addresses. AAP's support for the DMCA, however, has on many occasions been vigorously detailed on the public record, both during the period of its enactment and in subsequent related rulemaking proceedings and amicus briefs. In each instance, the positions adopted by AAP were vetted through appropriate internal channels, usually the Copyright Committee but sometimes also through the Board or its Executive Committee. AAP's President and CEO signs off on all press releases issued by AAP, and AAP staff are (as a practical matter) able to act on established AAP positions without further clearance as part of their daily activities on AAP's behalf. AAP members are, of course, welcome to make their views known to AAP and elsewhere whether they agree or disagree with positions that AAP has taken. The specific points you raise regarding the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA are familiar to AAP because all of them were raised and considered during the process leading up to enactment of the statute. AAP respectfully continues to disagree with ACM's stated positions for the following reasons: Requiring proof of infringement or intent to infringe, as a condition for enforcing the anticircumvention prohibitions, would nullify their purpose. Even without the DMCA, copyright law enables legal action against infringers. The anticircumvention provisions are supposed to be supplementary to this protection, not merely redundant, in acknowledgment of the enhanced risks to copyright protection posed by digital technologies like the Internet. The DMCA does not, and need not, authorize copyright owners to use technological measures to protect their rights; nothing in the law has ever prevented them from doing so. But the DMCA, in light of the WIPO Treaties' obligation to provide "adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against circumvention" of such technological measures, recognizes that such measures will never provide meaningful supplementary protection against the capabilities for flawless digital reproduction and instantaneous digital distribution of protected works by unauthorized users unless the technological measures are themselves protected by law against circumvention. Otherwise, the use of technological measures would be futile because, as we've all seen, there would undoubtedly be constant and, inevitably, successful efforts made to break them. Making protection of the technological measures contingent on whether the copyright owner could prove infringement or intent to infringe would lead to the establishment of a competitive market for circumvention tools, and would allow individuals to expose ostensibly protected copyrighted works to unauthorized exploitation provided that they did so without themselves actually infringing or intending to infringe upon those works much as Mr. Sklyarov is alleged to have done in creating software that does not itself infringe upon the ostensibly protected "ebook" but strips away the technological protection measures provided by Adobe so that the "ebook" content is left vulnerable to infringement by others. Since you apparently recognize that there is no device which is currently capable of distinguishing "fair use" from foul, you can understand why the manufacture, distribution, etc. of circumvention devices is illegal under the DMCA even when, as in the case of technological measures that protect rights of a copyright owner under copyright law (as distinct from "access control" measures), the act of circumvention is not itself illegal. You should also understand why, since "circumvention" is a distinct concept from "infringement," there can be no "fair use" exception to the anticircumvention provisions. This is not a new concept in federal law. Similar laws supporting the use of technological measures with prohibitions against circumvention and against trafficking in circumvention devices were established in related contexts long before enactment of the DMCA; see, e.g , 47 USC 553(a) (prohibiting unauthorized reception of cable TV service, and the manufacture or distribution of equipment intended for the unauthorized reception of cable TV service); 47 USC 605(e) (prohibiting the unauthorized decryption of satellite cable programming signals, and the manufacture, assembly, import, and sale of equipment used in the unauthorized decryption of satellite cable programming). Neither of these laws, intended to permit control over copyrighted video programming, has any "fair use" exception. Again, it's not difficult to understand why when one considers the practical implications of such an exception, especially given some of the mistaken notions about "fair use" that are routinely circulated as articles of faith in some circles. Contrary to mistaken popular beliefs, "fair use" is a defense only against infringement. It does not provide a right of access to any work or, perhaps more to the point, to any particular copy of a work. Moreover, nothing in copyright law requires a copyright owner to facilitate or, again more to the point, to make it easy for someone to engage in any "fair use" of a work. Similarly, nothing in the law prohibits copyright owners from making "fair use" more difficult through the use of anti-theft measures in connection with a particular copy of a work. If it were otherwise, "fair use" could be invoked to justify breaking into a bookstore, library, theater or even a private home so long as the purpose of doing so was to make "fair use" of a particular copy of a copyrighted work found within. People could insist on a right to enter a movie theater without charge in order to watch a movie and, perhaps, even copy a portion of it for the purpose of educational use or criticism. The hypotheticals can go on and on. Far from being "overly-broad" in its approach to "multi-use technologies," the standards created in the DMCA by Congress are clearer and much more specific than the largely impractical "capable of substantial noninfringing uses" test concocted by a closely-divided Supreme Court seventeen years ago in the Sony case. In order for a person manufacturing or distributing a device to run afoul of the anticircumvention standards, the device must (1) be "primarily designed or produced for the purpose" of circumventing, (2) have "only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than" to circumvent, or (3) be "marketed by that person or another acting in concern with that person with that person's knowledge for use in" circumventing. These standards clearly do not threaten VCRs or PCs and can hardly be characterized as traps for the unwary. As for the exemptions from the anticircumvention provisions, well, they may not be as broad as ACM would prefer, but AAP believes they represent a fair attempt at balancing competing interests. The "reverse engineering" exemption, for example, essentially codified the existing caselaw as represented by Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992). The "encryption research" exemption broadly permits such research, together with the use of appropriate tools, provided that criteria for "good faith encryption research" are met. The underlying concept of the exemption is to ensure that such research is not merely a pretext for circumvention, and to emphasize that valuable legitimate research can be conducted without facilitating infringement. Beyond this, the "security testing" exemption, which focuses on circumvention to access a computer, computer system, or computer network, was included precisely in recognition of ACM's point that merely providing an "encryption research" exemption would be too limiting with respect to computer security research. As a final point, I would urge interested ACM members to carefully read not only the actual language of the DMCA anticircumvention provisions, but also the legislative history as set forth in the House Judiciary Committee's Section-by-Section Analysis of the House-Passed Version of the Legislation, 105th Cong., 2d Sess. (Serial No. 6) (Sept. 1998) and the House-Senate Conference Report on the Final Version of the Legislation, 105th Cong., 2d Sess. (Rpt. No. 105-796) (Oct. 1998). Hopefully, these explanations of the legislative intent behind the DMCA's provisions will help to allay some of ACM's concerns. -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 6 Aug 2001 13:00:43 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 13:00:43 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] The Next Step After a very successful first action, it's time to consider what we should do next. In the very short term, it seems sensible to wait for news of the outcome of Dmitry's Bail Hearing in San Jose later today. But, as Anton said, it looks increasingly likely that the case is going to go all the way to trial, so there's every reason to keep up the pressure. As always, I think we have two goals - the first, and most important, to apply pressure aimed at getting Dmitry freed; the second, and longer term, to raise awareness of the concerns arising from the DMCA, and, at least as important for us, the European Copyright Directive. We should be trying to promote further intelligent discussion of the issues in the media, both the trade press and mainstream media (broadsheets, TV, etc); to be most effective in doing this, it would be good to obtain the public support of industry and academia. It might, therefore, be effective for those on those list at universities to conducting mini-leafletting campaigns in the computer science and engineering faculties of their universities. We probably need some new flyers directed specifically at the academic community to do this effectively. Similarly, it would be helpful for those with ties to industry to raise the issues with as many as possible, particularly in professional organisations such as the IEE and IEEE. (I believe there's already substantial awareness of, and opposition to, the DMCA and equivalents amongst those two bodies. For the moment, it may be most useful to forge relationships with contacts who can assist in future campaigns (organising co-ordinated press-releases, etc).) Suggestions and thoughts? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 6 Aug 2001 16:59:19 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 16:59:19 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Additional Coverage Apparently last week's protests received some coverage in the Big Issue - I haven't seen a copy myself yet (a friend just phoned up to tell me), so if you needed an excuse to buy a copy, you now have one ;-) The Economist also has an article, though, again, I've yet to buy a copy (none of the cornershop-come-newsagents I've tried so far stock it, grrrr). It's available online, but is in the premium content section - visit http://www.economist.com and search for 'Dmitry Sklyarov' if you have a subscription. Also, some photos of the Edinburgh protest are now up on the website. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Mon, 6 Aug 2001 17:01:42 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 17:01:42 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > I've been told that this activity is not considered to be protected > > however time shifting - recording TV programmes to video for later > > watching - is so I've added a bit about that. > > I believe this activity is implicitly protected: OK, I've asked some legal folks about this on uk.legal and had two conflicting replies so I've read the relevant sections of the Act myself. While it is certainly not a criminal offence to make copies for domestic (non commercial) use it *is* a breach of copyright and, as a civil offence, the holder of the copyright would be within their rights to bring action for damages although it's unlikely that anyone would spend the money to do so as that would be more than the actual loss. So time shifting is permitted but place shifting is not. Jason From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 6 Aug 2001 18:19:07 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 18:19:07 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > > I've been told that this activity is not considered to be protected > > > however time shifting - recording TV programmes to video for later > > > watching - is so I've added a bit about that. > > > > I believe this activity is implicitly protected: > > OK, I've asked some legal folks about this on uk.legal and had two > conflicting replies so I've read the relevant sections of the Act myself. > > While it is certainly not a criminal offence to make copies for domestic > (non commercial) use it *is* a breach of copyright and, as a civil > offence, the holder of the copyright would be within their rights to bring > action for damages although it's unlikely that anyone would spend the > money to do so as that would be more than the actual loss. > > So time shifting is permitted but place shifting is not. Fair enough. Although, somewhat amusingly, this implies that those selling portable MP3 players and advertising them as allowing you to listen to your music collection on the move are inciting people to breach copyright (not that that in itself is an offence, to the best of my knowledge). And that, therefore, at a conservative estimate 90%+ of the adult population of Britain are permanently in breach of copyright... And of course, if I want to avoid breaching copyright and still be able to listen to my music collection on my music system's CD player, in my car's tape deck, on my portable MP3 player, and (for the sake of example) my other car's minidisc player, I would have to pay for four copies of every copyrighted work I own. Now, if the music industry were feeling particularly nasty, they could build copyright protection mechanisms into each of these devices, and I really would have to pay four times for each album. I can just see them rubbing their hands in glee. (Notice that I've ignored DVD players in this analysis, as I'm currently boycotting them, and forcing someone to pay five times for the same thing is just taking the piss ;-) .) Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Mon, 06 Aug 2001 19:35:02 +0100 Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 19:35:02 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] first news http://zork.net/pipermail/free-sklyarov/2001-August/thread.html anton From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Mon, 06 Aug 2001 20:02:22 +0100 Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 20:02:22 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry will soon be released on bail!!! this the last news from A. Katalov. anton !!!!!!!!!! From pete at flatline.org.uk Mon, 6 Aug 2001 22:38:09 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 22:38:09 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] A possible anti-ECD argument I noticed that one of the uses often suggested for Elcomsoft's software is to enable the text of an ebook to be fed through a text-to-speech system, or otherwise processed for the partially sighted. Our own Home Secretary, David Blunkett (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ministers/blunkett.htm), would find such a device extremely useful .. There must be some legislation somewhere which makes the "don't allow this text to be read aloud" flag in ebooks illegal discrimination against the disabled. Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: The Merriam Wrecking of Shrinkable From matthew.macleod at btinternet.com Mon, 6 Aug 2001 23:49:13 +0100 Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 23:49:13 +0100 From: Matthew M matthew.macleod at btinternet.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] A possible anti-ECD argument -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 >There must be some legislation somewhere which makes the "don't allow this >text to be read aloud" flag in ebooks illegal discrimination against the >disabled. This could indeed be a good argument against DMCA-like laws. If we can think of some other situations where discrimination could be implied when dealing with conditions like this. Perhaps printing in large text for the visually impaired? I'm not sure really. - -- *matt* Thought for the minute: Your own qualities will help prevent your advancement in the world. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7bx7tzhSxTQTEoE0RAjivAJ95aIEzbLzO0cGdQepOGmY/kQYGXwCgiraR NQLb4Wj5mnfTyoCh3TciOkU= =6LDp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 7 Aug 2001 00:45:37 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 00:45:37 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail Dmitry was released on $50,000 bail into the custody of Sergei Osoakine. He is forbidden from travelling outside the boundary of Northern California, and his passport remains in the hands of the US Attorney's Office. More details here: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45870,00.html This is a small victory, but until the charges are dropped, nothing but the mechanics of Dmitry's imprisonment has changed. What's the most effective action we can take next? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Tue, 7 Aug 2001 01:06:21 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 01:06:21 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > What's the most effective action we can take next? There are three classes of activity I can see as being beneficial to undertake: Research Contacting other people and groups Campaigning Research: someone needs to go away and enumerate what is wrong with EUCD/DMCA someone else needs to qualify the relative importance of the issues identified, wrt to the sorts of people we're trying to convince someone needs to write this stuff up as webpages, press releases, flyers, etc someone needs to discover the exact legal position of the EUCD as it makes its way through European legislatures Contact: two sorts of targets: those likely to assist with the campaign, and those likely just to support the campaign find general people interested in joining the campaign, the sort who are already on the mailing list find contacts in the press who "get" the issues (e.g., Newsnight, John Naughton) find bodies which are already involved in the issues and identify ourselves to them (e.g., FIPR, EFF) find bodies whose purpose is not related to the issues but which nevertheless have an interest or stake (e.g., IEEE) find academics, business leaders communicate with general public Campaigning: need to come up with an argument to get more people onto the streets. 35 ain't bad, though, but no-one's going to protest without a good reason... how many more would be interested in joining in future similar actions? first protest was unbelievably lucky, and ideas for improving effectiveness of future actions were proposed on the day HTH, Mk From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Tue, 7 Aug 2001 10:41:49 +0100 Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 10:41:49 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet - recording tv programs Hi all, First up I would like to say a huge thank-you to everyone who protested = last Friday, particularly the brave souls up in Edinburgh. The turn out in London was slightly better than we had hoped for, and obviously the coverage on Newsnight was astounding, and much more than = we had hoped for. On 06 August 2001 Jason Clifford wrote: >=20 > On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: >=20 > > > I've been told that this activity is not considered to be=20 > protected > > > however time shifting - recording TV programmes to video for = later > > > watching - is so I've added a bit about that. > > > > I believe this activity is implicitly protected: >=20 > OK, I've asked some legal folks about this on uk.legal and had two > conflicting replies so I've read the relevant sections of the=20 > Act myself. >=20 > While it is certainly not a criminal offence to make copies=20 > for domestic > (non commercial) use it *is* a breach of copyright and, as a civil > offence, the holder of the copyright would be within their=20 > rights to bring > action for damages although it's unlikely that anyone would spend the > money to do so as that would be more than the actual loss. >=20 > So time shifting is permitted but place shifting is not. >=20 > Jason >=20 Just to point out that under the DMCA, in the US at least, any = television channels you pay for, can be copy-controlled with the "automatic gain control copy control or colorstripe copy control technology" >From the DMCA page 12 CERTAIN ANALOG DEVICES AND CERTAIN TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES.=97 CERTAIN ENCODING RESTRICTIONS.=97 No person shall apply the automatic gain control copy control technology or colorstripe copy control technology to prevent or limit consumer copying except such copying.... (B) from a copy of a transmission of a live event or an audiovisual work if such transmission is provided by a channel or service where payment is made by a member of the public for such channel or service in the form of a subscription fee that entitles the member of the public to receive all of the programming contained in such channel or service;=20 As there are a lot of people in the UK who have Sky, OnDigital or other cable TV channels that they pay for, this is probably worth mentioning, = as this is definitely something that 'the man in the street' can = understand.=20 Effective 18 months after the date of the enactment of this chapter, no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any=97 =91=91(i) VHS format analog video cassette recorder unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control technology; Also as I understand it, as no video recorders in this country has the 'automatic gain copy control technology', it would be illegal for = someone to take their video recorder with them to the US ? Can anyone confirm this = ? cheers dan From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:03:58 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:03:58 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet - recording tv programs On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > The turn out in London was slightly better than we had hoped for, and > obviously the coverage on Newsnight was astounding, and much more than we > had hoped for. It was very good however, having spent the protest trying to avoid the camera I found myself lingered on for over a second at the end of the piece much to my horror. ;) > As there are a lot of people in the UK who have Sky, OnDigital or other > cable TV channels that they pay for, this is probably worth mentioning, as > this is definitely something that 'the man in the street' can understand. This is very important. Let's remember that within 5 years all analogue stations are being switched off so it will be possible for any programme to be subjected to restrictions prohibiting time shifting rights. I think many of the protection measures likely to be used are already in place in equipment you buy from the high street today. Certainly Macrovision protection has been there for a long time already. > Also as I understand it, as no video recorders in this country has the > 'automatic gain copy control technology', it would be illegal for someone to > take their video recorder with them to the US ? Can anyone confirm this ? Bearing in mind that most UK and European VCRs are PAL only I'm not sure this is an effective arguement - certainly I'd expect it to be brushed aside on that score by anyone from the industry. While I acknowledge that it is essentially a valid issue I think that the specifics of this one limit it's direct value. Jason From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Tue, 07 Aug 2001 11:10:52 +0100 Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 11:10:52 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet - recording tv programs Dan Ackroyd wrote: > Hi all, > > First up I would like to say a huge thank-you to everyone who protested last > Friday, particularly the brave souls up in Edinburgh. Yes, sincere thanks to everyone who took part in this so far: protestants, journalists, scientists etc.!! I've just spoken with A. Katalov. The worst news now is that the trial will probably go on. This means (according to the lawyers predictions) 1-1.5 years maximum. I do not know what we really can do. I would say that the Newsnight is a top level of general public attention we could possibly get. It was much much better than I initially thought. So, from my point of view, we should move to catching attention of more professionals. I think that the document, Jason started to write, is probably the best way to move forward. Maybe we can organise something like seminar, discussing the issues. I can try to organise one here at Sheffield, say at the computer department. Although I'm not sure there will be anyone besides people who are already aware of it. anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:42:58 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:42:58 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet - recording tv programs On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Yes, sincere thanks to everyone who took part in this so far: protestants, ITYM 'protesters' ;-) > journalists, scientists etc.!! > > I've just spoken with A. Katalov. The worst news now is that the trial > will probably go on. This means (according to the lawyers predictions) > 1-1.5 years maximum. > > I do not know what we really can do. I would say that the Newsnight is > a top level of general public attention we could possibly get. It was It might be for a single protest outside the US embassy, but it's a long way from being maximal media coverage. We ought to be trying to provoke intelligent discussion of the issues in the broadsheets, on TV, and in the journals of professional institutes such as the IEEE. I don't think there's any reason why, with a little effort in the right places, we can't achieve this. > much much better than I initially thought. So, from my point of view, > we should move to catching attention of more professionals. I think > that the document, Jason started to write, is probably the best way to > move forward. > > Maybe we can organise something like seminar, discussing the issues. I > can try to organise one here at Sheffield, say at the computer > department. Although I'm not sure there will be anyone besides people > who are already aware of it. That's not necessarily a problem- the purpose of the seminar is to encourage people to move from the state of being aware of the issues to the state of actively doing something about them (ie. turning silent support into vocal support). Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Tue, 07 Aug 2001 12:13:22 +0100 Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 12:13:22 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet - recording tv programs "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > > Yes, sincere thanks to everyone who took part in this so far: protestants, > > ITYM 'protesters' ;-) I need a rest :) anton From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:31:51 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:31:51 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date The second reading of a "Copyright etc. and Patents (Offences and Enforcement) Bill" that is curerntly before Parliament is scheduled for Friday November the 23rd according to Parliament's web site: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/ I've noticed that there is also bill before the house for second reading on Friday March the 15th for visually impaired people - the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill. This suggests to me that they are seeking to introduce draconian measures on the basis of promised support for a single exclusion via a separate bill for the visually impaired. I think this is very dangerous as this tactic is often used by the current govt. to brush aside rights. There are also a number of Eurpean Communities Bills before the House at the moment and these may be where the EUCD get's in. I'm trying to get information on them however I also have to do my job so it'll take a while. It should be possible to obtain copies of the Bills from the above site however I've not done it yet. Jason From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:36:26 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:36:26 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > I've noticed that there is also bill before the house for second reading > on Friday March the 15th for visually impaired people - the Copyright > (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill. Argghhh! I've just been trying to get a copy of either of the above Bills and I've discovered that they are not available as they are not yet in print. How the hell can they push legislation through without letting members of the public ever see it before it gets through parliament as a done deal. Jason From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:42:56 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:42:56 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > Argghhh! I've just been trying to get a copy of either of the above Bills > and I've discovered that they are not available as they are not yet in > print. > > How the hell can they push legislation through without letting members of > the public ever see it before it gets through parliament as a done deal. Has the legislation been drafted yet? Mk From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:47:48 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:47:48 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Martin Keegan wrote: > > Argghhh! I've just been trying to get a copy of either of the above Bills > > and I've discovered that they are not available as they are not yet in > > print. > > > > How the hell can they push legislation through without letting members of > > the public ever see it before it gets through parliament as a done deal. > > Has the legislation been drafted yet? Must have been as the date I mentioned is for a second reading so it has to have been in Parliament at least once already. I checked that it's first reading is not scheduled between now and then and it does not appear to be. I am going to try and get a note off to my MP to try and find out how to obtain a copy of the Bill. I've had a very quick look at the main European Commissions Bill and it does not appear to have anything to do with the EUCD. It strikes me that the EUCD may never actually be put before Parliament as they can impose a Regulation via a Statutory Instrument thereby avoiding any Parliamentary "interference". Jason From home at alexhudson.com Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:06:51 +0100 Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:06:51 +0100 From: home at alexhudson.com home at alexhudson.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 12:36:26PM +0100, Jason Clifford wrote: > > I've noticed that there is also bill before the house for second reading > > on Friday March the 15th for visually impaired people - the Copyright > > (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill. > > Argghhh! I've just been trying to get a copy of either of the above Bills > and I've discovered that they are not available as they are not yet in > print. I've found one: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200001/cmbills/020/2001020.htm (typed, subject to bit rot ;) Includes a link to commentary on the Bill. (Decent commentary too) Can't find the other one, but I'm sure it's there. The search is ropey, and we might be a monarchy away from being a banana republic, but we're not that bad ;) Cheers, Alex. -- From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:18:41 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:18:41 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > The second reading of a "Copyright etc. and Patents (Offences and > Enforcement) Bill" that is curerntly before Parliament is scheduled for > Friday November the 23rd according to Parliament's web site: > > http://www.publications.parliament.uk/ > > I've noticed that there is also bill before the house for second reading > on Friday March the 15th for visually impaired people - the Copyright > (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill. > > This suggests to me that they are seeking to introduce draconian measures > on the basis of promised support for a single exclusion via a separate > bill for the visually impaired. I think this is very dangerous as this > tactic is often used by the current govt. to brush aside rights. > > There are also a number of Eurpean Communities Bills before the House at > the moment and these may be where the EUCD get's in. > > I'm trying to get information on them however I also have to do my job so > it'll take a while. Assuming we can get hold of copies of both of the various bills, this is an excellent opportunity for us. We should have time to dissect them, and lobby our various MPs with cleared presented arguments in favour of any objections we might have. There's also plenty of time to hold protests and leafletting campaigns to persuade others to do the same. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:33:34 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:33:34 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > I've noticed that there is also bill before the house for second reading > on Friday March the 15th for visually impaired people - the Copyright > (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill. I've just found a reference to this one. It seems that it is specifically introduced to legislate that it shall not be an breach of copyright for a protected work to be transfered into a format more accessable to visually impaired people when done for that reason. The Bill was brought by Rachel Squire. Subject to there not being any nastiness in it I think we could gain credibility by campaigning in favour of such a Bill. Jason From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:56:54 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 13:56:54 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > > > I've noticed that there is also bill before the house for second reading > > on Friday March the 15th for visually impaired people - the Copyright > > (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill. > > I've just found a reference to this one. It seems that it is specifically > introduced to legislate that it shall not be an breach of copyright for > a protected work to be transfered into a format more accessable to > visually impaired people when done for that reason. > > The Bill was brought by Rachel Squire. > > Subject to there not being any nastiness in it I think we could gain > credibility by campaigning in favour of such a Bill. Absolutely. Now, if it gets through, it could well be in conflict with the anti-circumvention clauses of the Copyright Directive (unless circumvention is not deemed to be a breach of copyright but a different offence, in which case it might still be illegal to circumvent for the purposes of making a document accessible to the visually impaired, in spite of the Bill). That in itself could be useful ammunition to use to get the Copyright Directive revised. Out of interest, do we have any lawyers on the list? Could anyone with appropriate qualifications reveal themselves? If not, we should probably try to find at least one sympathetic lawyer to recruit to the cause to assist us in correctly interpreting the legislation. Anyone know any potential candidates? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From pete at flatline.org.uk Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:06:56 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:06:56 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > Subject to there not being any nastiness in it I think we could gain > > credibility by campaigning in favour of such a Bill. Extremely good idea - then we don't just look like anti-copyright naysayers. > Absolutely. Now, if it gets through, it could well be in conflict with > the anti-circumvention clauses of the Copyright Directive (unless > circumvention is not deemed to be a breach of copyright but a different > offence, in which case it might still be illegal to circumvent for the > purposes of making a document accessible to the visually impaired, in > spite of the Bill). That in itself could be useful ammunition to use to > get the Copyright Directive revised. I've been decoding that large AAP letter you sent round yesterday - it seems to suggest that under the DMCA circumvention IS a seperate offence from infringement of copyright, and that that was the intention of the law. This will probably apply to the copyright directive, but I've not checked. In which case, you have a situation which aims to make something specifically legal for people to do but effectively prevents other people from making the necessary tools; it should be pointed out how ridiculous this is. Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: Aptitude and the Perpetuate Auctioneer From home at alexhudson.com Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:34:03 +0100 Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:34:03 +0100 From: home at alexhudson.com home at alexhudson.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] UK Parliament date On Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 01:56:54PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Absolutely. Now, if it gets through, it could well be in conflict with > the anti-circumvention clauses of the Copyright Directive It's not. The EUCD lists as exceptions (an _exhaustive_ list, remember :( ) reproductions for private use (which is illegal in the UK :( ) and exceptions for people with disabilities (Article 4, sections 2 & 3, 3b esp, respectively). So, while the EUCD doesn't say disabled people should be able to access material, it does provide an exception and wouldn't be in conflict with this bill. Also, it's worth bearing in mind that this doesn't open up media. Giving disabled people the right to have e-books translated to braille, for example, does not give Linux users the right to have a player on Linux, nor does it open up the format, etc. Shamefully, the EUCD actually gives us some rights we didn't have before (private use of material is currently illegal - this makes it possible to have an exception for private use, although it doesn't enforce it :( ). Plus, the exceptions are exhaustive, so other Bills which do conflict wouldn't get heard AFAIK. Cheers, Alex. -- From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:42:02 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:42:02 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] In the Register again... The Register has run a second article which mentions the protest on Friday and bail hearing yesterday (but was written before Sklyarov was released). You'll find it here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/20856.html But it appears that they are having technical difficulties of some sort, so you may or may not be able to get through. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From sklyarov at dairylogic.co.uk Tue, 7 Aug 2001 17:19:18 +0100 Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 17:19:18 +0100 From: Andrew Clark sklyarov at dairylogic.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail --9amGYk9869ThD9tj Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi there. This is my first post. On Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 01:06:21AM +0100, Martin Keegan wrote: > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: >=20 > > What's the most effective action we can take next? >=20 > someone needs to write this stuff up as webpages, press releases, > flyers, etc If we can get the information, I'm more than happy to put some web pages to= gether and keep them updated - a large part of my job is web coding and pag= e creation (as I imagine is the case for a number of people on this list). = If anyone wants to see past work, I've worked on http://www.just-the-name.c= o.uk/ and to a lesser extent http://www.pay-as-you-host.com/ most recently,= and I also have a personal project website at http://www.tweakhtml.com/. Anyway, the offer's there if you're looking for someone to do the pages, an= d I should be able to find hosting for them also. Let me know if you want m= ore details, sites or whatever. > someone needs to discover the exact legal position of the EUCD as > find academics, business leaders > communicate with general public The company I work for is fairly small, and although I can't garuantee anyt= hing, I may be able to persuade my boss to allow our company to be referenc= ed as a company which is against the EUCD / DMCA - as I say, I can't guaran= tee this, though. Alternatively/in addition to this, part of our organisation is an Internet = cafe, and if we can get some fliers made and I can get hold of some, I don'= t see any reason why I wouldn't be able to put some in the cafe for custome= rs to take away. >=20 > Campaigning: > need to come up with an argument to get more people onto the > streets. 35 ain't bad, though, but no-one's going to > protest without a good reason... how many more would > be interested in joining in future similar actions? I would definately be interested in getting involved with protests. I was f= ollowing the Sklyarov situation prior to the protest at the American Embass= y, but I didn't realise that there were any UK protests until I saw the det= ails on NewsNight. If I'd known in advance, I would have tried to come alon= g, and now I do know I'd be very interested in joining any further protests. For what it's worth, if I hadn't seen NewsNight, I still wouldn't know abou= t the UK action even now, and I think there may still be a large number of = people who are already concerned about these issues and who would be more t= han happy to help out if they were only aware of local (i.e. UK) groups. Wi= th that in mind, I would say that the most important thing is to let people= know that there is action being taken in the UK, and we'll hopefully gathe= r people who are already interested fairly easily. Andy Clark. --=20 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... Oh, no - it's just an eyelash. PGP Key: http://www.metronet.co.uk/andrew.pub.asc --9amGYk9869ThD9tj Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7cBUFvtVHkiDDV8cRAowQAKD/g1FZeuM+RBWKaSNNwlhcyt/pnwCg08mm mBgdtw9BGARhnwPZy9rdZSI= =QGAi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --9amGYk9869ThD9tj-- From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 18:34:29 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 18:34:29 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe PDF files can be used as virus carriers (fwd) Seems that the need for research access to technically protected document formats hasn't gone away however here is a specific example of how DMCA in the USA is already acting as a deterent to fair use. Jason ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:44:20 -0400 From: Richard M. Smith To: bugtraq at securityfocus.com Subject: Adobe PDF files can be used as virus carriers Hello, This is an interesting development. Zulu, a virus writer from South America, appears to have discovered that Adobe PDF files can be used to carry computer viruses. The attached description gives the details. His little trick uses a PDF file to bypass the new security feature of Outlook which automatically deletes dangerous file attachments. With this security feature, all VBScript attachments are deleted because they might be computer viruses. However with Zulu's trick, a malicious VBScript file can instead be hidden inside a PDF file which Outlook considers safe. I don't believe that the anti security research and reverse engineering provisions of the DCMA apply here, but given Adobe's recent action against Dmitry Sklyarov, I recommend a bit of caution by anyone looking into this potential security problem in Adobe Acrobat Reader. A conversation with a lawyer might be prudent. Another interesting question is if Adobe formatted eBooks can also act as computer virus carriers. Richard M. Smith CTO, Privacy Foundation http://www.privacyfoundation.org ==================================================================== http://www.coderz.net/zulu/outlook.pdfworm.txt Virus Name: OUTLOOK.PDFWorm Author: Zulu Origin: Argentina VBScript worm. It uses OUTLOOK to send itself in a PDF (portable document format) file (first using this file type). When opened using Acrobat it will show an image with a minor game. Showing the solution to this game involves doing a double click to a file annotation, which after a warning will run a VBS, VBE or WSF file (depending of the worm version). The VBScript file will create and show a JPG file with the solution to the game and it will try to find the PDF file to spread it. This is necessary because when the link is used, Acrobat will create the VBS, VBE or WSF file in Windows' temporary directory and it will run this file, so this VBScript file doesn't know the path of the PDF file to spread. Then it will start the spreading code using a way of using OUTLOOK not seen before in any worm (spreading details can be found in the features section of this file). The password for changing the security options of the PDF file is "OUTLOOK.PDFWorm". This worm is designed to be a proof of concept, it has bad spreading capabilities, only the necessary to be called a worm. Also, because file annotations are only available in the full version of Acrobat, this worm will not run in Acrobat Reader. Features: - Uses the PDF extension, not seen before in any virus/worm. - OUTLOOK spreading using new code, not the classic Melissa's code and it's variations like the one from Freelink. This new method will get addresses from the recipients of all emails in any OUTLOOK folder and from all address book entries (but taking the first three addresses of each contact, not just the first like most OUTLOOK worms). This new method is based in the possibility of reaching contacts from OUTLOOK folders instead of using the objects designed to read address books. So the code will look inside all OUTLOOK folders, and if the items inside them are emails or contacts, it will get those addresses. Subject, body and attachment name will be selected from some random choices. Also, it will limit the amount of emails to 100. It will be run only once in each computer since it uses the registry to check if it was already run. - Good social engineering. I even think that this PDF file would be manually sent by many of those users that are never tired of sending stupid jokes. :) - To find the PDF file, if Word is installed it will use it to do the search, if Word is not installed, it will search for the file using VBScript code looking in many common paths and all subdirectories of those paths. Both methods will look for PDF files with their size similar to the original worm copy. - Uses script encoding (in version 1.1 and 1.2). - The VBScript file shows a JPG file when run, so it will show what the user expects. Background information: I was starting another project, much bigger and with good spreading capabilities. But that was very delayed because of time problems, so I decided to try with PDF files first and then continue with the other worm when I have time. I saw four possibilities: - Using JavaScript with "mailMsg" method. It would only work in the full version of Acrobat. By using the "mailMsg" method (which uses MAPI) I could send an email message when the document is opened (page open action). But the problem was that I was not able of getting email addresses to send the message to. - Using the Acrobat menu. It would only work in the full version of Acrobat. I could use the "Send Mail..." menu option, calling it when the document is opened (page open action). That would open a window from the default email client with the attachment already added. Here the problem was how to send the necessary keys to send the message that was already opened in that window. - Using open file action. It would work in Acrobat and in Acrobat Reader. It displays a warning. By creating an open file action when the document is opened I could run any file with any code inside it. But the problem was that I had no file to run. This method could work for a trojan that runs "FORMAT.COM", but not for a worm. - Using a file annotation. It would only work in the full version of Acrobat. It displays a warning. Creating a file annotation with my file embedded inside the PDF file I could run my code. Acrobat would create the embedded file in the temporary directory and it would run the file from there. This has two problems. One was knowing the path of the PDF file, this was solved by searching the file in the hard disk since looking in the task name would only give the file name, not the full path. The other problem is that it's not possible to open a file annotation automatically when the PDF file is opened since there is no action to do that and it seems that there is no way of getting the file using JavaScript code, so it was necessary that the user manually double clicked the file annotation. This last problem was not solved. From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 18:44:24 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 18:44:24 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Copyright and Visually Impaired people The Patents Office (the folks within Govt. responsible for copyright issues) have been undergoing a consultation period with respect to Copyright and access for Visually Impaired people. It looks like the consultative period is over (like so many "consultative periods" it does not look like too many people were aware of it or that it lasted very long) however the Bill is still in early parliamentary stages as I stated before. I have so far failed to find a copy of the actual bill. I'm thinking of writing to the MP responsible for the Bill (Rachel Squire) asking how to get a copy. The Patent Office consultation details are at http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/visually_impaired/index.html Jason From kieran at esperi.demon.co.uk Tue, 7 Aug 2001 20:02:31 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 20:02:31 +0100 (BST) From: Kieran Barry kieran at esperi.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Martin Keegan wrote: > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > What's the most effective action we can take next? > > Campaigning: > need to come up with an argument to get more people onto the > streets. 35 ain't bad, though, but no-one's going to > protest without a good reason... how many more would > be interested in joining in future similar actions? > first protest was unbelievably lucky, and ideas for improving > effectiveness of future actions were proposed on the day > Hey, how about _talking_ to people next time. The demo on Friday was quite funny, since we evolved from typical geeks (silent, sheepish) into campaigning geeks (sheepish, pretty quiet) by the time I had to go at 2. If the plan is to only hand flyers out, then we might as well donate our train fares towards a mail shot! The purpose of the exercise should be to talk to people, or even get them to join in. And we need a lot more people to talk to. How about outside HMV or Virgin, complaining about the evils of the DMCA. Also, check out the second section in particular of the following story on Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html Regards Kieran From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 7 Aug 2001 20:27:07 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 20:27:07 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote: > Hey, how about _talking_ to people next time. The demo on Friday was > quite funny, since we evolved from typical geeks (silent, sheepish) into > campaigning geeks (sheepish, pretty quiet) by the time I had to go at 2. I managed to talk to 4 people in quite some detail and explained not just why Dmitry's arrest and imprisonment were unjuest but why they should care about the DMCA and the EUCD and how it will affect them. I saw a couple of others talking to members of the public. > And we need a lot more people to talk to. How about outside HMV or > Virgin, complaining about the evils of the DMCA. That's a good idea. We need to start bringing the issue of the dangers of hte DMCA and EUCD to the attention of the CD and DVD buying public. > Also, check out the second section in particular of the following story > on Salon: > http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html This is not really a new story though. It was pointed out to me earlier that we need to be careful not to get drawn into a general "we hate publishers and distributors" shouting match as the issues we're trying to address are a bit more general however I do believe that we should make some play of the fact that the current way copyright is enforced fails in the original intent of copyright - to protect first authors. Jason From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 01:13:54 +0100 Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 01:13:54 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] The other side of the debate --gBBFr7Ir9EOA20Yy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Below you will find one of the best pieces arguing for the DMCA that I > have yet seen. It doesn't convince me, by any stretch of the imagination, > but I had to think quite hard to identify the precise flaws in the > argument that could be used to pick it apart. Ultimately, it is this > standard of argument that we *must* be able to refute if we are to win the > battle, not the wishy-washy persistent evasion of the issue exhibited by > those such as Mark Bohannan on Newsnight. The essential flaw in Adler's argument is that it starts from the point of view that infringement must be made impossible no matter what the cost. Thus, the fact that technological measures will always be broken leads him to the conclusion that circumvention must be made a crime, not that such measures are futile and other approaches need to be taken. The fact that anti-circumvention laws become useless once fair use exceptions are granted leads him to the conclusion that fair use must give way, not that anti-circumvention violates the public's rights. It is true that "fair use" does not grant an affirmative right of access to break into a movie theatre to view a movie showing there. The analogy is flawed, however, because fair use is not the only right at stake; more fundamentally, it is the right to do what you like with your personal property. While a theatre owner may legitimately exclude others from his premises, anti-circumvention laws aim to prevent you the movie buyer from gaining access to your own movie. A better analogy is to imagine buying a DVD in the form of a television inside a locked box that can only be viewed through a small eyepiece. Blanket anti-circumvention laws forbid you to break open the box to view more conveniently, simply because you might then have the ability to show the movie to others. They pay no attention to your actual intent, nor indeed to your right to dispose of your personal property as you see fit. There are a wide range of legitimate uses one might have for an unlocked box beyond illegal infringement. In defining a legal standard that broadly criminalizes products for simple circumvention=20 rather than infringement, the DMCA represents a substantial departure=20 from the well-established Sony precedent, not merely a clarification. It might be considered clearer, but only in the sense that it forbids products which clearly ought to be legal. We need to recognize that the interests of publishers have to be balanced against the interests of the general public, and that solutions must be found which benefit both. The confrontational, supply-side approach of blocking infringement at all cost inevitably tramples the latter in a rush to protect the former. A far better approach that promotes both interests is to reduce demand, by providing convenient alternatives that make infringement simply not worth the hassle. theo -- Theodore Hong Department of Computing, Imperial College t.hong at doc.ic.ac.uk 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ PGP key: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~twh1/ --gBBFr7Ir9EOA20Yy Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO3CEQEV+lYNqtIdrEQIymQCgnDEy4UlUdYMBSRSew+mV55SG3dYAoJMC 26A7KS4FuNTyrtSfhOSAlCgZ =FYHG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --gBBFr7Ir9EOA20Yy-- From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 01:45:49 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 01:45:49 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Publishers amuse themselves with new technology... I don't know how many of you are subscribed to the main US Free Sklyarov list (free-sklyarov at zork.net), but assuming that not everyone here has the time to read the 100-200 messages a day on it, the following links are worth a look: Read Richard Stallman's "Right to Read" (now linked off the resources section of the web site): http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html (Thanks to Gerry Magennis for the link) Seems a little bit far-fetched, does it not? Well, maybe, but not quite so much if you take a little bit of this: http://www.planetebook.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=201 http://www.reciprocal.com/wwd_howitworks.asp and shake it well with a pinch of paranoia and a little bit of that: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010801/0293.html http://www.metatext.com/students/index.htm And all of a sudden you've got time-limited non-transferable textbooks set to expire at the end of each year, or end of each term depending on the proclivities of the publisher... Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 02:30:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 02:30:44 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Publishers amuse themselves with new technology... On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > And all of a sudden you've got time-limited non-transferable textbooks set > to expire at the end of each year, or end of each term depending on the > proclivities of the publisher... Sorry, missed the final link in the chain (and you can throw the paranoia away, there's no need for it): http://www.metatext.com/students/getting_started.htm The following, from their terms of use, is particularly instructive: 4. Purchase and Use of MetaTexts. MetaText sells licenses to digital textbooks, or MetaTexts, for use online by students, professors and others. In order to purchase a MetaText, you will be required to provide certain personal information, including a credit card number, and to accept the terms of an agreement covering the purchase and use of the MetaText. MetaTexts are sold only for use by a single individual user, and are not sold to corporations or other entities, or for any shared use by more than one person. If MetaText determines that a MetaText is being used by more than one person, MetaText reserves the right to terminate access to the purchased MetaText by any person, including the purchaser. In addition, use of a MetaText in connection with an educational class may require you to comply with rules and requirements imposed by the instructor. So, why exactly would I pay anything at all for time-limited rights to a book that I could borrow for free from the library, or buy myself and lend to whomever I liked? It would seem natural that the cost of the 6 month licence would be some minute fraction of the cost of buying the paper version of the book, since it self-destructs, and I'm not even allowed to lend it to a friend, wouldn't it? But, no: To choose an example at random: Business Law: Ethical, International and E-Commerce Environment by Henry R. Cheeseman >From Amazon, I can buy this new in hardback for $119.67, or secondhand for $80. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130879134/qid=997233212/sr=1-4/ref=sc_b_4/103-8694369-4901428 Alternatively, I could take up the very generous offer of a 180 day licence from Metatext for the princely sum of $89.52. Nothing like a good bargain, is there? http://www.metatext.com/servlet/tileBlurb?tileId=74896 And these guys go on to take the piss still further. They'll generously let you have a free copy of Darwin's Evolution of the Species, but it'll still expire after 180 days, and you still can't let anyone else look at it, even though it's been out of copyright for around 100 years, and project Gutenberg will let you have it for free and forever, and let you copy it as many times as you like to whomever you like. The mind boggles... Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 11:31:20 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 11:31:20 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Alliance with the FIPR Yesterday I contacted Caspar Bowden (the chap who was consulted on Newsnight to explain to Jamie what precisely the DMCA was, and the Director of the Foundation for Intellectual Property Research (FIPR) - http://www.fipr.org/) with a view to seeing whether we could work effectively together, and to ask his advice on where we might concentrate our activities to best effect. We had a very productive conversation- it turns out that the FIPR had a meeting two weeks ago at which they decided to write a paper on Copyright law, and intend to research this issue as thoroughly as they did RIP recently. As a result of their RIP investigations and lobbying* every broadsheet in the country published a leader article (at different times) calling for RIP to be revised/struck down. Even more importantly, Caspar believes that the research they did, and legal arguments they prepared, will be sufficient to enable any case brought under the encryption legislation in RIP to be thrown out of court (or at the very least, found in favour of the defendant). It's clearly to everyone's advantage to have the same degree of scrutiny directed at copyright legislation. The FIPR has a close association with some very highly qualified Intellectual Property Lawyers (at least one of whom is a Trustee for the FIPR), a list of contacts which includes just about every significant media organisation (newspaper, television and radio) in the UK, and firm support from elements of industry and academia. * Importantly, although it is occasionally misrepresented as such, the FIPR is not a campaigning organisation- they don't organise protests, leafletting campaigns, etc. As its name suggests, it directs its efforts primarily toward research and engages in limited lobbying through contacts in the media, industry, academia and politics. We therefore complement it quite nicely. The FIPR should be able to provide advice, the legal interpretation (and refutation) of the legislation under consideration, plenty of contacts, and some additional respectability whilst we conduct a campaign of protests, leafletting and lobbying. It looks increasingly like we are going to have be in this for the long haul (firstly to Free Sklyarov, and even more so in a fight against the European Copyright Directive). When raising an army for a long war, it's nice to have the support of a friendly arms dealer specialising in high-tech weaponry.[0] As this stage, Caspar and I have basically agreed to keep the two groups informed of each other's activities, and for the two organisations to provide each other with mutual support as best we can. (From simple things such as issuing joint press-releases (through FIPR's long list of contacts) when we organise a protest, to assisting in fund raising for the FIPR.) The FIPR is effectively a charity (it's entirely dependent on donations), and is applying for true charitable status at present. It's about to hold a "Millionaire's BBQ" in Cambridge, to which it will invite those who might have a bit of cash to spare and a vested interest in sensible IP legislation (eg. CEO's of startups and the like). If anyone knows any well heeled folks who might like an invitation, could you let me know, and I'll pass their details on to Caspar. The FIPR is also looking for volunteers for a variety of tasks - I'm going to post details here shortly. Here's to a fruitful relationship! Julian Midgley [0] This is purely an analogy - in no way am I intending to incite anyone to the tiniest iota of violence or deviation from our policy of peaceful protests. :-) -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 11:43:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 11:43:44 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Alliance with the FIPR - Correction On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > Yesterday I contacted Caspar Bowden (the chap who was consulted on > Newsnight to explain to Jamie what precisely the DMCA was, and the > Director of the Foundation for Intellectual Property Research (FIPR) - Doh! mea culpa - this should be "The Foundation for Information Policy Research" - that'll teach me to go to bed before 5am in future. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From mk270 at no.ucant.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 11:57:33 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 11:57:33 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at no.ucant.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Copyright and Visually Impaired people On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > It looks like the consultative period is over (like so many "consultative > periods" it does not look like too many people were aware of it or that it > lasted very long) This is the first piece of non-praise I've heard for the Patent Office's consultative periods; the one they had for software patents had substantial community participation. Mk From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 13:19:11 +0100 Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 13:19:11 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail Hi all, Andrew Clark wrote: > > For what it's worth, if I hadn't seen NewsNight, I still > wouldn't know about the UK action even now, Yes, and that's why I think the first demo was such a great success. For only three days planning we got a good number of people to attend, and excellent coverage on the UK's major news review program. > I would say that the most > important thing is to let people know that there is action > being taken in the UK, and we'll hopefully gather people who > are already interested fairly easily. Yes, definitely. Hopefully the association with the FIPR (http://www.fipr.org/) will allow us to get articles in the National newspapers, before any future protests. Also, from the main Free Dmitry mailing list, here is a link to a good description of why encrypting books is Bad: http://www.visi.com/~tneu/pro-book.html As usual it is a US oriented discription, but could be used as the basis for a good flyer to hand out at libraries and places where there are a majority of people who don't know what DVD's or mp3's are. (Such as outside Parliament ). >And we need a lot more people to talk to. How about outside HMV or >Virgin, complaining about the evils of the DMCA. Another good place to talk to people would be outside the Houses of Parliament, as there is obviously a reasonable number of mp's, journalists and other people around who we should try to get interested in Digital Freedom*. Does anyway know when a good day to do some flyering would be ie when there are going to be lots of mp's walking around, particularly those interested in the internet ? So where/when does everyone think the next protest should be ? cheers dan *Is this the best phrase to use to discribe being allowed to do what you like, with things you have bought in digital form ? From cb at fipr.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 12:36:43 +0100 Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 12:36:43 +0100 From: Caspar Bowden cb at fipr.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] RE: Alliance with the FIPR (sorry to be so punctillious - its m'nature ) > DMCA was, and the Director of the Foundation for Intellectual > Property Research (FIPR) - > http://www.fipr.org/) (..just to correct, Foundation for Information Policy Research) > The FIPR has a close association with some very highly > qualified Intellectual Property Lawyers (at least one of whom > is a Trustee for the FIPR), (...member of our Advisory Council) > such, the FIPR is not a campaigning organisation- they don't > organise protests, leafletting campaigns, etc. As its name > suggests, it directs its efforts primarily toward research > and engages in limited lobbying through contacts in the > media, industry, academia and politics. Exactly so -----Original Message----- From: jtjm at xenoclast.org [mailto:jtjm at xenoclast.org] Sent: 08 August 2001 11:31 To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org Subject: Alliance with the FIPR Yesterday I contacted Caspar Bowden (the chap who was consulted on Newsnight to explain to Jamie what precisely the DMCA was, and the Director of the Foundation for Intellectual Property Research (FIPR) - http://www.fipr.org/) with a view to seeing whether we could work effectively together, and to ask his advice on where we might concentrate our activities to best effect. We had a very productive conversation- it turns out that the FIPR had a meeting two weeks ago at which they decided to write a paper on Copyright law, and intend to research this issue as thoroughly as they did RIP recently. As a result of their RIP investigations and lobbying* every broadsheet in the country published a leader article (at different times) calling for RIP to be revised/struck down. Even more importantly, Caspar believes that the research they did, and legal arguments they prepared, will be sufficient to enable any case brought under the encryption legislation in RIP to be thrown out of court (or at the very least, found in favour of the defendant). It's clearly to everyone's advantage to have the same degree of scrutiny directed at copyright legislation. The FIPR has a close association with some very highly qualified Intellectual Property Lawyers (at least one of whom is a Trustee for the FIPR), a list of contacts which includes just about every significant media organisation (newspaper, television and radio) in the UK, and firm support from elements of industry and academia. * Importantly, although it is occasionally misrepresented as such, the FIPR is not a campaigning organisation- they don't organise protests, leafletting campaigns, etc. As its name suggests, it directs its efforts primarily toward research and engages in limited lobbying through contacts in the media, industry, academia and politics. We therefore complement it quite nicely. The FIPR should be able to provide advice, the legal interpretation (and refutation) of the legislation under consideration, plenty of contacts, and some additional respectability whilst we conduct a campaign of protests, leafletting and lobbying. It looks increasingly like we are going to have be in this for the long haul (firstly to Free Sklyarov, and even more so in a fight against the European Copyright Directive). When raising an army for a long war, it's nice to have the support of a friendly arms dealer specialising in high-tech weaponry.[0] As this stage, Caspar and I have basically agreed to keep the two groups informed of each other's activities, and for the two organisations to provide each other with mutual support as best we can. (From simple things such as issuing joint press-releases (through FIPR's long list of contacts) when we organise a protest, to assisting in fund raising for the FIPR.) The FIPR is effectively a charity (it's entirely dependent on donations), and is applying for true charitable status at present. It's about to hold a "Millionaire's BBQ" in Cambridge, to which it will invite those who might have a bit of cash to spare and a vested interest in sensible IP legislation (eg. CEO's of startups and the like). If anyone knows any well heeled folks who might like an invitation, could you let me know, and I'll pass their details on to Caspar. The FIPR is also looking for volunteers for a variety of tasks - I'm going to post details here shortly. Here's to a fruitful relationship! Julian Midgley [0] This is purely an analogy - in no way am I intending to incite anyone to the tiniest iota of violence or deviation from our policy of peaceful protests. :-) -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 8 Aug 2001 14:02:34 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 14:02:34 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > Also, from the main Free Dmitry mailing list, here is a link to a good > description > of why encrypting books is Bad: http://www.visi.com/~tneu/pro-book.html This document is basically what I was intending to write however it is US centric. I think I'll ask the author if I can use some of his work in mine. That will make it a lot easier to produce something of value. > As usual it is a US oriented discription, but could be used as the basis for > a > good flyer to hand out at libraries and places where there are a majority of > people who don't know what DVD's or mp3's are. (Such as outside > Parliament ). It wont take much to "translate" it to refer to the EUCD although we will need to be careful to assert only the fair dealing/use rights that do exist in English & Scots law. > Does anyway know when a good day to do some flyering would be ie when there > are going to be lots of mp's walking around, particularly those interested > in the internet ? > > So where/when does everyone think the next protest should be ? I think we need to maintain the momentum of the protests if they are to grow. As Dmitry is no longer actually in prison I think switching the primary focus to exposing the dangers in the EUCD would be a good idea. That certainly does not mean dropping support for Dmitry's case - we should continue to highlight it both as a serious miscarriage of justice and as an example of how dangerous such legislation is. My feeling is that regular protests and leafleting is important. For location we should, IMHO, concentrate on building some public support for now as MPs wont listen to us unless there is more widespread awareness and support. Perhaps something in Piccadilly Circus as there are several big stores there specialising in copyright works and outside the larger bookstores which I guess means Charing Cross. Also we should consider a protest / leafleting event outside the British Library to highlight the danger to public libraries. Jason From alex at frustum.clara.co.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:35:14 +0100 Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:35:14 +0100 From: Aleksandar Simic' alex at frustum.clara.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] BSDCon Europe Hello, as some of you might know there is a BSDCon being held in Brighton between 9-11 November, for more information: http://www.bsdconeurope.org/ As this is the first ever BSDCon Europe, they are a bit desperate for speakers (see: http://ukug.uk.FreeBSD.org/archive/msg05344.html ) This would be a good place for somebody to hold a talk about DMCA if you could manage to incorporate how it would effect BSD derived operating systems and their users & developers. Plus if you are a speaker at the Con, you get in for free, which is a nice incentive. --Alex From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:39:22 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:39:22 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > Also, from the main Free Dmitry mailing list, here is a link to a good > > description > > of why encrypting books is Bad: http://www.visi.com/~tneu/pro-book.html > > This document is basically what I was intending to write however it is US > centric. > I think I'll ask the author if I can use some of his work in mine. That > will make it a lot easier to produce something of value. http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/whatsallthisabout.html has some nice points as well, although it too is very US centric - I've added a paragraph about the EUCD at the end, but it needs a little more revision before can use it as an effective flyer (a PDF version is also available from the flyer section of the website). It might make a good template for a UK flyer though. > I think we need to maintain the momentum of the protests if they are to > grow. As Dmitry is no longer actually in prison I think switching the > primary focus to exposing the dangers in the EUCD would be a good idea. > That certainly does not mean dropping support for Dmitry's case - we > should continue to highlight it both as a serious miscarriage of justice > and as an example of how dangerous such legislation is. > > My feeling is that regular protests and leafleting is important. For > location we should, IMHO, concentrate on building some public support for > now as MPs wont listen to us unless there is more widespread awareness and > support. Agreed absolutely. Our message should be 'beware the EUCD, lest Dmitry's case be repeated over here'. I think at least some of the flyers should concentrate on Dmitry's case specifically- not least because there are plenty of American tourists around at this time of year. > Perhaps something in Piccadilly Circus as there are several big stores > there specialising in copyright works and outside the larger bookstores > which I guess means Charing Cross. This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing Cross to repeat the leafletting exercise there. Saturday is probably the best day - more people shopping, and no problems with people getting away from work (nor any danger that the shops will be shut ;-) ). > Also we should consider a protest / leafleting event outside the British > Library to highlight the danger to public libraries. Yes. Now might be a good time to publish a calendar of protests. (Every Wednesday and Saturday, for example). We should probably choose different locations each time (or at least rotate them), and ideally hold a variety of different events. In addition, there are enough people on the mailing list now (77, as of earlier today), that we could probably hold small protests/leafletting events in cities other than London. We can certainly get 5-10 people together in Cambridge (which is enough to park one at each of the entrances of the major bookshops in the centre of town, for example). It would be particularly good to hold simultaneous protests in several major towns/cities (as much as anything so that we can legitimately announce a nationwide campaign to the press). That said, if people think it reasonable to go ahead on Saturday, I think that there should be the one event in London (and Edinburgh) for all those that can make it, and we leave the nationwide protests until next week. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:39:08 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:39:08 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] BSDCon Europe On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Aleksandar Simic' wrote: > As this is the first ever BSDCon Europe, they are a bit desperate for > speakers (see: http://ukug.uk.FreeBSD.org/archive/msg05344.html ) > > This would be a good place for somebody to hold a talk about DMCA if > you could manage to incorporate how it would effect BSD derived > operating systems and their users & developers. There's already an example of this on /. today. Dolby has sent a cease and desist regarding decoding AC3 to one of the *BSD projects. It's allegedly a DMCA action. This is certainly something we should pursue however. Talking at conferences let's you spread your message to large numbers of people and usually don't get interupted (too much) so you can actually get your point across. Jason From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:02:56 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:02:56 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing Cross > to repeat the leafletting exercise there. Something that someone else raised is the issue of actually talking to members of the public. While we're all fairly comfortable handing out leaflets I wonder if some of us might benefit from some pointers in how to talk to members of the public about this. Perhaps a few run-through practise sessions to become familiar with how to do so effectively? > Saturday is probably the best day - more people shopping, and no problems > with people getting away from work (nor any danger that the shops will be > shut ;-) ). Indeed although I'm not sure that any shop in that area closes on any day now. > Now might be a good time to publish a calendar of protests. (Every > Wednesday and Saturday, for example). We should probably choose different > locations each time (or at least rotate them), and ideally hold a variety > of different events. We certainly should be publishing these protest dates as that will lead to more participants. > That said, if people think it reasonable to go ahead on Saturday, I think > that there should be the one event in London (and Edinburgh) for all those > that can make it, and we leave the nationwide protests until next week. I'm OK for Saturday. I think early afternoon (2pm start) would be good. Jason From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:03:25 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:03:25 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote: > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Martin Keegan wrote: > > > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > > > What's the most effective action we can take next? > > > > Campaigning: > > need to come up with an argument to get more people onto the > > streets. 35 ain't bad, though, but no-one's going to > > protest without a good reason... how many more would > > be interested in joining in future similar actions? > > first protest was unbelievably lucky, and ideas for improving > > effectiveness of future actions were proposed on the day > > > Hey, how about _talking_ to people next time. The demo on Friday was > quite funny, since we evolved from typical geeks (silent, sheepish) into > campaigning geeks (sheepish, pretty quiet) by the time I had to go at 2. To be fair, our activities on the march through Hyde Park were largely dictated by the Newsnight crew (though several managed to take the time to both talk to and distribute flyers to passers by), and we'd only been at the Embassy for about 15 minutes by two o'clock, where we found it was difficult to talk to people on account of the fact that next to no-one could walk past us, since to do so required them to wander down the middle of the road. Nevertheless, several of the assembled protesters took the initiative and split off into small groups to hunt down pedestrians in Grosvenor Square whilst the remainder variously protested loudly, sung, and remained quiet for interviews as Newsnight's director requested. But your point still has validity. I don't know what our rights are vis a vis making soap box speeches in places like Picadilly Circus and Charing Cross, but that might be something to try next time, in addition to attempting to engage as many of the public as possible in conversation. There is always the difficulty that your average m.o.t.p comes across the protest as he walks from one urgent appointment with McDonald's Big Mac Dispensers to another even more urgent appointment with Virgin Megastore's Top Twenty Singles Rack, and is disinclined to delay his perusal of Britney's latest item of undersized shiny leatherware in order to chat to some random punter who's just shouted "Free Dmitry" in his ear and thrust a flourescent leaflet into the remains of his Big Mac. If we can stop one in twenty we are probably doing very well indeed ;-) All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:06:46 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:06:46 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, > > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners > > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing Cross > > to repeat the leafletting exercise there. > > Something that someone else raised is the issue of actually talking to > members of the public. While we're all fairly comfortable handing out > leaflets I wonder if some of us might benefit from some pointers in how to > talk to members of the public about this. Perhaps a few run-through > practise sessions to become familiar with how to do so effectively? Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than average success rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines etc. did you use to persuade people to stop? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jsm28 at cam.ac.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:08:29 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:08:29 +0100 (BST) From: Joseph S. Myers jsm28 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > > Nonetheless, it looks like the CPDA could render academics (or others) who > > publish details of copy protection mechanisms in the UK liable to civil > > suits. > > I think there is case law which proves protection under the "fair dealing" > provisions for such activities under the CPDA. Do you have a citation? As far as I could tell when looking for any relevant cases the other day there is no case law relating to section 296 of CDPA - but IANAL so I could easily have missed something or been searching incorrectly. The only cases that even mention s. 296 seem to be Mars UK Ltd v. Teknowledge Ltd, which just says "Section 296 seemed to add nothing to the case", and BBC Enterprises Ltd v. Hi-Tech Xtravision Ltd and others, which relates to the provisions of s. 298 concerning unauthorised pay-television decoders and mentions s. 296 in passing. However, I haven't looked at the general case law on fair dealing or public policy defences. Here are some cases with at least tangential relevance (i.e., worth reading but likely not of great direct precedential value). They might be of interest until the FIPR paper appears which will no doubt cover things in much more detail. CBS Songs Ltd and others v. Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc and another ([1988] 2 All ER 484 and [1988] 2 WLR 1191). In particular the comment on home copying "A law which is treated with such contempt should be amended or repealed." which might still be relevant in arguing that the optional personal copying exemption in the EUCD should be implemented in British law. Alfa Laval Cheese Systems Limited and another v. Wincanton Engineering Limited ([1990] FSR 583). In particular for the ruling (relating to hardware) that "Provided he did not infringe any intellectual property rights or any contractual term binding upon him, there was no reason why a purchaser of the product should be precluded from dismantling the machine to find out how it worked and telling anyone he pleased.", quoted in Mars UK Ltd v. Teknowledge Ltd. (Apparently not online.) Mars UK Ltd v. Teknowledge Ltd ([2000] FSR 138; citation not checked since volume out of the library for binding). This discusses reverse engineering of hardware and its relation to confidentiality again, and mentions s. 296 in passing only. Ashdown v. Telegraph Group Ltd ([2001] EWCA Civ 1142). This Court of Appeal decision discusses the balance between copyright and free speech, ruling that the court must consider the balance in individual cases. The original decision this was an appeal against is [2001] 2 WLR 967. There is some case law relating to the provisions of CDPA concerning unauthorised pay-television decoders, but those provisions have been amended and replaced since CDPA was passed and I haven't studied this case law. Some cases have been charged under other laws; a couple of sentencing reports (where the defendant pleaded guilty then appealed against sentence): R. v. Harold Christopher Carey ([1999] 1 Cr App R (S) 322) (charged as conspiracy to defraud). R. v. Paul John Maxwell-King ([2001] 2 Cr App R (S) 28) (charged as inciting the commission of an offence contrary to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 s.3). "That offence involves the unlawful incitement of a third party to commit an offence by supplying to that party a device known as a multi-mode board, the use of which causes an unauthorised modification of a computer.". (I can't find a full version of this report online, but see and commentary at .) -- Joseph S. Myers jsm28 at cam.ac.uk From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:25:10 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 18:25:10 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T J Midgley wrote: > Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than average success > rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines etc. did you use to > persuade people to stop? I had people approaching me (or rather the group of us and I stepped out to talk to them). I wonder if approaching people as they leave HMV or Waterstones and asking "Excuse me, could I talk to you for a moment about a proposed law that may make it illegal for you to [listen to|read] the [CD|book] you've just bought?" would be effective. Jason From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 20:43:08 +0100 Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 20:43:08 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail --a8Wt8u1KmwUX3Y2C Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Jason Clifford wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than average succ= ess > > rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines etc. did you use to > > persuade people to stop? >=20 > I wonder if approaching people as they leave HMV or Waterstones and asking > "Excuse me, could I talk to you for a moment about a proposed law that may > make it illegal for you to [listen to|read] the [CD|book] you've just > bought?" would be effective. A bit long, perhaps. Maybe something shorter, like, "May I talk to you for a moment about your right to [listen to|read]..."=20 theo --a8Wt8u1KmwUX3Y2C Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO3GWS0V+lYNqtIdrEQL2KgCg8TuerI7+xEdtqXoG/2MIxwQ6lVgAoMrx KQqd5SpHfeO4P9zZmUX1dQdo =uTyL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --a8Wt8u1KmwUX3Y2C-- From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 20:49:15 +0100 Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 20:49:15 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail --v9Ux+11Zm5mwPlX6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Jason Clifford wrote: > I think we need to maintain the momentum of the protests if they are to > grow. As Dmitry is no longer actually in prison I think switching the > primary focus to exposing the dangers in the EUCD would be a good idea. >=20 > That certainly does not mean dropping support for Dmitry's case - we > should continue to highlight it both as a serious miscarriage of justice > and as an example of how dangerous such legislation is. >=20 > My feeling is that regular protests and leafleting is important. For > location we should, IMHO, concentrate on building some public support for > now as MPs wont listen to us unless there is more widespread awareness > and support. Another useful thing to do is to write letters to the editor when related articles appear in newspapers and magazines (cf. today's Independent and Metro hyping digital piracy). I had a letter published in Sight & Sound earlier this year in response to an interview with Jack Valenti where I tried to debunk some of his statements about DeCSS. theo --v9Ux+11Zm5mwPlX6 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO3GXukV+lYNqtIdrEQL6jgCfamBtFNUErP47wC5ujLpwUwcLDAAAnj4e sNIPNrWAhMgvUkddLhzKKjdu =ctbo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --v9Ux+11Zm5mwPlX6-- From kieran at esperi.demon.co.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 21:43:11 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 21:43:11 +0100 (BST) From: Kieran Barry kieran at esperi.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > > I think we need to maintain the momentum of the protests if they are to > > grow. As Dmitry is no longer actually in prison I think switching the > > primary focus to exposing the dangers in the EUCD would be a good idea. > So true it hurts. > > That certainly does not mean dropping support for Dmitry's case - we > > should continue to highlight it both as a serious miscarriage of justice > > and as an example of how dangerous such legislation is. > > A protest about someone on bail lacks immediacy :) Do we have an announcement list? A good plan for future events might be to ask people for email address for addition to such a list... Confirmation message would be tweaked to provide a couple of links and a bit of info. Would need to be tres short. > > My feeling is that regular protests and leafleting is important. For > > location we should, IMHO, concentrate on building some public support for > > now as MPs wont listen to us unless there is more widespread awareness and > > support. > > Agreed absolutely. Our message should be 'beware the EUCD, lest Dmitry's > case be repeated over here'. I think at least some of the flyers should > concentrate on Dmitry's case specifically- not least because there are > plenty of American tourists around at this time of year. > > > Perhaps something in Piccadilly Circus as there are several big stores > > there specialising in copyright works and outside the larger bookstores > > which I guess means Charing Cross. > > This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing Cross > to repeat the leafletting exercise there. All 30 of us? "The UK Free Sklyarov movement was wiped out today when they stepped out in front of the wrong black cab"... Let's keep the banners etc. in reserve. We'd get far higher turn out for a protest from 6.30-7.30 with optional pissup after. Never underestimate the power of beer... Also, people are likely to have a little more time after work. > > Now might be a good time to publish a calendar of protests. (Every > Wednesday and Saturday, for example). We should probably choose different > locations each time (or at least rotate them), and ideally hold a variety > of different events. > Never offer hostages to fortune like that...if one didn't happen, for whatever reason, it would be viewed as the end of the protests, IMO If we try for something roughly twice a month to start, that seems sustainable. > In addition, there are enough people on the mailing list now (77, as of > earlier today), that we could probably hold small protests/leafletting > events in cities other than London. We can certainly get 5-10 people > together in Cambridge (which is enough to park one at each of the > entrances of the major bookshops in the centre of town, for example). Far better, IMO, to put 3 people outside 2 bookshops. The coverage argument is bogus. (Is every book-buyer in Cambridge going to come past during the demo?) More important: on Friday, we clearly fed off each other to get more courage when approaching people. Other advantages are the opportunities to either learn a line of argument from someone with more experience, or receive a critique on what might be said better. Over the long term, pairing an experienced campaigner and a newbie will pay off. And are we going to motivate anyone who's equivocal by saying "You'll be standing outside Waterstones on your own"? The Sklyarov case is going to take some time, and we need to be in for the long haul. Tactics like arranging a (picket | protest | whatever) before a Lonix or Perlmongers meeting should be looked at. And that ignores anything like a campaign against EU directives... Regards Kieran From pete at flatline.org.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 22:35:15 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 22:35:15 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote: > > > grow. As Dmitry is no longer actually in prison I think switching the > > > primary focus to exposing the dangers in the EUCD would be a good idea. > > > So true it hurts. Yes and no: we shouldn't let the principle that US law applies to 'crimes' commited outside the US by non-US citizens get established, or we're all in real trouble. > We'd get far higher turn out for a protest from 6.30-7.30 with optional > pissup after. Never underestimate the power of beer... > > Also, people are likely to have a little more time after work. Yes. Protests during the working week are going to be have to be rare events for most people, unfortunately. > If we try for something roughly twice a month to start, that seems > sustainable. This seems like a more reasonable rate than twice a week, yes. > More important: on Friday, we clearly fed off each other to get more > courage when approaching people. Other advantages are the opportunities > to either learn a line of argument from someone with more experience, or > receive a critique on what might be said better. YES. Go for volume. When you're on the street trying to get attention, you're competing with Big Issue vendors, pairs of Mormons, people with tins and hot dog salesmen. You either need a group of people or a really cool gimmick. Unfortunately, it's possible to have a HUGE number of people and succeed in communicating nothing at all, as demonstrated on May 1. Organisation and remaining "on message" is important, and this is where Julian and Martin are really effective. We need to decide for each protest what the "message" is, and make sure everyone invited has at least one effective way of communicating it. > The Sklyarov case is going to take some time, and we need to be in for > the long haul. Tactics like arranging a (picket | protest | whatever) > before a Lonix or Perlmongers meeting should be looked at. There is a cam.pm meet this Friday in the Castle on Castle hill in Cambridge, to which I shall be going. It's a small newly-formed group, so a quiet word over a pint will be far more effective than a flying picket. Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: Backbends and the Marvelousness Austrianizes From kieran at esperi.demon.co.uk Thu, 9 Aug 2001 01:20:17 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 01:20:17 +0100 (BST) From: Kieran Barry kieran at esperi.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T J Midgley wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > > > This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, > > > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners > > > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing Cross > > > to repeat the leafletting exercise there. > > > > Something that someone else raised is the issue of actually talking to > > members of the public. While we're all fairly comfortable handing out > > leaflets I wonder if some of us might benefit from some pointers in how to > > talk to members of the public about this. Perhaps a few run-through > > practise sessions to become familiar with how to do so effectively? > > Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than average success > rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines etc. did you use to > persuade people to stop? > Do you care about free speech? Also, neat dress is a definite asset. Regards Kieran From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 9 Aug 2001 01:57:23 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 01:57:23 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > > > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > Do we have an announcement list? A good plan for future events might be > to ask people for email address for addition to such a list... > Confirmation message would be tweaked to provide a couple of links and a > bit of info. Would need to be tres short. > We don't currently, but it'll take me all of ten minutes to set one up (and maybe a bit longer to get the subscription message right). Will do this tomorrow. > > > > This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, > > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners > > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing Cross > > to repeat the leafletting exercise there. > > All 30 of us? "The UK Free Sklyarov movement was wiped out today when > they stepped out in front of the wrong black cab"... > > Let's keep the banners etc. in reserve. Not sure I agree with this at all. Assuming we decide to hit both places we have to get from one to t'other somehow. It's not far to walk, and if we want people to come and talk to us, arriving with some noise and 'interesting visuals' will at least get their attention. As for the taxi argument, if crocodiles of seven year olds can get from one museum to the next without redecorating london buses, I should hope we'd be able to do the same. Or do you think there's too much truth in the malcoordinated social misfit stereotype of the geek? The effectiveness of having some banners and placards around was amply demonstrated at Hyde Park Corner when we were assembling. We'd hoisted a couple of Dan's placards and had people holding Anton's banners out for approaching pedestrians to see. There were a substantial number of passers-by, and many of them stopped (rather than being stopped) to ask what this was all about. I suspect that we handed out a third of the leaflets whilst there. Without the banners and placards the passers-by merely see some people handing out pieces of paper that from a distance could be anything from Amnesty International leaflets to 10% off foo-random nightclub vouchers, and the /only/ way to get people's attention is by trying to coerce them into talking to you. > We'd get far higher turn out for a protest from 6.30-7.30 with optional > pissup after. Never underestimate the power of beer... As discussed elsewhere in thread, Saturday seems a better bet. But the beer sounds good nonetheless. > Also, people are likely to have a little more time after work. > > > > Now might be a good time to publish a calendar of protests. (Every > > Wednesday and Saturday, for example). We should probably choose different > > locations each time (or at least rotate them), and ideally hold a variety > > of different events. > > > Never offer hostages to fortune like that...if one didn't happen, for > whatever reason, it would be viewed as the end of the protests, IMO qv www.freesklyarov.org's calendar... You can easily find out when something's planned in your local city, and make plans to attend those events that suit you. You don't have to wait until a few days before the event before you get to hear about it, and you don't have to be subscribed to a highly active mailing list or religiously check the website daily to make sure you don't miss an event. We should only do major press-releases for big events; if one of the smaller events gets little support for whatever reason, those that turn up can use their initiative and change the focus to something more appropriate for the numbers, and retire to the pub early. The Edinburgh protest was small but nonetheless effective, and made several of the headlines. The US protesters seem to have got the hang of this without any adverse effects. As soon as we've fleshed out ideas for events (including dates, times and places) to which we are committed, a calendar will go up on the site. > If we try for something roughly twice a month to start, that seems > sustainable. Yes, that seems a little more reasonable. Not that that should stop the keen ;-) > > In addition, there are enough people on the mailing list now (77, as of > > earlier today), that we could probably hold small protests/leafletting > > events in cities other than London. We can certainly get 5-10 people > > together in Cambridge (which is enough to park one at each of the > > entrances of the major bookshops in the centre of town, for example). > > Far better, IMO, to put 3 people outside 2 bookshops. The coverage > argument is bogus. (Is every book-buyer in Cambridge going to come past > during the demo?) Examples are merely examples ;-) But I agree with you here. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:34:49 +0100 Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:34:49 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail > -----Original Message----- > From: Jason Clifford [mailto:jason at uklinux.net] > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > > Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than > average success > > rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines etc. did you use to > > persuade people to stop? > > I had people approaching me (or rather the group of us and I > stepped out > to talk to them). > Having placards to wave around definitely gets peoples interest, and makes them actually want to hear what you have to say, which makes approaching them a lot easier. At least in London, people have become very good at dodging people trying to hand out flyers as they're usually irrelevant to them. cheers dan From jason at uklinux.net Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:43:18 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:43:18 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Edward Welbourne wrote: > > the holder of the copyright would be within their rights to bring > > action for damages although it's unlikely that anyone would spend the > > money to do so as that would be more than the actual loss. > > that needn't stop them. For one thing, they'll typically be awarded > costs if they win the case; for another, Big Business has shown itself > more than happy to throw away some money for the sake of intimidating > folk into compliance (with their wishes, whatever the law may say). One > or two expensive suits can suffice cow plenty of other `potential > customers' into enduring unreasonable restraints. So it may seem at first however such a case would likely be assigned to the small claims track due to the lack of significant financial damages and you cannot claim legal costs - only the minimum necessary incidental costs - in the small claims track. Then there is the fact that such intimidatory tactics almost never make to to court as bringing such a case may well result in the company being attacked by the judge and hit with a fine for abuse of process. Don't forget that for the most part the courts here will uphold the law. Jason From eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:17:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:17:38 +0100 (BST) From: Edward Welbourne eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet Julian: > those selling portable MP3 players and advertising them as allowing > you to listen to your music collection on the move are inciting people > to breach copyright (not that that in itself is an offence, to the > best of my knowledge). surely it'd be `aiding and abetting' breaches of copyright, which would make the sellers accomplices ? Albeit only in a civil tort, not a criminal offence. Jason: > the holder of the copyright would be within their rights to bring > action for damages although it's unlikely that anyone would spend the > money to do so as that would be more than the actual loss. that needn't stop them. For one thing, they'll typically be awarded costs if they win the case; for another, Big Business has shown itself more than happy to throw away some money for the sake of intimidating folk into compliance (with their wishes, whatever the law may say). One or two expensive suits can suffice cow plenty of other `potential customers' into enduring unreasonable restraints. Eddy. From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:00:39 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:00:39 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Edward Welbourne wrote: > Julian: > > those selling portable MP3 players and advertising them as allowing > > you to listen to your music collection on the move are inciting people > > to breach copyright (not that that in itself is an offence, to the > > best of my knowledge). > > surely it'd be `aiding and abetting' breaches of copyright, which would > make the sellers accomplices ? Albeit only in a civil tort, not a > criminal offence. IIRC, you can only be done for aiding and abetting (and counselling and procuring[*]) indictable criminal offences. At civil law, complicity in someone else's wrongs is a lot more complicated and specific. If there were money to be made going after MP3 player vendors (or Apple) for contributory copyright infringement, it'd already be happening. Mk [*] parliamentary draftsmen were paid by the word back in the nineteenth century, it would appear. From jason at uklinux.net Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:02:57 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:02:57 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: New leaflet On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, Martin Keegan wrote: > IIRC, you can only be done for aiding and abetting (and counselling and > procuring[*]) indictable criminal offences. > > [*] parliamentary draftsmen were paid by the word back in the nineteenth > century, it would appear. There also appears to be evidence that they were subject to a penalty for the use of short sentences and punctuation. Jason From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:33:50 +0100 Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:33:50 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail Julian T J Midgley wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote: > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, > > > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners > > > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing > > > Cross to repeat the leafletting exercise there. > > > > All 30 of us? "The UK Free Sklyarov movement was wiped out today when > > they stepped out in front of the wrong black cab"... > > > > Let's keep the banners etc. in reserve. > > Not sure I agree with this at all. Assuming we decide to hit both places > we have to get from one to t'other somehow. It's not far to walk, and if > we want people to come and talk to us, arriving with some noise and > 'interesting visuals' will at least get their attention. As a practical matter, however, carrying a big banner on a sidewalk from one very crowded area to another will be quite difficult. Marching through the street is not possible without a parade permit. theo From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:36:47 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:36:47 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, Theodore Hong wrote: > Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote: > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > > This makes sense. How about congregating in Piccadilly Circus, > > > > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then marching with banners > > > > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants shouting to Charing > > > > Cross to repeat the leafletting exercise there. > > > > > > All 30 of us? "The UK Free Sklyarov movement was wiped out today when > > > they stepped out in front of the wrong black cab"... > > > > > > Let's keep the banners etc. in reserve. > > > > Not sure I agree with this at all. Assuming we decide to hit both places > > we have to get from one to t'other somehow. It's not far to walk, and if > > we want people to come and talk to us, arriving with some noise and > > 'interesting visuals' will at least get their attention. > > As a practical matter, however, carrying a big banner on a sidewalk from > one very crowded area to another will be quite difficult. Marching through > the street is not possible without a parade permit. Marching through the streets such that you block roads or seriously inconvenience traffic or pedestrians requires a permit, but marching without doing so doesn't, I believe. I'm pretty certain we didn't have one last time - Dan checked what was necessary IIRC. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:59:00 +0100 Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 11:59:00 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail > Marching through > > the street is not possible without a parade permit. > > Marching through the streets such that you block roads or seriously > inconvenience traffic or pedestrians requires a permit, but marching > without doing so doesn't, I believe. I'm pretty certain we > didn't have > one last time - Dan checked what was necessary IIRC. I will double check if you want, but so long as you don't block anybody else's movement then you are allowed to do pretty much as you like. I suspect we would need quite a few (>50) people to get permission to march along the road from Picadilly to Charing Cross, as it would obviously require quite a few police to stop the traffic. In fact, I believe we didn't _have_ to inform the police that we were going to protest outside the US embassy, as we weren't blocking the road, but if we didn't tell them in advance they would view us as a disturbance that was blocking the pavement and would ask us to move along straight away. As well as get a couple of vans of riot police to ensure that we complied. > > As a practical matter, however, carrying a big banner on a > sidewalk from > > one very crowded area to another will be quite difficult. Definitely, in fact walking around Picadilly on a Saturday is difficult enough even when you aren't carrying anything, but a single person placard is a good way of getting peoples attention. dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Julian T. J. Midgley > [mailto:free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org] > Sent: 09 August 2001 11:37 > To: Theodore Hong > Cc: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail > > > On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, Theodore Hong wrote: > > > Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote: > > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > > > > This makes sense. How about congregating in > Piccadilly Circus, > > > > > leafletting aggresively there for a while, then > marching with banners > > > > > unfurled, flags flying, signs waving and chants > shouting to Charing > > > > > Cross to repeat the leafletting exercise there. > > > > > > > > All 30 of us? "The UK Free Sklyarov movement was wiped > out today when > > > > they stepped out in front of the wrong black cab"... > > > > > > > > Let's keep the banners etc. in reserve. > > > > > > Not sure I agree with this at all. Assuming we decide to > hit both places > > > we have to get from one to t'other somehow. It's not far > to walk, and if > > > we want people to come and talk to us, arriving with some > noise and > > > 'interesting visuals' will at least get their attention. > > > > As a practical matter, however, carrying a big banner on a > sidewalk from > > one very crowded area to another will be quite difficult. > Marching through > > the street is not possible without a parade permit. > > Marching through the streets such that you block roads or seriously > inconvenience traffic or pedestrians requires a permit, but marching > without doing so doesn't, I believe. I'm pretty certain we > didn't have > one last time - Dan checked what was necessary IIRC. > > Julian > > -- > Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org > Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F > UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Thu, 9 Aug 2001 14:52:33 +0100 Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 14:52:33 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Thursday 09 August 2001 9:34 am, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Jason Clifford [mailto:jason at uklinux.net] > > > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > > Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than > > > > average success > > > > > rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines etc. did you use > > > to persuade people to stop? > > > > I had people approaching me (or rather the group of us and I > > stepped out > > to talk to them). > > Having placards to wave around definitely gets peoples interest, > and makes them actually want to hear what you have to say, which > makes approaching them > a lot easier. > > At least in London, people have become very good at dodging people > trying to hand out > flyers as they're usually irrelevant to them. Agreed. I think merely passing a flyer in someone's direction is unlikely to be sucessful, since most people just ignore them. Better is to=20 start by talking to them, getting them interested (or at least, a bit inquisitive), then giving them the flyer. A good opener might be "Excuse me, I'd like to ask you a question Do you think that it should be a crime to help blind people=20 read electronic books?" Or (now Dmitry's on bail, we should be more concerned about the DMCA/ EUCD than that particular case): "Excuse me, did you know that CD producers are planning to rip off consumers by overcharging?" (and then go on to explain how the EUCD will prevent circumvention of any CD region coding scheme. Ditto for DVDs. This approach might be useful outside HMV or Virgin Megastore. Another approach would be to do a survey, ask some of these and other questions. Then give the interviewee a leaflet if they are interested. The majority of the public know little of copyright law, but I'm sure they'll be on our side when they learn how the corporations plan to rip them off. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 9 Aug 2001 16:51:17 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 16:51:17 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] [free-sklyarov-announce] ALA statement (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 14:03:27 -0700 From: Seth David Schoen To: free-sklyarov-announce at lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: [free-sklyarov-announce] ALA statement Yet another voice in support of Dmitry Sklyarov. [Note incorrect statement that EFF represents Sklyarov; EFF has advised ALA that this is not the case.] ----- Forwarded message from Robin Gross ----- From: Robin Gross Subject: ALA statement on Skylarov arrest August 7, 2001 The American Library Association today applauded the release from jail of Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian computer programmer who was arrested several weeks ago by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Sklyarov allegedly violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by writing a software program that enables a purchaser of an electronic book to disable technological restrictions placed on the book by the publisher. Mr. Sklyarov had come to the United States to deliver an academic presentation on his technological innovations. John W. Berry, ALA's President, stated that, "From the days when the DMCA was first being considered in Congress, ALA has warned that the provisions intended to protect technological measures could and would be stretched far beyond simple enforcement of existing copyright law. We were right. This case illustrates the way in which those provisions are being used to create and enforce wholly new rights that have never existed before in copyright law, and to undermine the careful constitutional balances and protections that have been part of copyright law since its beginnings." After Mr. Sklyarov delivered his lecture at a computer hacker convention, he was arrested under provisions of the DMCA, which became part of the U.S. copyright law in 1998. That new law includes criminal penalties against a person who provides technology allowing circumvention of a technological measure placed on a copyrighted work by its owner to control access to the work. In this case, Mr. Sklyarov wrote a computer program for his employer company in Russia. The program he wrote, which is legal in Russia, would enable a reader of an Adobe eBook Reader to disable restrictions that the publisher of a particular book formatted for Adobe's reader might have imposed. "It is most unfortunate that Mr. Sklyarov was jailed and that he is still threatened with criminal prosecution for actions that we believe to be protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution and under fair use and other user protections of the Copyright Act," said Mr. Berry. "The content industry is not protecting the emerging marketplace for digital works. Rather, it is alienating its natural customer base by employing overly restrictive technological protections and supporting overzealous prosecution under dubious interpretations of copyright law." The Adobe corporation, the original complainant against Mr. Sklyarov, agreed to drop the charges against Mr. Sklyarov. However, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, which has jurisdiction of the federal case, has not yet backed off from its potential prosecution. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represents Mr. Sklyarov and has been trying to negotiate his release through discussions with the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco. More information on this matter can be found at the EFF's web site, http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/US_v_Sklyarov. [...] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Robin D. Gross - Cyberspace Attorney @ Law Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 e: robin at eff.org w: http://www.eff.org p: 415.863.5459 f: 415.436.9993 http://www.eff.org/cafe http://www.eff.org/Intellectual_property/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Seth David Schoen | Its really terrible when FBI arrested Temp. http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | hacker, who visited USA with peacefull down: http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF) | mission -- to share his knowledge with http://www.freesklyarov.org/ | american nation. (Ilya V. Vasilyev) _______________________________________________ free-sklyarov-announce mailing list free-sklyarov-announce at lists.xcf.berkeley.edu http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-announce From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Thu, 9 Aug 2001 14:54:43 +0100 Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 14:54:43 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Thursday 09 August 2001 1:20 am, Kieran Barry wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than > > average success rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines > > etc. did you use to persuade people to stop? > > > Do you care about free speech? > The question's good, but a bit abstract. The best way is to try=20 different approaches and see what works best. > Also, neat dress is a definite asset. Smiling and neat appearance are obviously important. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From eddy at chaos.org.uk Thu, 09 Aug 2001 13:06:29 +0100 Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 13:06:29 +0100 From: Edward Welbourne eddy at chaos.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] RE: Alliance with the FIPR > ... When raising an army for a long war, it's nice to have the > support of a friendly arms dealer specialising in high-tech > weaponry.[0] ... > [0] This is purely an analogy - in no way am I intending to incite > anyone to the tiniest iota of violence or deviation from our policy of > peaceful protests. :-) in the same vein, I confess to having read > We therefore complement it quite nicely. The FIPR should be able to > provide advice, the legal interpretation (and refutation) of the > legislation under consideration, plenty of contacts, and some > additional respectability whilst we conduct a campaign of protests, > leafletting and lobbying. and thought `sort of like sin fein and the IRA then ?' Thankfully, I'm confident the voices I hear here aren't about to mimic this tenuous analogy slavishly ;^> Eddy. From eddy at chaos.org.uk Thu, 09 Aug 2001 13:47:49 +0100 Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 13:47:49 +0100 From: Edward Welbourne eddy at chaos.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > I think I'll ask the author if I can use some of his work in mine. > That will make it a lot easier to produce something of value. A basic tenet of the open-source movement, demonstrated in practice ;^> One of the costs of our copyright system is that you aren't guaranteed the right to do this - you're creating a derivative work, so need the author's permission before you can publish it. No matter how well the restraint is justified, the cost remains: some things will be done less well than they might have been, for want of permission to re-use some of someone else's work. For copyright to [be shown to] be in the public interest, it must [be shown to] yield benefits sufficient to more than balance its costs. Fortunately, authors have the right to waive that cost and, in the present case, it looks plausible that the original author will be more concerned to help you produce as good document as possible than to restrain you ;^) Eddy. From joss at supportwizard.com Wed, 08 Aug 2001 03:05:01 +0100 Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 03:05:01 +0100 From: joss at supportwizard.com joss at supportwizard.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples > Message: 11 > From: phil hunt > To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail > Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 14:54:43 +0100 > charset="US-ASCII" > > On Thursday 09 August 2001 1:20 am, Kieran Barry wrote: > > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Julian T J Midgley wrote: > > > Yes - I noticed that several seem to have much higher than > > > average success rates last Friday - what tactics/opening lines > > > etc. did you use to persuade people to stop? > > > > > > Do you care about free speech? > > > > The question's good, but a bit abstract. The best way is to try=20 > different approaches and see what works best. I would recommend keeping things as concrete as possible, examples are better than abstractions, especially examples people care about. If, as is planned, we get a law like this in the UK, SKY will be able to make it impossible for you to use your VCR. They might want to do this to stop you from skipping adverts because that's where they get their revenue. "Is that what you want, 'cos that's what'll 'appen" ( Curtesy of Harry Enfield). Publishers will release books in encrypted form, and make it impossible to do things you currently take for granted, like photocopying a couple of pages. Dmitriy was thrown into a federal jail with no bail for talking about how to circumvate these restrictions. Film companies will make DVDs that will register with the first DVD player they play on, so from then on your DVD's will only play on your DVD player to irradicate the second hand market which cuts into their profits. If you buy a new DVD player, you will have to replace all your DVDs. Record companies will release CDs which you can't copy, so if you want to have a version to play in your car, you will have to buy two copies. Software companies will restrict their software to only run on one computer. They will justify this by saying that it prevents "piracy" but then when you buy a new computer, you will have to buy new software too. Actually, companies have the right to do these things already, but people have the right to try and get around these restrictions. What these companies want is make it illegal to even try to avoid the restriction. From jason at uklinux.net Fri, 10 Aug 2001 10:48:16 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 10:48:16 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? Are we doing something in Piccadilly Circus/Charing Cross tomorrow? If so what are the arrangements re meeting, etc. Does anyone have any relevant leaflets (by that I mean leaflets that point out the dangers in EUCD/DMCA for fair use by ordinary folks of their CDs, books, DVDs, etc)? Jason From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 11:21:48 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 11:21:48 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples On Wed, 8 Aug 2001 joss at supportwizard.com wrote: > > The question's good, but a bit abstract. The best way is to try=20 > > different approaches and see what works best. > > I would recommend keeping things as concrete as possible, examples > are better than abstractions, especially examples people care about. Hear, hear. > If, as is planned, we get a law like this in the UK, SKY will be able to > make it impossible for you to use your VCR. They might want to do this > to stop you from skipping adverts because that's where they get their > revenue. "Is that what you want, 'cos that's what'll 'appen" ( Curtesy > of Harry Enfield). [snip] > Film companies will make DVDs that will register with the first DVD > player they > play on, so from then on your DVD's will only play on your > DVD player to irradicate the second hand market which cuts into their > profits. > If you buy a new DVD player, you will have to replace all your DVDs. The question I always like to ask is: "do authors have a moral right to the increased profits from restricted playability of recorded media?" Mk From danny at spesh.com Fri, 10 Aug 2001 03:47:48 -0700 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 03:47:48 -0700 From: Danny O'Brien danny at spesh.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples On Fri, Aug 10, 2001 at 11:21:48AM +0100, Martin Keegan wrote: > On Wed, 8 Aug 2001 joss at supportwizard.com wrote: > > > > The question's good, but a bit abstract. The best way is to try=20 > > > different approaches and see what works best. > > > > I would recommend keeping things as concrete as possible, examples > > are better than abstractions, especially examples people care about. > > Hear, hear. > > > If, as is planned, we get a law like this in the UK, SKY will be able to > > make it impossible for you to use your VCR. They might want to do this > > to stop you from skipping adverts because that's where they get their > > revenue. "Is that what you want, 'cos that's what'll 'appen" ( Curtesy > > of Harry Enfield). > [snip] That's an interesting example, if only because that's exactly what Sky is planning (by owning the digital VCR market, and inserting their own, extra, adverts during playback time). I think works with an expiry date built in have emotive appeal - especially as people are still pissed off about the vinyl/CD transition. d. From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:02:22 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:02:22 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Martin Keegan wrote: > > The question I always like to ask is: "do authors have a moral right to > the increased profits from restricted playability of recorded media?" Martin, without meaning to be too rude, that sounds more like a topic for a Social and Political Science essay; I suspect that your average punter is unlikely to respond with much more than "come again?". And as soon as you bring "moral rights" into it, you machine gun open an entire aisle-full of cans of philisophical worms... As a question to ask once you've found a genuinely interested punter with a degree or two under his belt, it's highly respectable. As an opening line it's the moral equivalent of "Excuse me, by the miracle of ocular refraction I espied your sinusoidal splendiference from the most geographically removed location in this intoxicating beverages dispensary, and wondered whether you would care to join me in a mutual introduction of liquor to the parched surfaces of our alimentary canals?" Short and punchy is the way to go Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:29:30 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:29:30 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > Are we doing something in Piccadilly Circus/Charing Cross tomorrow? It would be good to do so if there's sufficient interest. However, as you say, we really need to take the time to prepare some leaflets for the UK public addressing the EUCD/DMCA issues. Now that Dmitry is out on bail, and we have a little breathing space, I'm wondering if it might not be a better idea to meet tomorrow to come up with a decent strategy for future actions (we'll be much more effective if we have a co-ordinated campaign than if we merely decide two or three days before an event that it's about time 'we did something'). Things to discuss (not in any order of importance): 1. If the trial does not go in Dmitry's favour, it will be necessary to hit the US Embassy with a series of protests the likes of which they've never seen from computer academics, professionals, and hobbyists before. The implications if he is found guilty are staggering (many of the developers at the company I work for could so easily find themselves on the wrong side of the DMCA if our competitors chose to use it to their advantage, security researchers throughout the country would have to seriously consider changing the direction of their research or never travelling to the US again, etc, etc). Obviously, we will need a lot more people and support if these protests are to be truly significant. 2. Campaign against the EUCD - how, where, with what, what goals, etc. 3. Relationship with FIPR - how to make best use of it. I'm waiting for Caspar Bowden to get back to me with details of the volunteer positions they are looking to fill- I'll chase him up and hope to have those details before tomorrow. The FIPR is potentially one of the most useful weapons we have up our sleeves. 4. Flyers, Website(s), etc. Could definitely do with a hand keeping on top of website updates, need to find time to write a few perl scripts to automate stuff (promised a long while ago to set up a UK online petition, but regretably haven't yet had the time to do so). 5. Do we want to have some relatively well defined positions (Webmaster, protest organisers, leaflet authors, press liaison, etc) or continue with the relative anarchic organisation we have at present? I think we can cover all this much more effectively if we get together and meet in person than we can on the mailing list. But what do the rest think? Votes for A. Meeting tomorrow to plan B. Leafletting in Picadilly and Charing as prev. discussed. C. Both? Or other suggestions. If B or C, it would be helpful to know what resources (leaflets, placards) people are able to bring along. If A - suggestions of somewhere appropriate to meet (I'm assuming there are unlikely to be many more than 20-30 of us, but I may be wrong - the mailing list has grown by about 50% again since the protest last week). A biggish but quiet pub (pref. within easy distance of a tube station)? My own vote is for A. Looks like I'm going to be tied up most of the day with work, but if B or C are more popular I should be able to trot off copies of the some of the existing flyers. Not an expert on London pubs/meeting places so can't suggest anything useful there. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From pete at flatline.org.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 13:57:26 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 13:57:26 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > A. Meeting tomorrow to plan >From what I remember of the SRCF, we had long circuitous discussions on newsgroups but useful things only started happening when we met in the Castle. I can't be there, unfortunately, but I think it's a good idea :) Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: Shrieked and the Sits Coined From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 14:13:58 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 14:13:58 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? > A. Meeting tomorrow to plan > B. Leafletting in Picadilly and Charing as prev. discussed. My sister is getting married tomorrow, and so my weekend is going to be spent on family duties. So Jason if you want to do some leafletting tomorrow, do you want to organise it. I suggest meeting outside Waterstones at Picadilly at noon, (as the actual Picadilly circus is always rediculously busy.) Map to Waterstones is: http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=europe&GridE=529319&GridN=1804 74&coordsys=gb&=&overviewmap=ap&lang=&width=700&client=europe&addr1=Hatchard s+Ltd,+187&addr2=Piccadilly&addr3=London&pc=W1J+9LE&db=ap&cname=United+Kingd om&height=400&coordsys=gb&SUBMIT=Find >Does anyone have any relevant leaflets (by that I mean leaflets that point >out the dangers in EUCD/DMCA for fair use by ordinary folks of their CDs, >books, DVDs, etc)? http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/dmca_flyer.pdf This is only about the DMCA, but is a good start. Sorry I'm very busy today and don't have time to write anything about EUCD. cheers dan From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 15:03:19 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 15:03:19 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? On Friday 10 August 2001 2:13 pm, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > A. Meeting tomorrow to plan > > B. Leafletting in Picadilly and Charing as prev. discussed. > > My sister is getting married tomorrow, and so my weekend is going > to be spent on family duties. > > So Jason if you want to do some leafletting tomorrow, do you want > to organise it. I suggest meeting outside Waterstones at Picadilly > at noon, (as the actual Picadilly circus is always rediculously > busy.) I can be there, tomorrow, Noon. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From jtjm at xenoclast.org Fri, 10 Aug 2001 15:13:00 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 15:13:00 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > My own vote is for A. Looks like I'm going to be tied up most of the day > with work, but if B or C are more popular I should be able to trot off > copies of the some of the existing flyers. Not an expert on London > pubs/meeting places so can't suggest anything useful there. Just realised this is potentially confusing - What I meant was: My preference is for A. If B is more popular I can bring along some flyers, but am busy /today/, so won't have time for making up placards or the like. I'm free tomorrow, and will be wherever we decide to meet, whether its to discuss plans or distribute leaflets. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Fri, 10 Aug 2001 16:24:58 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 16:24:58 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Andrew Clark wrote: > [Offer of help with website] > Anyway, the offer's there if you're looking for someone to do the > pages, and I should be able to find hosting for them also. Let me know > if you want more details, sites or whatever. > This could well be useful - I could definitely do with a hand maintaining the website, provided you promise to check your pages on older and non IE browsers ;-) Have you seen what tweakhtml.com looks like on Netscape 4.77 or less on Linux? Don't yet need hosting space- the website and mailing list are run off a co-located box that a group of us share. > > The company I work for is fairly small, and although I can't garuantee > anything, I may be able to persuade my boss to allow our company to be > referenced as a company which is against the EUCD / DMCA - as I say, I > can't guarantee this, though. Definitely worth a try, one of things I would like to discuss when we hold our first planning meeting is how we encourage businesses to give us or (perhaps more likely) the FIPR their public support. > > Alternatively/in addition to this, part of our organisation is an > Internet cafe, and if we can get some fliers made and I can get hold > of some, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be able to put some in > the cafe for customers to take away. Great idea! We should do this in as many internet cafes as possible, since there's a fairly high probabilty that the denizens will be interested in copyright issues. > I would definately be interested in getting involved with protests. I > was following the Sklyarov situation prior to the protest at the > American Embassy, but I didn't realise that there were any UK protests > until I saw the details on NewsNight. If I'd known in advance, I would > have tried to come along, and now I do know I'd be very interested in > joining any further protests. Marvellous stuff. > > For what it's worth, if I hadn't seen NewsNight, I still wouldn't know > about the UK action even now, and I think there may still be a large > number of people who are already concerned about these issues and who > would be more than happy to help out if they were only aware of local > (i.e. UK) groups. With that in mind, I would say that the most > important thing is to let people know that there is action being taken > in the UK, and we'll hopefully gather people who are already > interested fairly easily. Well said, that man. Can you make it along tomorrow? Apologies for the delay in replying to this one, marked down to come back to and have ended up running round like a blue arse fly all week. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From sklyarov at dairylogic.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 17:12:38 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 17:12:38 +0100 From: Andrew Clark sklyarov at dairylogic.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail --+ZmrHH5cGjskQnY1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Aug 10, 2001 at 04:24:58PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Andrew Clark wrote: >=20 > > [Offer of help with website] > > Anyway, the offer's there if you're looking for someone to do the > > pages, and I should be able to find hosting for them also. Let me know > > if you want more details, sites or whatever. > > >=20 > This could well be useful - I could definitely do with a hand maintaining > the website, provided you promise to check your pages on older and non IE > browsers ;-) Have you seen what tweakhtml.com looks like on Netscape 4.77 > or less on Linux? >=20 Regarding checking them in non-IE browsers, that's pretty much all I do (I = use Mozilla / Galeon). The reason it looks so bad in Netscape 4.x is that I= stick to CSS/HTML standards which kind of kicks Netscape 4 in the teeth (t= he CSS support is dire). Generally speaking, if I create personal sites, I'll ignore browsers and st= ick to the standards, the reason being that I hope that using the standards= makes the site as accessible as possible. As a result the sites are usable= in (hopefully) any browser, but don't necessarily look very nice (e.g. www= .tweakhtml.com in Netscape 4). When I do sites for work, I do indeed check = the sites in as many browsers as I can. If I use XHTML 1.0 Transitional, I can get the site looking fine in Netscap= e 4 and still be valid HTML (I normally use XHTML 1.0 Strict, which is the = Netscape-killer). But at the end of the day, I'll do the site however peopl= e want. > Don't yet need hosting space- the website and mailing list are run off a > co-located box that a group of us share. >=20 No problem. The offers open anyway, if anything changes. > > > > The company I work for is fairly small, and although I can't garuantee > > anything, I may be able to persuade my boss to allow our company to be > > referenced as a company which is against the EUCD / DMCA - as I say, I > > can't guarantee this, though. >=20 > Definitely worth a try, one of things I would like to discuss when we > hold our first planning meeting is how we encourage businesses to give us > or (perhaps more likely) the FIPR their public support. >=20 It's just occured to me that perhaps the companies which are unwilling to l= end support are the ones who's support would be most beneficial. For exampl= e, if we were able to gain support of some highstreet CD/video stores, it w= ould demonstrate that even companies who you would expect to be pro-EUCD ar= e against it. Of course, persuading some is another issue altogether, and p= robably not possible. Perhaps an argument like 'Publically denouncing the E= UCD makes it clear that you care about your customers'. Anyway, just a thought, and probably obvious anyway, but I thought it was w= orth mentioning. > > > > Alternatively/in addition to this, part of our organisation is an > > Internet cafe, and if we can get some fliers made and I can get hold > > of some, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be able to put some in > > the cafe for customers to take away. >=20 > Great idea! We should do this in as many internet cafes as possible, > since there's a fairly high probabilty that the denizens will be > interested in copyright issues. >=20 Libraries may also be an idea if they're willing (which I'm guessing is fai= rly likely) - anyone who uses libraries is going to be concerned by the con= cept of pay-per-read. Plus libraries are fairly neutral (as opposed to, for= example, a music shop who obviously will support anything which increases = sales). >=20 > > > > For what it's worth, if I hadn't seen NewsNight, I still wouldn't know > > about the UK action even now, and I think there may still be a large > > number of people who are already concerned about these issues and who > > would be more than happy to help out if they were only aware of local > > (i.e. UK) groups. With that in mind, I would say that the most > > important thing is to let people know that there is action being taken > > in the UK, and we'll hopefully gather people who are already > > interested fairly easily. >=20 > Well said, that man. Can you make it along tomorrow? >=20 > Apologies for the delay in replying to this one, marked down to come back > to and have ended up running round like a blue arse fly all week. >=20 NP. I'll try my best to be there - I have nothing else planned so unless so= mething unforseen happens, I'll do my best to be there. I live in Uxbridge = (NW London), so certainly anywhere in central London is easy for me. If any= where else, I'll sort something out. Cheers, Andy. -- Too many cooks spoil the broth. Just one or two and a pinch of salt should = do the trick. PGP Key: http://www.metronet.co.uk/andrew.pub.asc --+ZmrHH5cGjskQnY1 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7dAf1vtVHkiDDV8cRAmB6AJ901zh/Qd79gV7ki+itQjX/IcKTuACeKZpo HVZ1C3F040EACTJTpc4BuqU= =wn4a -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --+ZmrHH5cGjskQnY1-- From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 18:06:08 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 18:06:08 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail --lrZ03NoBR/3+SXJZ Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Andrew Clark wrote: > On Fri, Aug 10, 2001 at 04:24:58PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > Definitely worth a try, one of things I would like to discuss when we > > hold our first planning meeting is how we encourage businesses to give us > > or (perhaps more likely) the FIPR their public support. > > It's just occured to me that perhaps the companies which are unwilling to > lend support are the ones who's support would be most beneficial. For > example, if we were able to gain support of some highstreet CD/video > stores, it would demonstrate that even companies who you would expect to > be pro-EUCD are against it. Of course, persuading some is another issue > altogether, and probably not possible. Perhaps an argument like > 'Publically denouncing the EUCD makes it clear that you care about your > customers'. Weak, I think. Ultimately it comes down to sales. If EUCD makes things more difficult for consumers (incompatible formats, higher-priced players, and general inconvenience) it will reduce sales (maybe). Consumer electronics shops (Dixons, etc.) that sell MP3 players and broadband internet companies (I saw a broadband ad today blatantly advertising being able to download Madonna as a sales pitch) are perhaps easier targets. theo --lrZ03NoBR/3+SXJZ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO3QUf0V+lYNqtIdrEQKsBwCgogUN2+zTCG58VTlwpqEcEnyoXz0An2m0 V68N7mgZlzdKNHZIkI208ajs =iIRf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --lrZ03NoBR/3+SXJZ-- From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Fri, 10 Aug 2001 18:06:17 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 18:06:17 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Andrew Clark wrote: > Regarding checking them in non-IE browsers, that's pretty much all I > do (I use Mozilla / Galeon). The reason it looks so bad in Netscape > 4.x is that I stick to CSS/HTML standards which kind of kicks Netscape > 4 in the teeth (the CSS support is dire). > > Generally speaking, if I create personal sites, I'll ignore browsers > and stick to the standards, the reason being that I hope that using > the standards makes the site as accessible as possible. As a result > the sites are usable in (hopefully) any browser, but don't necessarily > look very nice (e.g. www.tweakhtml.com in Netscape 4). When I do sites > for work, I do indeed check the sites in as many browsers as I can. > > If I use XHTML 1.0 Transitional, I can get the site looking fine in > Netscape 4 and still be valid HTML (I normally use XHTML 1.0 Strict, > which is the Netscape-killer). But at the end of the day, I'll do the > site however people want. Emerges wounded from trenches waving white flag It's quite clear you know a fair sight more about the intricacies of HTML, CSS and friends than I do. Would be very good indeed to have your help. > > Don't yet need hosting space- the website and mailing list are run off a > > co-located box that a group of us share. > > > > No problem. The offers open anyway, if anything changes. Could be useful to have it in reserve in case of a Slashdotting or similar. The Register effect was noticeable but the box coped without any difficulty- it's only a Pentium 90 though, and probably wouldn't withstand a slashdotting. Since the freesklyarov site went up, average weekly traffic has gone up from 100MB to around 700MB. If anyone's interested, I'll open up the stats pages. > It's just occured to me that perhaps the companies which are unwilling > to lend support are the ones who's support would be most beneficial. > For example, if we were able to gain support of some highstreet > CD/video stores, it would demonstrate that even companies who you > would expect to be pro-EUCD are against it. Of course, persuading some > is another issue altogether, and probably not possible. Perhaps an > argument like 'Publically denouncing the EUCD makes it clear that you > care about your customers'. The secondhand music/book shops and smaller privately owned ones are probably a good bet. It seems that American publishers and music retailers would really like to kill off the secondhand market altogether. The DMCA potentially gives them the ability to do this legally - the EUCD might do the same thing here. > Anyway, just a thought, and probably obvious anyway, but I thought it > was worth mentioning. Never much harm in mentioning things that seem obvious to you. It's surprising how often they're far from obvious to others. No-one else had suggested it before you did, and I'd actually assumed that the last place we might go looking for support would be music retailers. > Libraries may also be an idea if they're willing (which I'm guessing > is fairly likely) - anyone who uses libraries is going to be concerned > by the concept of pay-per-read. Plus libraries are fairly neutral (as > opposed to, for example, a music shop who obviously will support > anything which increases sales). Agreed. > > NP. I'll try my best to be there - I have nothing else planned so > unless something unforseen happens, I'll do my best to be there. I > live in Uxbridge (NW London), so certainly anywhere in central London > is easy for me. If anywhere else, I'll sort something out. Unless a few more replies come in soon, it looks like there won't be more than four or five of us, in which case it probably will be best to use the time usefully in a brainstorming session to work out: a) how to recruit more support b) how to raise public awareness of the issues - Dmitry, DMCA, EUCD (and deciding on priorities). And decide how we can make best use of the website and mailing list itself to achieve these (plus anything else that people think we need to sort out). Jason, what are your thoughts? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 20:32:26 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 20:32:26 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Friday 10 August 2001 4:24 pm, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Well said, that man. Can you make it along tomorrow? I don't know about Andy, but I can be there (I assume the rendezvous is outside Waterstones near Piccadilly Circus (1/2way between there and Green Park tube) at noon tomorrow -- can you confirm). It's useful to have people's phone numbers to meet up -- my mobile is 07720 644417. I missed the protest outside the US embassy unfortunately; I only arrived back from Spain the previous day any didn't hear about it in time. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:06:39 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:06:39 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Friday 10 August 2001 6:06 pm, Theodore Hong wrote: > > It's just occured to me that perhaps the companies which are > > unwilling to lend support are the ones who's support would be > > most beneficial. For example, if we were able to gain support of > > some highstreet CD/video stores, it would demonstrate that even > > companies who you would expect to be pro-EUCD are against it. Of > > course, persuading some is another issue altogether, and probably > > not possible. Perhaps an argument like 'Publically denouncing the > > EUCD makes it clear that you care about your customers'. > > Weak, I think. Ultimately it comes down to sales. If EUCD makes > things more difficult for consumers (incompatible formats, > higher-priced players, and general inconvenience) it will reduce > sales (maybe). > > Consumer electronics shops (Dixons, etc.) that sell MP3 players and > broadband internet companies (I saw a broadband ad today blatantly > advertising being able to download Madonna as a sales pitch) are > perhaps easier targets. This is true. Basically a company will be for or against the EUCD depending on how it affects their profits. Content corporations such asd the music and film industries, will favour it. Companies like Dixons or Tandy should be against it, as it will make electronic equipmentr less useful, which will negatively affect their profits. Computer manufacturers, and manufacturers of PDAs/MP=A3 players should also be against it, for the same reason. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From jason at uklinux.net Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:04:01 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:04:01 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, phil hunt wrote: > This is true. Basically a company will be for or against the EUCD > depending on how it affects their profits. Content corporations > such asd the music and film industries, will favour it. Companies > like Dixons or Tandy should be against it, as it will make electronic > equipmentr less useful, which will negatively affect their profits. Not true. They will be looking at it on the basis of being able to sell more equipment as only a limited subset of equipment will work so they can ditch the cheaper kit and charge more for the Sony/Toshiba/etc kit. Jason From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:16:52 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:16:52 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Friday 10 August 2001 5:12 pm, Andrew Clark wrote: > > Regarding checking them in non-IE browsers, that's pretty much all > I do (I use Mozilla / Galeon). The reason it looks so bad in > Netscape 4.x is that I stick to CSS/HTML standards which kind of > kicks Netscape 4 in the teeth (the CSS support is dire). In konqueror, the web pages come out OK, but I cannot read some of the PDF files. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:18:31 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:18:31 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Friday 10 August 2001 9:04 pm, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, phil hunt wrote: > > This is true. Basically a company will be for or against the EUCD > > depending on how it affects their profits. Content corporations > > such asd the music and film industries, will favour it. Companies > > like Dixons or Tandy should be against it, as it will make > > electronic equipmentr less useful, which will negatively affect > > their profits. > > Not true. They will be looking at it on the basis of being able to > sell more equipment as only a limited subset of equipment will work > so they can ditch the cheaper kit and charge more for the > Sony/Toshiba/etc kit. That's a point. The bastards will want us all to buy separate CD players, MP3 players, DVD players, PDAs, computers, etc. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From jason at uklinux.net Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:12:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:12:38 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Now that Dmitry is out on bail, and we have a little breathing space, I'm > wondering if it might not be a better idea to meet tomorrow to come up > with a decent strategy for future actions (we'll be much more effective if > we have a co-ordinated campaign than if we merely decide two or three days > before an event that it's about time 'we did something'). I think this would be a "best" use of tomorrows time. Realistically we are very poorly prepared for worthwhile campaigning tomorrow. We don't have relevant leaflets (leaflets about US laws wont be interesting to UK buyers of CDs and books) and we really need to be more sure of our approach to this target group. > 2. Campaign against the EUCD - how, where, with what, what goals, etc. This is, IMNSHO, the big issue at the moment. > 3. Relationship with FIPR - how to make best use of it. I'm waiting for > Caspar Bowden to get back to me with details of the volunteer positions > they are looking to fill- I'll chase him up and hope to have those details > before tomorrow. The FIPR is potentially one of the most useful weapons we > have up our sleeves. We need to be fairly sure among ourselves of not only what we get from such a relationship but exactly what we bring to it as well. > 4. Flyers, Website(s), etc. Could definitely do with a hand keeping on > top of website updates, need to find time to write a few perl scripts to > automate stuff (promised a long while ago to set up a UK online petition, > but regretably haven't yet had the time to do so). I can help with some of these things. > 5. Do we want to have some relatively well defined positions (Webmaster, > protest organisers, leaflet authors, press liaison, etc) or continue with > the relative anarchic organisation we have at present? We need a somewhat more organised approach in my view so that there are defined points of contact. That does not mean certainly people having control simply that we needs points of minimum responsibility. > I think we can cover all this much more effectively if we get together and > meet in person than we can on the mailing list. Absolutely. I think tomorrow we'd be better off to sit down over coffee/whatever and talk all of this over with a view to reaching agreement over the above. I don't think the discussion should necessarily start over beer so I was careful not to say that - discussions that start over beer tend to fade into happy ambiguity too quickly. Jason From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:37:09 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:37:09 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail On Friday 10 August 2001 6:06 pm, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > Unless a few more replies come in soon, it looks like there won't > be more than four or five of us, in which case it probably will be > best to use the time usefully in a brainstorming session to work > out: > > a) how to recruit more support > > b) how to raise public awareness of the issues - Dmitry, DMCA, EUCD > (and deciding on priorities). Has anyone read _Rules for Radicals_ by Saul Alinsky? It's about how to organise protests. The chapter on tactics is useful. Some things he says: * Ridicule is the most potent weapon so for example, we could make use of the fact that Adobe had a guy jailed for helping blind people to read books * a good tactic is one your people enjoy Someone suggested a meeting that adjourns to a pub event * pick the target, freeze it, personalise it, and polarise it So e.g. it'd be better to boycott one of the DVD or CD manufacturers than all of them. Also -- go for personalities, that way the press will be more involved than a story purely about "issues". Another useful book is Robert Cialdini's _Influence: Science and practise_ which is about, er, how to influence people. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:41:48 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:41:48 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What are the arrangements for tomorrow? On Friday 10 August 2001 9:12 pm, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > Now that Dmitry is out on bail, and we have a little breathing > > space, I'm wondering if it might not be a better idea to meet > > tomorrow to come up with a decent strategy for future actions > > (we'll be much more effective if we have a co-ordinated campaign > > than if we merely decide two or three days before an event that > > it's about time 'we did something'). > > I think this would be a "best" use of tomorrows time. Realistically > we are very poorly prepared for worthwhile campaigning tomorrow. We > don't have relevant leaflets (leaflets about US laws wont be > interesting to UK buyers of CDs and books) and we really need to be > more sure of our approach to this target group. This sounds sensible. Best to get good, explanative leaflets, that explain threats *to the target group* in terms that they will understand and care about. > > 2. Campaign against the EUCD - how, where, with what, what goals, > > etc. > > This is, IMNSHO, the big issue at the moment. Yep. If the parliamentary legislation for this doesn't put in all the exemptions, I think this could be a very unpopular (as well as freedom-destroying) law. > > I think we can cover all this much more effectively if we get > > together and meet in person than we can on the mailing list. > > Absolutely. I think tomorrow we'd be better off to sit down over > coffee/whatever and talk all of this over with a view to reaching > agreement over the above. I will bring along _Rules for Radicals_ and _Influence: Science and Practise_ if anyone would like to read them? > I don't think the discussion should necessarily start over beer so > I was careful not to say that - discussions that start over beer > tend to fade into happy ambiguity too quickly. Good point. BTW, can I have confirmation when and where we are meeting? --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:37:44 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 21:37:44 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail --IJpNTDwzlM2Ie8A6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable phil hunt wrote: > On Friday 10 August 2001 9:04 pm, Jason Clifford wrote: > > On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, phil hunt wrote: > > > This is true. Basically a company will be for or against the EUCD > > > depending on how it affects their profits. Content corporations > > > such asd the music and film industries, will favour it. Companies > > > like Dixons or Tandy should be against it, as it will make > > > electronic equipmentr less useful, which will negatively affect > > > their profits. > > > > Not true. They will be looking at it on the basis of being able to > > sell more equipment as only a limited subset of equipment will work > > so they can ditch the cheaper kit and charge more for the > > Sony/Toshiba/etc kit. >=20 > That's a point. The bastards will want us all to buy separate CD > players, MP3 players, DVD players, PDAs, computers, etc. Price is not everything -- you are forgetting about volume. Revenue =3D price x volume. When prices go up, consumers are not necessarily forced to fork out more money; they can (and do) skip the purchase altogether, particularly for inessential items like electronics. Retailers and manufacturers want prices to go down. They generally make more money out of selling lots of cheap items rather than a small number of expensive items. Just look at the growth of the DVD player market as prices have come down. If you can put a 50 pound DVD player in every home that has a TV, you'll make a lot more money than selling a 200 pound DVD player to a handful of yuppie professionals. Second, it's not just a case of limited subsets of equipment working -- some categories of equipment will largely cease to have mass market appeal altogether, e.g. MP3 players, plus accessories like memory sticks, blank CD's and DVD's, etc. Finally, the ability to decode MP3's at higher bit rates is reportedly one of the few things driving sales of faster computer chips as consumers start to realize that they really don't have much practical need for 1 GHz processors to play Minesweeper. theo --IJpNTDwzlM2Ie8A6 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO3RGF0V+lYNqtIdrEQJ1MACgwf9l4ngOmOMtBs2z/pKUGjCbD3IAnjg2 GoAIyV2di/te4YQnw5m5dqg6 =/bNs -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --IJpNTDwzlM2Ie8A6-- From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 10 Aug 2001 22:23:29 +0100 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 22:23:29 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What is the time and place of the meeting tomorrow? What is the time and place of the meeting tomorrow? (saturday) I cannot go to it, if I don't know where it is. --=20 #=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Philip Hunt =3D=3D philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk =3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D# Herbivore: effort-free public key email encryption. See: *** herbrip software now released *** =20 From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Sat, 11 Aug 2001 01:47:14 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 01:47:14 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Meeting 1200 (Noon) at Oxford Circus, Saturday 11 August We will be meeting at noon on Saturday 11 (today), outside Oxford Circus tube station, on the corner of Regent Street and Oxford street- where the arrow is pointing on this map: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?grid2map?x=529250&y=181250&zoom=1&isp=187&ism=500&arrow=y?21,106 At 1210 we'll head off to the cafe in Borders on Oxford Street for the meeting proper. The aim of the meeting is to hold a brainstorming session to develop plans for future action. We'll be using the ideas floated on the list yesterday as a rough agenda. All are welcome, bring ideas, and some money for a coffee or two. We may well proceed to a pub later in the afternoon once the main business is out of the way. Those of you at the protest last week will probably recognise me or Jason. I still look approximately like this: http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/kozak/aDSCF0077.JPG (The fat bloke in sunglasses smoking in the foreground.) If you can't find us or arrive a bit late, just give me a ring on 07713 166000. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From hewligan at freshfiltered.com Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:45:59 +0100 Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:45:59 +0100 From: Hewligan hewligan at freshfiltered.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Meetings - a hint for future I wanted to come along to the meet on Saturday (the discussion at Borders), but I receive the digest and did not get the message until I woke up on Saturday morning (meaning about 11:30am). The digest containing the meet information did not get sent until 6:27am on Saturday morning. That does not leave us digest readers with much time to read and act on the messages. I would suggest in future that you organise meeting a little more in advance (36 hours would be fine) so that digest readers get the info on time. Also, since I missed it will you be posting a brief overview of what was decided? Thanks, and regards, Hewligan. My Site: www.FRESHfiltered.com My Blog: www.FRESHfiltered.com/BrainMess From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Sat, 11 Aug 2001 19:41:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 19:41:38 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Meetings - a hint for future On Sat, 11 Aug 2001, Hewligan wrote: > I wanted to come along to the meet on Saturday (the discussion at > Borders), but I receive the digest and did not get the message until I > woke up on Saturday morning (meaning about 11:30am). The digest > containing the meet information did not get sent until 6:27am on > Saturday morning. That does not leave us digest readers with much time > to read and act on the messages. I would suggest in future that you > organise meeting a little more in advance (36 hours would be fine) so > that digest readers get the info on time. Apologies for this - ordinarily we would have done- as you may have noticed from this weeks postings, it really wasn't clear until late on Friday what (if anything) was going to happen on Saturday. I could have declared "we will do X on Saturday at such a time" on Thursday, but to do that without getting people's ideas and opinions first would have risked putting a whole load of people's backs up, which was not something I felt it was sensible to do, especially this early in the 'organisation's existence. > Also, since I missed it will you be posting a brief overview of what was > decided? The meeting would be almost entirely pointless if we didn't ;-) Thankfully, this isn't some company with paid employees under contract, so there's no board of directors that has secret meetings and drip-feeds info to the employees on a strictly need-to-know basis. We're basically another open-source project with the emphasis on activism (of various sorts) rather than coding. No one is obliged to do anything they don't want to, there's no chain of command or definite leader, so the only sensible way to proceed is to be as open about everything as possible. A summary of the meeting will follow later today. One of the things we discussed was the best way to organise the organisation - more about that in the summary, suffice it to say for now that an open source model seems likely to work best- which necessarily implies that it is important that little or nothing should stand in the way of anyone being able to contribute whatever they want to at any particular time (this of course includes trying to avoid announcing meetings so late that few people have enough notice to be able to turn up). Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From eddy at chaos.org.uk Sat, 11 Aug 2001 17:09:54 +0100 Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 17:09:54 +0100 From: Edward Welbourne eddy at chaos.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: DMCA, &c. > Retailers and manufacturers want prices to go down. They generally > make more money out of selling lots of cheap items rather than a small > number of expensive items. Just look at the growth of the DVD player > market as prices have come down. or, indeed, the growth in personal computer sales ... Like consumers, Dixons must love Moore's law. Another point worth making to consumers: do you want all your home entertainment devices to interoperate ? Bung a DVD in your tele and be able to get the speakers in the kitchen to relay the music to whoever's cooking tonight; and how about piping it to the bath-room while you're having a soak ? Access restrictions (touted as `copy protection', but since they don't prevent copying and do restrict access, I'll call them what they are) are non-open data formats - i.e., we can reliably expect them to lead to a fragmented market where your Sony hi-fi, your M$ musicBox and your BSkyB home entertainment station don't talk to each other (or, rather, they do - on paper - but the bugs in the M$ one and the wilful `extensions' to the `talk to each other' standard ensure that one doesn't get optimal results unless one goes to the same provider for all services ...) as fluidly as they could. Why can consumers expect that ? Each manufacturer of equipment would, naturally, like you to buy *all* your home entertainment equipment from them; and they can (as M$ have demonstrated over and over again) leverage their strength in one sector of the market, via inept interoperation with products competing with theirs, to gain control in other sectors. The thing which stops them doing this at present is the presence of open standards for music formats: it is blatantly in the interests of publishers to be able to sell to all customers, not just the ones who have a particular make of player; so they've published music in straightforward formats which leave player manufacturers no room for wilful incompatibility. Access restrictions tie the publisher and the player manufacturers together; the latter then has the excuse of making copying difficult as a basis for introducing clever features (a.k.a. incompatibilities, though never marketed as such). The interesting thing, indeed, is that the publishers have been fooled into liking access restrictions. Adobe and M$ are really software houses, so naturally *they*'re happy to publish books in a format which only their software can read: but the orthodox music industry is an owner of copyright in music, not software (though I dare say some `consolidation' has been happening), so should still be interested in having open data format standards (since their publishing costs will be lower the fewer formats they need to support, while their revenues will be higher the more customers there are whose equipment reads the formats they do support). I can only suppose they've swallowed the lie that the access restrictions prevent copying. I think debunking that lie has to be a major part of any campaign against the DMCA/EUCD and similar extensions of copyright. The access restrictions being touted as `copy protection' don't, and can't, prevent anyone from doing a byte-for-byte copy of a CD; indeed, such copying is a big black market activity. So they don't protect the publication from copying. All they do is restrict how useful the publication is to someone in posession (lawful or otherwise) of it: indeed, there is a glorious irony in the fact that they prevent one from copying a small chunk of the text (for fair use) while totally failing to prevent wholesale copying. Printing a book in mirror writing doesn't make it harder to copy: only harder to read. Further thoughts will land at http://www.chaos.org.uk/~eddy/politics/spell.html and places linked therefrom, once I get round to uploading my website again ... Eddy. -- In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" From eddy at chaos.org.uk Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:07:45 +0100 Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:07:45 +0100 From: Edward Welbourne eddy at chaos.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples > The question I always like to ask is: "do authors have a moral right > to the increased profits from restricted playability of recorded > media?" and where, I might ask, did you get the naive idea that the *author* sees any of those profits ? Copyright servers publishers. Eddy. From jon at snowdrift.org Sun, 12 Aug 2001 16:28:54 +0100 Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 16:28:54 +0100 From: Jonathan Peterson jon at snowdrift.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples At 11:07 11/08/01 +0100, you wrote: > > The question I always like to ask is: "do authors have a moral right > > to the increased profits from restricted playability of recorded > > media?" > >and where, I might ask, did you get the naive idea that the *author* >sees any of those profits ? Copyright servers publishers. Copyright serves the copyright holders. That authors often (not always) choose to give it up to publishers in return for the work that publishers do is their affair. Many have said that digital distribution will free authors from the need to pay for publishing in advance with their copyright. This is debatable, as marketing and editing account for rather more of publishing costs (AFAIK) than printing and distributing, which is actually pretty cheap. In any case, digital distribution certainly won't free authors from this if copyright is impossible - an author is better off selling their rights for some cash and a few royalties than simply surrendering them altogether in exchange for access to an unproven distribution channel (i.e. ebooks or whatever). I would keep moral rights out of the argument. Simply ask "How much would you pay for a CD that you could only play on one CD player and that was uncopiable?" and point out how soon, that might be the only kind you can buy. From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Sun, 12 Aug 2001 17:23:55 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 17:23:55 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples On Sat, 11 Aug 2001, Edward Welbourne wrote: > > The question I always like to ask is: "do authors have a moral right > > to the increased profits from restricted playability of recorded > > media?" > > and where, I might ask, did you get the naive idea that the *author* > sees any of those profits ? Copyright servers publishers. It's the publishers, not me, who say this (justifying their alleged excesses by appeals to the "moral rights"[*] of authors). I am voicing a question I'd love to see put to them in rebuttal, if we ever get another Newsnight-style debate on the topic. Mk [*] I use this term in the legal sense From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Sun, 12 Aug 2001 17:24:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 17:24:44 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples On Fri, 10 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > The question I always like to ask is: "do authors have a moral right to > > the increased profits from restricted playability of recorded media?" > > Martin, without meaning to be too rude, that sounds more like a topic for > a Social and Political Science essay; I suspect that your average punter > is unlikely to respond with much more than "come again?". I wasn't suggesting asking this of random punters in the street. That's a different thread! :) Mk From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Sun, 12 Aug 2001 19:48:35 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 19:48:35 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] two interesting URLs http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/14179.html http://195.200.1.250:8080/ramgen/arts/010405/james_boyle.rm Mk From jtjm at xenoclast.org Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:27:27 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:27:27 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Yesterday's Meeting -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Present: Andrew Clark Jason Clifford Phil Hunt Martin Keegan Julian Midgley At the meeting we essentially tried to answer the questions below (although without ever explicitly asking them- the discussion we had just happens to break down quite nicely into answers to the questions. I've also included ideas that have been suggested on the list). What do we want to do? - ---------------------- Take action to: (1) Have the charges against Dmitry Sklyarov dropped. (2) Demonstrate to the Americans that the DMCA is opposed not only in the USA, but also in the UK, since it can clearly affect programmers and researchers who might visit the USA. (3) Gather support by raising awareness in the UK of the issues surrounding the EUCD and the DMCA, and of the stifling effects they can have on: a. Consumers' rights to fair use, b. Research, c. Software development. (4) Prevent the EUCD being enacted in a form in which it can be abused as the DMCA has been in the States. (5) Ideally (this is likely to prove very difficult) have the EUCD revised to minimise the effects of the anti-circumvention clauses circumvention of on otherwise legitimate activities (eg. a., b., and c. above). (6) Prepare for the possibility that Dmitry is found guilty, and be in a position to mount massive protests (not 30-40 people, but 1000+) should this happen. Why do we want to do this? - -------------------------- This wasn't much discussed, it was pretty much taken as axiomatic that we believe that the anti-circumvention clauses of the WIPO treaty, and more particularly their interpretation in the forms of the DMCA and EUCD, are a threat to free speech, security research, consumer rights and software development. There's no doubt at all that we believe that Dmitry Sklyarov should not be made a test case for an ill-thought-out law , and should be allowed to return to his family immediately. How do we want to do this? - -------------------------- Above all: Peacefully and law-abidingly! We agreed that with Dmitry released on bail awaiting trial, the most effective action we can take in the UK is to concentrate on (3) initially- not least since it's absolutely critical to achieving the other goals. Suggestions for gather support and raising awareness include: (some from today's meeting, some from the list) * Leafletting: Actively: - Outside bookshops, libraries, music shops - In universities - Outside the Houses of Parliament Passively (through leaflets left in): - Internet Cafes - Libraries - Second hand music/book shops * Obtaining the support of interested groups/organisations (by approaching them and discussing the implications for their members): - Royal National Institute for the Blind - Librarians (the appropriate group yet to be identified) - Computing User Groups (esp. open source/Linux) - IEEE, IEE, et al. - Academia * Fund raising in support of organisations fighting with us. (Suggestions include conferences for academics/industry with guest speakers discussing the issues). * Provoking media discussion about the DMCA, EUCD, copyright protection mechanisms, through press releases co-ordinated with visible action (like the US Embassy Protest last week). * Importantly, whilst Dmitry is awaiting trial, we should not let the USA think we've forgotten him. Holding vigils/rallies in Grosvenor Square would be an effective way to do this. Where do we want do this? - ------------------------- * Initially, in London and Edinburgh * As support grows- across the UK * Eventually, across Europe. The EU member states have already to implement the EUCD via their national legislatures. Whereas they have some leeway in how they undertake implementation, this may not extend to omitting or significantly watering-down the anti-circumvention provisions. However, if there is significant opposition to these provisions across Europe, it may be possible to force a revision of the EUCD itself (realistically, this may prove to be very hard indeed). Who needs to be involved for it to be a success? - ------------------------------------------------ The lobby on the other side of this debate (the recording industries, publishers, etc) is large, extremely well funded, and very powerful. Fortunately, the anti-circumvention provisions don't just inconvenience academic researchers and programmers, but also just about anyone who reads, listens to music, or watches films. Potentially, therefore, we have a very large body of supporters; by making them aware of the issues we can expect that many will join our cause. There's no doubt that we will needed significant support in order to achieve our goals. In addition to this 'grassroots' support, we can magnify our message significantly by forging alliances with other organisations, especially professional institutes and the like. In fighting to have the EUCD revised before enactment, the Members of Parliament must be the ultimate target of our efforts. We must ensure that they are informed of the issues, and convert as many as possible to our cause. We can do this both directly, by writing to them and by protesting outside the Houses of Parliament, and indirectly, by ensuring that the issues are covered in the media to the extent that the politicians cannot avoid hearing about them. When are we going to do all this? - --------------------------------- Clearly, we cannot do everything suggested above immediately - as our support and contacts grow, so will the range and scale of activities we can undertake. Our first priority must be to equip ourselves with the tools to do the job - eg. flyers targetted at the UK audience, and specific subsections thereof; updating the website with more information and resources. Once we've done this, we can begin leafletting in earnest. Simultaneously, we can try to arrange opportunities to present the issues surrounding the DMCA to interested groups (Linux user groups, student computing societies, etc.). What sort of organisation do we need to achieve this? - ----------------------------------------------------- There is a lot of work involved in achieving all this, and almost all of it will be contributed by people in their spare time. Consequently, there's little point in having a rigid hierarchy of positions; it's much more important to concentrate on the functions that will be necessary to achieve our goals. The functions identified at the meeting were: * Project co-ordination * Website design/maintenance * Protest organisation * Resource (eg. flyers, banners, website material) generation * Interested Groups liaison * Press Liaison * Legal Issues Research For each of these functions, one or two people are required to act as the primary points of contact for the function, and to co-ordinate that function's activities. For most of the functions, having at least two people will help spread the workload, and allow people to go on holiday, etc. without that function's work grinding to a halt. One of the first things we need are volunteers willing to take on the co-ordinator roles for these functions. How long have we got? - --------------------- Dmitry Sklyarov's trial isn't likely to finish before November. By then, we should aim to have sufficient supporters to be able to mount a protest at least ten times as large as our first action, if we have to. The EUCD was passed by the EU Council of Ministers in April, published in June 2001, and will be implemented within 18 months of that date in the member states. We can expect it to be enacted in the UK in 16 months time *at the very latest*. The clock has already started ticking. It's worth stressing that our goals are achievable, even with the time limits mentioned above. In a little under a week, we got together a group of 35 people to protest outside the US Embassy, and ended up on national television. There are just over two months until November, and by the end of this week we should have the minimum necessary structure in place to begin a long term campaign in earnest. By mid September, we should aim to be in a position to target universities across the country with leafletting campaigns and the like (best to wait until a week or so after Fresher's week, for obvious reasons). And that's merely the beginning... Other business discussed - ------------------------ * Mirror of the website- I don't think pling.qwghlm.org (the machine on which the website is hosted) will withstanding a slashdotting or similar (it's a Pentium 90 with relatively limited connectivity). Jason Clifford has offered to host a mirror of the website. * free-sklyarov-uk-announce: a low volume announcement list we can advertise on the website/flyers, will be set up later today. * IRC channel: Would be useful to have an IRC channel for virtual meetings. It was suggested that we schedule a regular time for this (2000 on Wednesday night?). The channel is #sklyarov-uk on us.slashnet.org. * Use of PGP/GPG for signing messages to list and especially announcements- as we get more active, it's just possible that someone opposed to our aims will attempt to disrupt us by posting messages posing as one of us. Signing important messages can help prevent this. * In light of the above, when we hold events, those with PGP keys might want to bring along fingerprints of their public keys and some means of identification so that we can sign each others keys. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iEYEARECAAYFAjt21vUACgkQMCcvLrzHhj9BgwCgk05fmh3ZEUbyUKfbcoBcjhO6 FhQAn1xMma2WFbg1fpdrxRiE3t3pbL69 =mhc5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From eddy at chaos.org.uk Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:43:28 +0100 Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:43:28 +0100 From: Edward Welbourne eddy at chaos.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] concrete examples >>> The question I always like to ask is: "do authors have a moral right Note, in passing, that the phrase `moral right' has a special meaning in copyright, at least in Europe - an author's moral rights protect against plagiarism (you have to credit the true author) and misrepresentation, such as someone publishing such a badly prepared edition of your work, or quoting so selectively from your work (or etc.) as to give the reader a false (e.g. defamatory) impression of the author's opinions, character, literacy or etc. I assume the above was using the phrase in a more colloquial sense ... >> and where, I might ask, did you get the naive idea that the *author* >> sees any of those profits ? Copyright servers publishers. > Copyright serves the copyright holders. Sort of. However: back in the days when a page was printed from a rack of lumps of lead, there was a lot of work involved in typesetting, proof-reading, re-typesetting, re-proof-reading, copy-editing, re-typesetting, re-... etc., in order to turn a (hand-written) manuscript into a printed book; but a competitor could then take the book and be saved a lot of the work (notably page-boundary resolution, paragraph/line breaking issues, etc.) the original publisher did; so the competitor could reliably undercut the original publisher on price (or do a better job for the same price); so being the first publisher of the work was rather risky. As I understand it (in the UK), authors were given (other than `moral rights' under) copyright precisely so that their deal with a publisher (and the publisher's copyright on the typesetting) would provide some guarantee of return on investment for the first publisher of a work. So, on the one hand, copyright (albeit (mostly) vested in the author) was originally formulated to address a need of publishers. On the other, publishing was expensive and, crucially, involved serious equipment costs; so publishers (who already owned the equipment - and knew the game) were in a controlling position when it came to writing the deal by which an author got a work published: they could make demands which went way beyond merely guaranteeing they recovered their investment - e.g. the right of first refusal on any later works by that author. Publishers have always been highly profitable (and authors frequently shamefully poorly rewarded) as a result. The publishing industry has functioned as a cartel, in the sense that publishers have been able to push a hard bargain because each: knows the author won't get a better deal from any other; and knows that the author will remain too poor to do anything about it until the book gets published. Even if an author knew their work was going to sell huge numbers of copies, they wouldn't make a penny out of it unless they cut a deal with a publisher, which put publishers in a position of strength, which they exploited ruthlessly. Furthermore, publishers are typically corporations, which don't die, so their copyrights (e.g. in the typesetting) don't expire (IIRC): they get a better deal out of copyright than do authors (well, their estates ...) Result: most of the fruits of copyright have always been enjoyed by publishers rather than authors, even when the author has retained the copyright. This is what I meant by `Copyright serves publishers' (albeit I mistyped it). > That authors often (not always) choose to give it up to publishers in > return for the work that publishers do is their affair. Try asking the artist formerly known as Prince how much `choice' he had when it came to signing (before he was famous, so in a good bargaining position) the deal which has now lead to him losing the right to use the stage name he made famous ... and he's just one example among many (the music industry being particularly familiar with such coercion). His choice was: remain an unheard-of nobody or become one of *our* `assets'. Imagine if slavery were legal: employers could offer recruits the choice we get to train you and exploit your labour for as long as we like you remain penniless and unemployed which they'd happily justify in terms of the need to guarantee a return on the investment in training. Once that was possible, how long do you think it would be before many large corporations made this offer the normal mode of employment, at least for `blue collar' jobs ? A deal between two parties satisfies a nice ideal of fairness, except when one of the parties is in such a stronger position as to be able to dictate terms knowing that the other party has no real choice but to accept. Publishing has illustrated this at length. Similar issues afflict patents. > marketing and editing account for rather more of publishing costs > (AFAIK) than printing and distributing, which is actually pretty > cheap. Well ... printing is cheap, but you have to have the equipment, which isn't (but at least there are independent printers (and `vanity publishers') to whom an author can turn). Distribution may be cheap, but you have to have the right connections; i.e. it's cheap for publishers, but is it for anyone else ? Publishers control distribution channels fairly well: a publisher with some very popular titles can use these to pressure retailers into stocking others of their titles and (these days, thanks to on-line catalogues) offering their whole range for sale; and `discounts' are a whole nother racket. So, while printing and distributing may account for a small proportion of *a publisher's* costs, they may still be significant costs to anyone trying to bypass the cartel (capital costs, connections and overheads are always effective `barriers to entry' to any market). The costs of editing (including typesetting, proof-reading, etc.) have come down significantly in the last century (before computer-aided typesetting, every time you tried to fix one error you presented the option of creating new ones (not just unavoidable knock-on effects of the fix, but also simple finger-goofing as, once more, every block of lead had to be put into its place) and the error-rates thereby made a big difference to the cost of publishing) but it is, indeed, still expensive (good copy editors, etc., aren't cheap to hire). [I'm always a bit skeptical about marketing and advertising. The folk who do them persuade us that they make a big difference to our sales, so we have to pay what they ask ... but I wonder whether they aren't merely very good at selling what *they* do (i.e. marketing and advertising) and have much less effect on sales of what *you* do than they make out ... especially when you're a publisher and have good distribution channels. (Unfair e.g.: imagine this year's Harry Potter were published without any attempt at marketing or advertising, beyond mentioning the book in the publisher's catalogue, as seen by book stores; how much difference would this make to the book's sales ?)] Still, as long as retailers are persuaded that marketing (beyond offering the product, nicely packaged, for sale) is necessary, the publisher is more-or-less forced to do some so that the retailer will believe they're going to make some sales, without which conviction they won't stock the work. So marketing does remain a big cost. > Simply ask "How much would you pay for a CD that you could only play > on one CD player and that was uncopiable?" and point out how soon, > that might be the only kind you can buy. Yes. Eddy. -- Remember: before the days of movable type, the owner of any book had the right to copy it and sell copies - that's *how* books got copied, and copying is how they out-lasted the physical media on which they were originally written. From danny at spesh.com Sun, 12 Aug 2001 15:21:39 -0700 Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 15:21:39 -0700 From: Danny O'Brien danny at spesh.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Yesterday's Meeting I may be able to help you with mirroring the site, if you'll put up a tar file that's accessible (or give me an account to rsync). Incidentally: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/stidorvir01001.html Most programmers dream that a program they have written will be spotted by a Silicon Valley giant, from whom they will receive an offer they cannot refuse. Not many have that dream realised by being arrested by the FBI. You'll excuse any inaccuracies I hope - my lead time for the column is three weeks, which meant I wrote this four days after Dmitry was arrested, and before any of the protests had begun. d. From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Mon, 13 Aug 2001 01:14:24 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 01:14:24 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Yesterday's Meeting On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, Danny O'Brien wrote: > I may be able to help you with mirroring the site, if you'll put up a > tar file that's accessible (or give me an account to rsync). Thanks. I've got a little work to do tidying things up- I'm going to move the site directly under uk.freesklyarov.org/, instead of being redirected into www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov (primarily so that I can keep it completely separate from my own website, and have the two in different CVS trees). Once I've done that, I'll set up rsync for the mirrors. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From phil at hands.com 13 Aug 2001 01:53:11 +0100 Date: 13 Aug 2001 01:53:11 +0100 From: Philip Hands phil at hands.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Yesterday's Meeting "Julian T. J. Midgley" writes: > * Mirror of the website- I don't think pling.qwghlm.org (the machine > on which the website is hosted) will withstanding a slashdotting or > similar (it's a Pentium 90 with relatively limited connectivity). > Jason Clifford has offered to host a mirror of the website. I can mirror for you too if it would help, on open.hands.com (which is the UK Debian mirror, and should withstand a fair load, given what counts as normal: http://www.hands.com/mrtg/open.eth0.html) Would some form of round-robin DNS between the mirrors be the best way to withstand /.ish things? BTW rsync would be my mirroring method of choice, preferably with a push-mirror being triggered via ssh from the master site --- if you need any hints on how to set that up, just ask. Cheers, Phil. -- Say no to software patents! http://petition.eurolinux.org/ Philip Hands. +44 (0)20 7744 6244 philip.hands at uk.alcove.com Alcove -- Liberating Software http://www.alcove.com/ http://www.hands.com/ phil at hands.com http://www.uk.debian.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 13 Aug 2001 13:24:27 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 13:24:27 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Next Action We should decide soon what and when our next action should be. I propose that we make a decision no later than Wednesday evening. As a first suggestion: Let's not let the Americans (or the press), think we've forgotten Sklyarov just because they've let him out on bail. The American protesters are holding a series of vigils for Sklyarov (some today, with more planned on 30 August). We could do the same, on either Friday afternoon/evening, or Saturday, in Grosvenor Square. Theme based around banners like: "Off home for the weekend? - Dmitry isn't!", "Spending quality time with the kids? Let Dmitry do the same!" Things to bring- guitars, songs, leaflets. Aim: continue to raise public awareness of Dmitry's case, and with it, the problems with some copyright laws. Demonstrate solidarity with the American protesters. We can use the existing leaflets with minor amendments (Dmitry out on bail), which means we can go ahead with this without having to produce the EUCD targetted leaflets immediately. What do you think? Discuss alternatives, time, place... I propose that a final decision is made on Wednesday night, with press-releases going out on Thursday. We've now got an IRC channel reserved: Channel: #sklyarov-uk Server: slashnet.org Port: 6667 Propose that we meet there at 2000 on Wednesday to finalise plans. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 13 Aug 2001 14:03:58 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 14:03:58 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Ballad of Dmitry Sklyarov To the tune of Greensleeves: http://csua.berkeley.edu/~alexf/sklyarov/ballad.html Sheet music and midi example also available from there. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 13 Aug 2001 19:53:53 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 19:53:53 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] free-sklyarov-uk-announce There's now an announcement only mailing list - thanks to Kieran Barry for the suggestion: free-sklyarov-uk-announce at xenoclast.org This is designed to be a low-volume list, with news and announcements about forthcoming events, IRC meets, etc. It's moderated, and won't accept discussion threads. You can subscribe to the list here: http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk-announce (watch word wrap) And archives of past announcements can be found here: http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk-announce/ Discussions, etc. will continue to take place on free-sklyarov-uk. If you want have any news items or announcements you would like posted on free-sklyarov-uk-announce, just post it to the list- it'll be held for moderation, and approved if it's on topic. Feel free to switch from free-sklyarov-uk to free-sklyarov-uk-announce if you just want to be kept up to date with what's going on, without having your mailbox filled up. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 13 Aug 2001 23:18:22 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 23:18:22 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Global IRC Summit - 0200 (BST) Wednesday 15 August There's going to be a global IRC summit on Wednesday 15 August at 0200 (BST). UK night owls and caffeine addicts very welcome ;-) Channel: #sklyarov Server: slashnet.org Details from: http://www.freesklyarov.org/calendar/index.html -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ _______________________________________________ Free-sklyarov-uk-announce mailing list Free-sklyarov-uk-announce at xenoclast.org http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk-announce From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Tue, 14 Aug 2001 00:10:48 +0100 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 00:10:48 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Next Action On Monday 13 August 2001 1:24 pm, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > We should decide soon what and when our next action should be. I > propose that we make a decision no later than Wednesday evening. > > As a first suggestion: > > Let's not let the Americans (or the press), think we've forgotten > Sklyarov just because they've let him out on bail. The American > protesters are holding a series of vigils for Sklyarov (some today, > with more planned on 30 August). > > We could do the same, on either Friday afternoon/evening, or > Saturday, in Grosvenor Square. I am free all friday, but I am not free saturday afternoon. > Theme based around banners like: > > "Off home for the weekend? - Dmitry isn't!", > "Spending quality time with the kids? Let Dmitry do the same!" > > Things to bring- guitars, songs, leaflets. Isn't there a DMCA song? > Aim: continue to raise public awareness of Dmitry's case, and with > it, the problems with some copyright laws. Demonstrate solidarity > with the American protesters. > > We can use the existing leaflets with minor amendments (Dmitry out > on bail), which means we can go ahead with this without having to > produce the EUCD targetted leaflets immediately. > > What do you think? Discuss alternatives, time, place... > > I propose that a final decision is made on Wednesday night, with > press-releases going out on Thursday. That sounds a good timescale. > We've now got an IRC channel reserved: > > Channel: #sklyarov-uk > Server: slashnet.org > Port: 6667 > > Propose that we meet there at 2000 on Wednesday to finalise plans. I will hopefully be there. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** "Welcome to 21st Century America, where the profits of the major=20 record labels, movie houses, and publishing companies are more=20 important than First Amendment rights." -- Bruce Schneier =20 From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 14 Aug 2001 01:43:37 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 01:43:37 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] NEWS: Programmer at centre of copyright clash prefers anonymity http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/sklyar081101.htm Excerpt: "Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian programmer whose arrest last month became a rallying cry for the international digerati, is a reluctant celebrity. Released on bail last week on charges of violating a controversial copyright law, the 26-year-old graduate student was taken aback to learn he had become a poster child for free speech, with a world-spanning network of supporters." -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 14 Aug 2001 12:31:22 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 12:31:22 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Stuff being done and stuff to do... Ok, looks like the website is in safe hands now - Andy Clark and Phil Hunt will be running it. Andy's going to be knocking up a shiny new, easy to navigate version, and we should have that live fairly soon. I'll try to stay on top of it in the meantime. If you want something uploaded (flyers, news, etc) to the website email: webmaster at uk.freesklyarov.org Lots of other stuff needs doing. Basically, I can set up aliases like: leaflets at uk.freesklyarov.org, usergroups at ..., legal at ..., etc. We just need a few volunteers to co-ordinate each function so people know where to go when they've got something ready. * Flyer/leaflet generation - need authors, people with DTP packages, graphic artists, etc... * Contacting the UK Linux/Computing User Groups. http://www.lug.org.uk/ has a list of the groups, and we've got several active members here. Any volunteers to co-ordinate a campaign to contact as many of the groups as possible and let them know what we're up to? * Contacting other interest groups (librarians, RNIB, teacher's groups, literacy campaigns), likewise. * Legal issues research - any lawyers here? People to check that we have interpreted the various laws correctly, etc. * Press liaison - people prepared to write effective press releases when we need them, and be contacted by the press. I'm happy to carry on doing this, but if we're going to get very active, would appreciate some help. This is not an exhaustive list. If there's something you think we should do, just shout. How you organise the different functions is up to you. Mail forwarding is trivial to set up, but I'm quite happy to set up mailing lists for key functions if you want, the IRC channel is available at any time for live discussions, etc. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From pete at flatline.org.uk Tue, 14 Aug 2001 12:46:56 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 12:46:56 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Next Action On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > We should decide soon what and when our next action should be. I propose > that we make a decision no later than Wednesday evening. That leaves us enough time to implement things before the weekend... > Aim: continue to raise public awareness of Dmitry's case, and with it, > the problems with some copyright laws. Demonstrate solidarity with the > American protesters. The cause is getting good press coverage - we need to keep it going, and for that we need new news. Demos in London are great for this because journalists don't have to travel to find them :) Another random idea: EMI and AOL have large offices fairly near one another in Hammersmith. A demo marching from one to the other? > Propose that we meet there at 2000 on Wednesday to finalise plans. I shall be there. It promises to be interesting .. Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: Philosophizer Practically and the Constructibility From pete at flatline.org.uk Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:12:31 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:12:31 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] FC: U.S. business groups back Yahoo in tussle with French court (fwd) "Countries should not be able to haul foreign Internet users into their courts simply for publishing a Web site" Yes. Now can Dmitri go home? Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: Lows Convalescent ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 10:37:32 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh To: politech at politechbot.com Cc: ari at cdt.org Subject: FC: U.S. business groups back Yahoo in tussle with French court The amicus brief: http://www.cdt.org/jurisdiction/010813yahoo.pdf Previous Politech articles: http://www.politechbot.com/p-02118.html http://www.politechbot.com/p-01602.html ******* Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 13:39:22 -0400 From: ari at cdt.org Subject: Industry Groups Rally to Oppose French Court Ruling Against Yahoo Industry Groups Rally to Oppose French Court Ruling Against Yahoo CDT Applauds Friend of the Court Filing in Yahoo v. LICRA A range of major business organizations and Internet industry associations have this week filed a brief supporting Yahoo's legal challenge to a French court ruling that raises fundamental issues of jurisdiction in cyberspace. The brief, filed last week in US District Court in California in the case of Yahoo! Inc. v. LICRA, argues that US courts may not enforce judgments of foreign courts that lack personal jurisdiction over US defendents. Under the French court's thoery of personal jurisidiction, every American company with an Internet presence would be subject to the personal jurisdiction of every foreign country in the world. Not only would such a result be inconsistent with the law, it would be devastating to the development of the Internet. Industry groups filing include the United States Chamber of Commerce, the United States Council for International Business, the Information Technology Association of America, the Online Publishers Association, the United States Information Industry Association, and the Commercial Internet eXchange. CDT, which filed an earlier friend of the court brief in April on First Amendment grounds with a broad group of publishers and nonprofit groups, applauds this industry effort. "This industry brief underscores the crippling effect that the French court ruling would have on the Internet and electronic commerce. Countries should not be able to haul foreign Internet users into their courts simply for publishing a Web site alone," said Alan Davidson, Associate Director of CDT. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for August 26. A hearing on Yahoo's motion for summary judgment is scheduled for September 24. Background of the Yahoo! v. LICRA Case Last year, a French court ruled that Yahoo in the US, by allowing its Web site to be accessed from France, ran afoul of France's law criminalizing the exhibition or sale of racist materials. The court specifically directed Yahoo to re-engineer its servers in the United States and elsewhere to enable them to recognize French Internet Protocol addresses and block their access to material that violated French hate speech laws. It also required Yahoo to ask users with "ambiguous" IP addresses to declare their nationality when they arrive at Yahoo's home page or when they initiate a search using the word "Nazi." Yahoo! has filed a lawsuit in US court asking for a declaratory judgment that the foreign verdict is unenforceable in the US. Yahoo argued that US courts should refuse to enforce the French judgment because it contravenes fundamental US policy, including, the strong protection of free speech offered by the First Amendment. Yahoo pointed out that freedom of expression is recognized not only in the United States as a fundamental constitutional right, but also under international law. CDT is following the case closely. In April, CDT filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of Yahoo, joined by the American Association of Publishers, the Freedom to Read Foundation, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, People for the American Way, the Society of Professional Journalists, and others, arguing that holding Web publishers in one country liable for simply publishing material that may be considered inappropriate when viewed by citizens of another country would chill free expression and commerce on the Internet. In June, federal court in California in June denied a motion to dismiss Yahoo's complaint. The decision opened the way for the US court to take up the merits of Yahoo's claim that the French court exceeded its jurisdiction. The US court's opinion indicated that those who seek to use the foreign courts to control US-based Web sites will face legal challenges to enforcement of those judgments. For more information, see the CDT policy post Vol. 7, No. 6 on this subject at http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_7.06.shtml. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:33:16 +0100 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:33:16 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] http://www.savetheweb.org/ Hi, Do you know who these are: http://www.savetheweb.org/ ? Shall we contact them? Or maybe someone has done this already? anton From pete at flatline.org.uk Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:45:57 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:45:57 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] http://www.savetheweb.org/ On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Do you know who these are: http://www.savetheweb.org/ ? > Shall we contact them? I notice their "The latest" pages are full of articles from 1999 .. it is still worth mailing them to find out what they are doing now and whether they are interested in the Skylarov case. Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: The Hillock Cots From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 15 Aug 2001 01:57:46 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 01:57:46 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Global IRC summit in 5 minutes Have been present during the warm up, interesting stuff being discussed, anyone still awake will probably find it worth joining. Server: slashnet.org Channels: #sklyarov, #sklyarov-discuss Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 15 Aug 2001 09:44:39 +0100 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 09:44:39 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] BBC on encripted CDs http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1489000/1489619.stm anton From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 15 Aug 2001 15:15:37 +0100 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 15:15:37 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] wired rave awards / Tech renegade http://www.subscriberdirect.com/wired/rave/ravevote.cfm According to A. Katalov, the more people will vote for Dmitry, the better will be public opinion, especially among the local SF area residents, who will finally form the jury (in case it will go that far). So, theoretically this increases Dmitry's chances to finish it soon (I guess it were the lawyers who told Alex this). Being honest I do not think that Dmitry is one of "Mavericks, geniuses, and intellectual outlaws. A person whose ideas are changing the world." Although maybe I'm wrong. Anyway I voted for him, only because I want to see him going home asap. anton From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 15 Aug 2001 16:06:45 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 16:06:45 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] wired rave awards / Tech renegade On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > According to A. Katalov, the more people will vote for Dmitry, the better > will be public opinion, especially among the local SF area residents, who > will finally form the jury (in case it will go that far). So, > theoretically this increases Dmitry's chances to finish it soon (I guess > it were the lawyers who told Alex this). Social sciences have fairly proven that people will tend to be led by obvious shows of "public opinion" so this may be of some benefit. Jason From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Wed, 15 Aug 2001 16:29:26 +0100 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 16:29:26 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] wired rave awards / Tech renegade Jason Clifford wrote: > On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > > According to A. Katalov, the more people will vote for Dmitry, the better > > will be public opinion, especially among the local SF area residents, who > > will finally form the jury (in case it will go that far). So, > > theoretically this increases Dmitry's chances to finish it soon (I guess > > it were the lawyers who told Alex this). > > Social sciences have fairly proven that people will tend to be led by > obvious shows of "public opinion" so this may be of some benefit. Maybe we could add the link to our "What's this all about" page as another pro Dmitry argument. I guess it should make an effect on new people like "look, he was even nominated for that award! So he is probably not a copyright thief.." anton From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 15 Aug 2001 17:15:28 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 17:15:28 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] wired rave awards / Tech renegade On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > Social sciences have fairly proven that people will tend to be led by > > obvious shows of "public opinion" so this may be of some benefit. > > Maybe we could add the link to our "What's this all about" page as another pro > Dmitry argument. I guess it should make an effect on new people like "look, he > was even nominated for that award! So he is probably not a copyright thief.." Indeed. When people consider that there is sufficient support for an opinion they are often more likely to adopt that opinion unless there are good reasons not to. Having "experts" support the opinion increases this effect many fold. Jason From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:59:26 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:59:26 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Agenda for tonight's IRC meeting Here's a rough agenda for tonight's IRC meeting. I'll start the meeting with a couple of quick votes, just to check that the recent quietness on the list isn't the result of a few of us pushing the campaign in directions others don't want it to go: 0. The ideas and plans presented in the summary of Saturday's meeting are basically sound? (Y/N) 1. I seem to have ended up as defacto leader. Are you happy with this (Y/N)? Then on to business: 2. Calendar: - Action this week? If so Friday or Saturday? - Make plans now for a protest on 30 August (Americans having several large protests same day). - Dates/places for leafletting campaigns. 3. Contacting other organisations - will be looking for volunteers with contacts in UKUUG, etc 4. Volunteers to produce leaflets, material for the web site. Hope to be able to get through that lot in 20 minutes or so, and then open the floor to general discussion. If you've got any questions you want answered, or think ought to be discussed, feel free to post them to the list before the meeting so that people have time to think about them first. On the off-chance that a lot of people turn up, it would be helpful to have an experienced IRC operator to look after the technical side - any volunteers? Julian Reminder: 2000 BST, #sklyarov-uk (watch spelling), slashnet.org:6667 -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 15 Aug 2001 19:13:24 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 19:13:24 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Agenda for tonight's IRC meeting On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Here's a rough agenda for tonight's IRC meeting. I'll start the meeting > with a couple of quick votes, just to check that the recent quietness on > the list isn't the result of a few of us pushing the campaign in > directions others don't want it to go: I have to go and strip paint and wall paper now so I wont be able to make it to the meeting however... > 0. The ideas and plans presented in the summary of Saturday's meeting are > basically sound? (Y/N) Y > 1. I seem to have ended up as defacto leader. Are you happy with this (Y/N)? Y > 2. Calendar: > - Action this week? If so Friday or Saturday? Saturday will always be better for me. > - Make plans now for a protest on 30 August (Americans having several > large protests same day). Seems a good idea. Global support etc. > - Dates/places for leafletting campaigns. As per my previous suggestions - sites of significant consumer action and libraries. > 4. Volunteers to produce leaflets, material for the web site. I'll hopefully be able to continue working on my content this week. I should have a basic document then. Have a good meeting folks. Jason Clifford From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 15 Aug 2001 20:16:46 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 20:16:46 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Any more takers... It's 2014, and so far we have 4, which is a start, but one or two fewer than I was hoping for. Have postponed kickoff until 2020 in case any others on their way. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From matthew.macleod at btinternet.com Wed, 15 Aug 2001 23:35:55 +0100 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 23:35:55 +0100 From: Matthew M matthew.macleod at btinternet.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Any more takers... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday 15 August 2001 8:16 pm, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: >It's 2014, and so far we have 4, which is a start, but one or two fewer >than I was hoping for. Have postponed kickoff until 2020 in case any >others on their way. Sorry for not making it, I wasn't at home, otherwise i would have been there. Next week. - - -- *matt* Thought for the minute: It's always darkest just before the lights go out. -- Alex Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7evlLzhSxTQTEoE0RAl1LAKCatZ2fq36ymHE8jCXV3MRpvO3UkACgzr7j DxNpILSWfyi/WRaWoh/11/k= =LEDx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 16 Aug 2001 01:08:00 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 01:08:00 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] IRC Log available Well, after a less than promising start, tonight's IRC meet turned out to be very productive ;-) I will post a summary once I've had time to write it, in the meantime, the unexpurgated log is available from: http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/irc_logs/sklyarov-uk_20010815.txt Advance notice: next IRC meeting, Wednesday 21 August at 2000. Feel free to use the channel in the meantime for anything you want to discuss. There's a few of us that pop in and out from time to time. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:41:27 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:41:27 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] wired rave awards / Tech renegade On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Jason Clifford wrote: > On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > > According to A. Katalov, the more people will vote for Dmitry, the better > > will be public opinion, especially among the local SF area residents, who > > will finally form the jury (in case it will go that far). So, > > theoretically this increases Dmitry's chances to finish it soon (I guess > > it were the lawyers who told Alex this). > > Social sciences have fairly proven that people will tend to be led by > obvious shows of "public opinion" so this may be of some benefit. Seems reasonable to me. Have added a link to it under the "what can I do section". -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:24:25 +0100 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:24:25 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Any more takers... Sorry guys, I was confused by your messages about IRC meeting you had at 2am on Wednesday http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-August/000338.html , so I thought I was wrong and it is over. Otherwise I would have been with you yesterday. Anyway, I've read the log and I agree with the decisions made. Being honest I stopped doing anything for a while because I was tired and haven't done any work for 3 weeks. I'm trying to become active again now but I'm not in the UK from 20 till 30 August. I think the best I can do is try to get more response from our two Universities. Good leaflet will be very helpful. As I understand Jason is preparing one. When it will be finished I'll try to distribute it somehow around the Universities. anton "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > It's 2014, and so far we have 4, which is a start, but one or two fewer > than I was hoping for. Have postponed kickoff until 2020 in case any > others on their way. > > Julian > > -- > Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org > Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F > UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 16 Aug 2001 11:04:08 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 11:04:08 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Any more takers... On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Sorry guys, I was confused by your messages about IRC meeting you had at > 2am on Wednesday > http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-August/000338.html Ah - the 2am Wednesday was a 'Global' IRC Summit organised by the American groups (there was a hint in the channel names too). Unless I say otherwise, the weekly IRC meeting will take place at 2000 on Wednesday. If something's officially announced as taking place at 0200 BST, it's likely to have been an American idea; if someone has thrown in the adjective "global" without even noticing the irony, you can practically guarantee it ;-). (I'd hoped to meet a few other Europeans there, but to be fair, it was variously 3,4 and 5am for them). I'll suggest that the next 'global' summit take place at a weekend, so it can be held at 1100 (PDT) - 1900 (BST) - 2200 (GMT+4), which at least allows most of Europe to participate without their having to roll out the intravenous caffeine. If you're in any doubt, just check the website - it will be in the calendar. > , so I thought I was wrong and it is over. Otherwise I would have been with > you yesterday. > > Anyway, I've read the log and I agree with the decisions made. > Being honest I stopped doing anything for a while because I was tired and > haven't done any work for 3 weeks. I'm trying to become active again now > but I'm not in the UK from 20 till 30 August. I think the best I can do is > try to get more response from our two Universities. Good leaflet will be > very helpful. As I understand Jason is preparing one. When it will be > finished I'll try to distribute it somehow around the Universities. Great stuff - the universities are going to be one of our prime targets intially. It would be particularly useful if you (and any others who may have university contacts) could work on finding someone at each of the unis who would be willing to be the primary contact for that university. Responsibilities of the primary contact are essentially to rustle up support for nationwide events from amongst the student population, and secondly, as and when they can, to autonomously organise local leafletting campaigns, protests, presentations at interested student societies, or whatever. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 16 Aug 2001 12:59:51 +0100 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 12:59:51 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA and EUCD Dear Niels, I've just read your "Censorship in action: why I don't publish my HDCP results" at http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/index.html It is very well written and easily explained even for a person like me, who is very distant from the specific issues of computer security. There is a small but growing Free Sklyarov protests group here in the UK: http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/ Do you know of any such group in Netherlands? Are you aware of European Union Copyright Directive? We are currently planning several actions like protest at the US embassy in London on 30 August, leaflet distribution, IRC discussions. Do you know of any protest action in you country? Thanks, anton --------------------------------------- Anton Chterenlikht Research Assistant Mechanical Engineering Department Sheffield University Mappin Street Sheffield S1 3JD UK Tel: (+) 114 2227863 Fax: (+) 114 2227890 Email: a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk --------------------------------------- Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:30:21 +0100 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:30:21 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] home pages of cryptographers Dear all, I've found two huge lists of security researchers and organisations from all over the world: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/people/crypto.html http://www.swcp.com/~mccurley/cryptographers/cryptographers.html I found it here: http://www.mctaylor.com/crypto.html I was wondering if it is a good idea to send an email to each address with a brief explanation of what's going on, links etc. That's what I was doing before if I could find something like this. But the amount of people here is really astonishing, I'll never finish typing. So, two questions: 1. Is there any ethic rule preventing me from writing to people I do not know? 2. Is there any technique which can make a process of sending hundreds of emails easier? Probably such programs should already exist. What do you think? anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:13:37 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:13:37 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] home pages of cryptographers On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > Dear all, > > I've found two huge lists of security researchers and organisations from all over > the world: > http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/people/crypto.html > http://www.swcp.com/~mccurley/cryptographers/cryptographers.html Very useful page. > I found it here: > http://www.mctaylor.com/crypto.html > > I was wondering if it is a good idea to send an email to each address > with a brief explanation of what's going on, links etc. That's what I > was doing before if I could find something like this. But the amount > of people here is really astonishing, I'll never finish typing. It's a very useful list, but the approach isn't quite right. > So, two questions: > 1. Is there any ethic rule preventing me from writing to people I do > not know? No - but it's very important to do so in such a way that people don't mistake you for yet another spammer. > 2. Is there any technique which can make a process of sending hundreds > of emails easier? Probably such programs should already exist. They do, and they are used to enormous effect by spammers. I've just had a quick skim through the list and there are numerous very well known and very busy individuals on it. I'm sure many or all of them will support the cause, but I am equally certain that the worst possibly thing we could do is to email them all individually. Do NOT, I repeat, NOT massmail individuals. The very last thing we need is even the slightest hint of spamming. It doesn't necessarily matter how well meaning we are, if security researchers working together can turn to each other and say, "Just got some random email from a Free Dmitry organisation", "Yeah, I got that too, looks like spam". We're already in contact with Ross Anderson for example (one of the people on the list)- it would like very bad for him to receive a random email from us that doesn't recognise this. The best way to approach the academic community is through selected contacts in each department. REPEAT: DO NOT MASSMAIL INDIVIDUALS! Apologies for the shouting, but that could have been a PR disaster. Best thing to do would be to go through the list and find one person from each department, create a template letter, and spend a moment or two tailoring it to them. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From niels at ferguson.net Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:48:26 +0200 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:48:26 +0200 From: Niels Ferguson niels at ferguson.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: DMCA and EUCD Dear Anton, At 12:59 16/08/01 +0100, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: >Dear Niels, > >I've just read your "Censorship in action: why I don't publish my HDCP >results" at >http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/index.html > >It is very well written and easily explained even for a person like me, >who is very distant from the specific issues of computer security. > >There is a small but growing Free Sklyarov protests group here in the >UK: >http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/ > >Do you know of any such group in Netherlands? Are you aware of European >Union Copyright Directive? Thank you for your support. I know a bunch of the hackers community here in the Netherlands, but not of a separate Sklyarov group. I know about the EU directive, but I have my hands full with the HDCP/DMCA stuff right now. Kind regards, Niels ============================================================== Niels Ferguson, niels at ferguson.net, phone: +31 20 463 0977 PGP: 3EC2 3304 9B6E 27D9 72E7 E545 C1E0 5D7E From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:36:28 +0100 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:36:28 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] home pages of cryptographers > REPEAT: DO NOT MASSMAIL INDIVIDUALS! > > Apologies for the shouting, but that could have been a PR disaster. > > Best thing to do would be to go through the list and find one person from > each department, create a template letter, and spend a moment or two > tailoring it to them. > > Julian Yes, I completely agree. All the previous e-mail I was addressing to one person only. The problem is that it really takes a lot of time. The second problem is that we have to make a very certain schedule of writing to exclude repeating ourselves. Maybe we can analyse these lists, choose people we want to contact but haven't done it yet and find writing volunteers to do the rest. I think we can create a unified form and change only the name, title, etc. Although it seems to be much better if we will be able to look through the individual web page prior to writing to be able to start a letter something like "dear ... , I was reading ... on your web page. It sounds very interesting especially with respect to resent case of Dmitry..." anton From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:14:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:14:44 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] home pages of cryptographers On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Anton Chterenlikht wrote: > > REPEAT: DO NOT MASSMAIL INDIVIDUALS! > > > > Apologies for the shouting, but that could have been a PR disaster. > > > > Best thing to do would be to go through the list and find one person from > > each department, create a template letter, and spend a moment or two > > tailoring it to them. > > > > Julian > > Yes, I completely agree. ;-) Cool, I thought you probably did, but I wanted to make absolutely sure that someone didn't think, "yes that's a great idea- I've got a few moments free, I'll send off a mass email today". > All the previous e-mail I was addressing to one person only Careful - whilst an email with a hundred email addresses in the 'cc' field is an appallingly bad idea, sending the same email to those same hundred addresses one at a time is not significantly better, if the addresses aren't carefully chosen. When I use 'massmail', I'm refering to both practices, not just to excessively 'cc'ed email. > The problem is that it really takes a lot of time. The second problem > is that we have to make a very certain schedule of writing to exclude > repeating ourselves. Maybe we can analyse these lists, choose people > we want to contact but haven't done it yet and find writing volunteers > to do the rest. I think we can create a unified form and change only > the name, title, etc. Basically agreed. We need a contact list, and someone to maintain it. We also need someone to co-ordinate the letter writing function (they could easily be the same person, to begin with). Can anyone recommended some (free, open-source) half decent contact management software for Linux, with a web based interface? We don't need a rocket-science CRM system - a simple address book manager with MySQL or Postrgres at the backend would be a good start. Any suggestions? (I'll go and trawl freshmeat later tonight) We can minimise the work by concentrating on researchers in the UK to begin with, and expanding thereafter into Europe. For the moment, could you not send off emails to "unknown" people without running the email by me first? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:22:34 +0100 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:22:34 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] home pages of cryptographers "Julian T. J. Midgley" wrote: > For the moment, could you not send off emails to "unknown" people without > running the email by me first? yes, sounds very reasonable anton From sklyarov at dairylogic.co.uk Thu, 16 Aug 2001 18:35:13 +0100 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 18:35:13 +0100 From: Andrew Clark sklyarov at dairylogic.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] home pages of cryptographers --M38YqGLZlgb6RLPS Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 05:14:44PM +0100, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: >=20 > Can anyone recommended some (free, open-source) half decent contact > management software for Linux, with a web based interface? We don't need > a rocket-science CRM system - a simple address book manager with MySQL or > Postrgres at the backend would be a good start. Any suggestions? (I'll go > and trawl freshmeat later tonight) >=20 I have written a system which can act as an address book. It's fairly basic= (and not necesarrily fast to add to), and it doesn't use SQL (it uses XML)= ... but apart from that... It's at http://sourceforge.net/projects/codsys/, and there's a (basic) scre= enshot of it if you search for it on FreshMeat. Oh, and BTW, it'll look terrible in Netscape 4. ;o) Andy. --=20 Black holes suck big time. PGP Key: http://www.metronet.co.uk/andrew.pub.asc --M38YqGLZlgb6RLPS Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7fARPvtVHkiDDV8cRApVzAJ9wlkS5L5hhZFp779rGsp/Pk26QYwCaAiSK Y3SH0kQUPpr4DoxAntDgKMA= =39je -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --M38YqGLZlgb6RLPS-- From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Fri, 17 Aug 2001 23:06:56 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 23:06:56 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] http://www.savetheweb.org/ On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Peter Clay wrote: > > Do you know who these are: http://www.savetheweb.org/ ? > > Shall we contact them? > > I notice their "The latest" pages are full of articles from 1999 .. it is > still worth mailing them to find out what they are doing now and whether > they are interested in the Skylarov case. I spotted these people a few weeks ago via Google, somehow. They seem to be defunct, but they had some good material which is still on their website. Mk From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Sat, 18 Aug 2001 11:05:34 +0100 Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 11:05:34 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry's defence fund / reply from US embassy Dear all, I've got two e-mails today, one from Joseph M. Burton, Dmitry's leading lawyer and another from Marina Serebryanaya, Dmitry's immigration adviser(?). The Dmitry's defence fund has finally been opened. The information is in the bottom of this message. Maybe we can put in on our web site. Also I received a letter today from Glyn T. Davies, Minister, Deputy Chief of Mission, the US Embassy in London. The date on it says 14 August. This is a reply to my letter from 27 July: http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-July/000019.html I was very surprised, I never thought the Embassy will answer. It is a very good letter, although they managed to spell Dmitry's surname wrongly in one place which probably means that they don't really care that much. But the letter is personal, it seems that someone was really writing it for me and it signed by Mr Davies in real ink. He is confident in fair completion of the legal process. He says that the situation has received a lot of attention in the US and abroad, that there are a lot of complicated issues involved, he agreed that the scientific co-operation between the US and the UK is very important etc. This response means that the letter writing does have an effect. It also shows that the Embassy is well informed about the case now. I therefore think that we should continue the letter writing campaign. The situation has changed since Dmitry was released on bail, but the problem remains. Please let me know if someone else will get a response from any authority. anton "Joseph M. Burton" wrote: > > Anton, > > The Defense Fund has now been opened. Here is the relevant information: > > DMITRI DEFENSE FUND > > Wiring Instructions: > > First Union National Bank > Philadelphia, PA > ABA #031201467 > Account #: 2000104359781 > Account Name: Duane, Morris & Heckscher LLP Escrow Account > > *YOU MUST reference "The Dmitri Defense Fund - R0247-2" on all incoming wires.* > > Donation by Check: > > The Dmitri Defense Fund > c/o Duane, Morris & Heckscher LLP > 100 Spear Street, Suite 1500 > San Francisco, California 94105 > USA > > *Please make check payable to "DMH Escrow Agent for Dmitri Defense Fund"* > > Thank you for your interst and support. > > Joe > > >>> Anton Chterenlikht 08/13/01 06:15AM >>> > Hi, > > I've heard that Duan Morris had opened an account or a fund for Dmitry > Sklyarov. Is this true? How can I send him some money? > > Thanks, > anton > > --------------------------------------- > Anton Chterenlikht > Research Assistant > > Mechanical Engineering Department > Sheffield University > Mappin Street > Sheffield S1 3JD > UK > Tel: (+) 114 2227863 > Fax: (+) 114 2227890 > Email: a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk > --------------------------------------- > > CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE > THIS ELECTRONIC MAIL TRANSMISSION IS PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL AND IS > INTENDED ONLY FOR THE REVIEW OF THE PARTY TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED. IF > YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS TRANSMISSION IN ERROR, PLEASE IMMEDIATELY RETURN > IT TO THE SENDER. UNINTENDED TRANSMISSION SHALL NOT CONSTITUTE WAIVER > OF THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT OR ANY OTHER PRIVILEGE. From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 21 Aug 2001 00:41:59 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 00:41:59 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Minutes of IRC Meeting (15 August) Present: Richard Atkinson Andy Clark Peter Clay Phil Hunt Julian Midgley (Jason Clifford - by proxy) Agenda Items Discussed ====================== Preliminary votes ----------------- 0. The ideas and plans presented in the summary of the meeting held on 11 August were basically sound? Unanimously in favour. 1. J. Midgley seems to have ended up as the defacto leader. Were those present happy with this? Unanimously in favour. (The primary reason for these two votes was to check that those who met on Saturday 11 August weren't pushing the group/organisation in some direction people didn't want it to go. Secondly, to allow Julian Midgley to represent the group (when necessary) with some legitimacy.) 2. Calendar ----------- It was decided to postpone the leafletting event proposed for 17/18 August in order to allow time for leaflets targetted at the UK audience to be written. The following two events were proposed and agreed upon: First leafletting event to be held in Cambridge on 25 August, meeting at 1300 in Lion's Yard. Leaflets to focus on the EUCD, using the DMCA, Sklyarov, and Felten cases as an example. A protest to be held outside the US Embassy on Thursday 30 August. This coincides with numerous US protests which will be held on the same day. This protest will focus on Dmitry Sklyarov and the DMCA. 3. Contacting other organisations --------------------------------- Phil Hunt agreed to contact Eurorights, introducing us and promoting the events on 25 and 30 August. Peter Clay agreed to contact the various Cambrdige University Computing societies. Julian Midgley agreed to contact as many UK/Linux user groups as possible. 4. Writing of leaflets, website material ---------------------------------------- Jason Clifford and Julian Midgley have leaflets in progress; at least one will be needed by Saturday 25. Andy Clark and Phil Hunt to revamp the website. Other Business -------------- Renaming the organisation/campaign: since the thrust of our campaigning will rapidly move away from the DMCA and the particular's of Dmitry Sklyarov's case to tackle the more direct threat of the EUCD, it was proposed that the organisation was renamed accordingly. After much discussion, the "Campaign for Digital Rights" was chosen. An application for the domain "cdr.eu.org" has been submitted. Apologies for the delay in writing these up - I will try to be more timely in future- last week was abnormally busy at work, and I was away from a computer for most of the weekend. Julian Reminder: Next IRC meeting - 2000 Wednesday 22 on #sklyarov-uk (server: slashnet.org) -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 21 Aug 2001 00:45:50 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 00:45:50 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] DMCA/EUCD issues discussed at HAL2001 >From a correspondent who attended HAL2001: HAL2001 went very well indeed, this was the first event like this I'd been to and I really enjoyed it. I stayed for Sunday night and helped take down the lighting rigs, etc which really was a highlight - pulling free beer from the Grolsch tap at 2:30 am! I was not a diligent note taker, so I'm hoping that HAL2001 will sort out their archive footage soon so I can brush up on the details and give a little summary of the most important stuff I attended. There was excellent coverage of the DVD CCA from Tom Vogt, and he has his talk online now at http://www.lemuria.org/decss/hal2001.html. I believe that Tom did mention the EuroRights website, I have a note of it in my palmpilot against his lecture. He was most concerned that equivalent legislation to the DCMA does NOT get passed in Europe. Gus Hosein from the London School of Economics gave an excellent and frightening talk on the Cybercrime Convention currently winging its way through the Council of Europe, this has massive implications for prosecution of foreign nationals under another country's laws, even without the need for dual criminality - i.e. if it is a crime in my country I can ask your country to spy on you and extradite you. Mandatory extradition for all copyright related crimes that carry a sentence of 1 year or more in the foreign country. Gus's homepage is http://is.lse.ac.uk/staff/hosein/ Niels Ferguson, an independent cryptography consultant, gave an excellent talk on analysis of the new AES cypher. At the end of his lecture he switched of his overhead projectors and gave a five minute talk on how he had recently discovered flaws in Intel's HDCP protocol, had contacted the EFF and been advised that publishing his academic paper on the subject would leave him open to being sued in the US. As he visits the US and intends to continue doing so he is left with no option but to supress his academic research and NOT publish the paper. Details on http://www.macfergus.com/niels/ and http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/index.html John Gilmore spoke on the US legal situation, bad law, freedom of expression and many other subjects. He noted that he had passed a general description of the problems in Intel's HDCP protocol to them from Niels' description, with a note that because of DMCA liability they will not know the details, and that they may be leaving themselves open to going ahead with an insecure protocol. I have not seen any coverage in The Register yet, I'm not sure anyone has picked up on this story yet but it is another Felton. By the way, in case it was not obvious above, Niels was absolutely livid that an American law could have such a chilling effect on his academic free speech in The Netherlands. In case you haven't seen it, the ACM has filed a brief in support of Dimitry noting the chilling effect of DMCA on their US conferences and the ACM's overall standing and mandate. Dave Del Toro at the CryptoRights talk spoke of a new axis between traditional greens/human rights organisations (Greenpeace / Amnesty) and programmer activists. His message was that they now realise they need us because we have new technologies in areas such as communications that they see uses for in their activism. We should be talking to them because they have the expertise in organising public opinion, campaigning and raising funds. An interesting point, well made. From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 21 Aug 2001 03:05:06 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 03:05:06 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] (no subject) The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR- http://www.fipr.org) is looking to fill several volunteer and some paid positions. Why should you consider volunteering your services? --------------------------------------------------- Succinctly: the FIPR is on our side, has a lot of contacts, and carries significant weight in political circles. The Internet, and other recent technological innovations have brought with them changes in society, culture and business practices. The law has been slow to keep up with the pace of change, and those laws which have been enacted have often been written by those who understand only poorly the technological framework within which they must operate. The FIPR seeks to redress the balance, by conducting research into information policy from a technically informed perspective and promoting dialogues between technologists and policy-makers. More details from www.fipr.org. I'd like to volunteer, what do I do? ------------------------------------ Check the list of roles below to see if there are any which suit you. If so, email Caspar Bowden with your CV and a covering email detailing the role you're applying for and your suitability for it. Given that he's a busy man, it would be helpful if you could also email me to let me know which position you've applied for, so that I can ask people to hold off for a bit if we get too many volunteers for the same position. What roles are available? ------------------------- The FIPR is looking to fill the positions below. Initially, most of these will be volunteer roles - some may become salaried later for suitably competent candidates. All work will be from home. FIPR is, and expects to remain a virtual think-tank. They will try and wangle a home ADSL installation ASAP, and then expect to use the Net (inc. webcam conferencing for meetings). They also expect to settle on some type of web-based collaborative groupware (e.g. www.groove.com). Consequently, there are few geographical constraints on anyone thinking of volunteering. Realistically, you will need to be able to travel to London for a few initial meetings. Positions: a. Contact List Reviser/Maintainer b. Personal Assistant to Caspar Bowden c. Webmaster/designer d. Development Officer e. Technical Policy Analyst Contact List reviser/maintainer ------------------------------- Requirements: familiarity with Outlook, VCF, majordomo Responsibilities: to bring the existing contact list up to date, and maintain it thereafter. Remuneration: Volunteer The FIPR currently has one large blob of a list. This person will take charge of splitting this up and maintenance of several separate lists (both list in sense of blocks of data in Outlook and majordomo e-mails lists), and subscribe/unsubscribe hassles etc. Personal Assistant to Caspar Bowden ----------------------------------- Requirements: Well spoken, previous PA experience an asset, previous experience of fund-raising beneficial. Responsibilities: standard PA - writing letters and making calls on behalf of C.B. in the furtherance of the FIPR's activities, esp. fund-raising. Remuneration: Volunteer initially, to become part or full time position later Webmaster/designer ------------------ Requirements: Previous experience of designing and maintaining high quality websites, viewable in all browsers. Experienced with HTML. Useful to have previous experience of writing CGIs in Perl, PHP, or Python. Graphic design experience - familiarity with Photoshop or the Gimp. Responsibilities: Initially to overhaul the FIPR's website, thereafter to maintain and develop same. Remuneration: Volunteer initially; this may become a salaried position later for an outstanding candidate. Development Officer ------------------- Experience: Management consultancy or NGO planning/development background. Requirements: Reasonable technical awareness, and computer literacy Excellent communication skills, diplomatic and tactful where necessary, and forceful and candid when required. Able to project confident image of FIPR, without bullshitting outside area of competence. Responsibilities: Planning the growth of FIPR from 1 employee to 10 Consult on break-down of interlocking organisational, technical, policy and personal skills for next few FIPR hires. Devise and execute fundraising strategy. Survey candidate grant-making trusts and foundations, pursue and complete grant applications. Remuneration: Salaried Technical Policy Analyst ------------------------ Requirements: familiarity with Windows (Office, etc.) and (optionally) Linux/Unix. In short term, own machine/laptop will be required. Familiarity with Free Software/Open Source software movement's philosophy. Ideally experience of development of open source software. Good standard of written English. Responsibilities: "Policy Analysis"- Postgrad qualifications called "public policy" or "policy analysis" are available- think-tanks usually employ such people. Neither qualification is a fatal disadvantage, but a candidate will require either extensive knowledge of computing or other subject specialist knowledge (IPR/FOI/privacy/human rights/law). It definitely helps if someone has been a programmer to some degree. We want economists and sociologists, even management science, as long as they have thought hard about what's the same and what's different on the Net. The other skillset is knowing how the State works. This involves... Being a cynic. Knowing a bit about the civil service, parliament, and legislative process. Being able to read white papers, and Bills. Knowing how to tell who is any good in their field. Being a compleat web-surfer, but knowing when and how to supplement if web doesn't provide. Being able to phone experts up and talk to them without making a fool of yourself. Being able to talk to general and specialist journalists. ...and drafting and organising material for papers, presentations, conferences etc. Remuneration: Volunteer position at present, if found to be an exceptional all-rounder may become salaried later. -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:17:28 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:17:28 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: [Eurorights] Fixing the directive. (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:16:01 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley To: eurorights at eurorights.org Subject: Re: [Eurorights] Fixing the directive. On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Lars Gaarden wrote: > > I agree with your points. Nothing would be better than stopping this > directive before it is enacted as law in EU countries. I'm just > questioning whether it is possible to rally the amount of people > required. It's got to be worth attempting. In the UK, we're going for a two pronged approach - grassroots support for peaceful protests and action (primarily aimed at encouraging media interest), coupled with political lobbying from industry and academia. We've formed a casual alliance with the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), an independent think-tank which was involved in fighting the RIP Bill in the UK with some significant effect. More details of the FIPR's work and connections are at http://www.fipr.org/. The FIPR has the resources to perform detailed legal analysis of the proposed legislation, and the contacts with industry, academia, and the press to enable effective political lobbying and informed media discussion. Furthermore, it's done all this before... The UK Freesklyarov Campaign (shortly to be renamed the Campaign for Digital Rights, to avoid fading out as a single issue group) will initially be primarily concerned with mustering up grassroots support, by whatever means are most effective: a) Presentations to interested groups (Computing User Groups, Societies, Associations of Librarians, etc) b) Leafletting Campaigns c) When appropriate, public protests. In addition, we will provide resources (information and example letters) for people who wish to contact their MPs, encourage the executive officers of their companies to do likewise, etc. Once we have enough people, we will start holding targetted protests, design primarily to act as focus points for the media (who will be able to consult organisations such as the FIPR for informed commentary). It strikes me that we can save ourselves some time across Europe by co-ordinating our campaigns (or, at the very least, keeping the various groups informed of the others' activities). It takes significant time and effort to prepare resources (whether they be proposed revisions to the EUCD, leaflets for distribution on protests et al, example letters to politicians, etc) and so, rather than each nation's active groups having to re-invent the same set of wheels, axles, engines and brakes, it would be a good idea to have a central repository for it all, with links out to the appropriate organisations in each member state. eurorights.org might be the appropriate forum for this. If you would be happy to delegate subdomains (de.eurorights.org, etc.) to appropriate groups within each member state, it could be used as the central repository. Alternatively, I've registered a domain (cfdr.eu.org) from which I'm quite happy to delegate subdomains in the same way. We've got several people to actually run the web site, and several others to prepare material for it. In addition, we have had a number of offers from people with well-connected machines who are prepared to mirror it, if necessary. I had lunch with Caspar Bowden, Director of the FIPR today, and came away quite convinced that with a fair bit of hard work, a few clever ideas, and a core of dedicated people, it will be possible to challenge the EUCD and ensure that whatever legislation we end up with, it won't be as broad reaching as the DMCA. I firmly believe that it's worth a shot. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:08:51 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:08:51 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Statement from Dmitry for distribution to activists (fwd) 17 August 2001 Statement from Dmitry Sklyarov for distribution to activists-- To everyone who spent their time helping me: During the three weeks I spent in jail I learned that many people were protesting against my arrest. I also learned that Adobe withdrew its support of my arrest after meeting with EFF. But I was not able to see that or to read letters and articles about my case. After being released from jail on August 6, I was really surprised and impressed by the scale of the action and the number of people involved in the protests. I'm not an IT superman. I'm just a programmer, like many others. It was unexpected by me that so many people would support a guy from another country that nobody heard about before. Your support means a lot to me and my family and makes a difference for all. This experience is going to change me in a profound way that I cannot even appreciate fully as yet. Thank you very much. Dmitry Sklyarov From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:53:25 +0100 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:53:25 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] European DMCA equivalent - useful documents Hi all, The US Free Sklyarov mailing list had some useful links to the European Union Copyright Directive, and I thought I'd forward them for people's reference. The final official May 22 version is here: http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!CELEXnumdo c&numdoc=32001L0029&lg=EN Although I read and could mostly understand the US DMCA, it seems that the EUCD is written in even more tangled Legalese. I _think_ the section below is the crux of the document. >From the Directive: CHAPTER III PROTECTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES AND RIGHTS-MANAGEMENT INFORMATION Article 6 Obligations as to technological measures 1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective. 2. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the manufacture, import, distribution, sale, rental, advertisement for sale or rental, or possession for commercial purposes of devices, products or components or the provision of services which: (c) are primarily designed, produced, adapted or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of, any effective technological measures. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression "technological measures" means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in respect of works or other subject-matter, which are not authorised by the rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC As far as I read it (and I'm a programmer not a lawyer), that this sections means that: 1) It is illegal to circumvent any technological restriction on accessing data that is copyrighted. 2) It is illegal to sell any product that circumvents access restrictions. Hmm, that doesn't sound good at all. cheers dan -------- Original Message -------- Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 16:42:14 +0200 From: Bernard Lang ?? european DMCA well it has been published ... and is pretty bad english http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/copyright.htm http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/com29en.pdf directive: http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/dat/2001/l_167/l_16720010622en00100019.pdf french http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/fr/intprop/news/copyright.htm http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/com29fr.pdf directive: http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/fr/dat/2001/l_167/l_16720010622fr00100019.pdf ( also http://freescape.attila-php.net/DOCUS/Direuropeenne.pdf ( or http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/patents/DirPLASI_010522.pdf other documents: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/index.htm Recent Intellectual Property Legislative Developments in the European Union: Copyright and Related Rights (Fordham April 2001) http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/fordh2001.pdf MANAGEMENT AND LEGITIMATE USE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY International conference (Strasbourg 9-11 July 2000) - Proceedings english: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/strasbourg2_en.pdf French: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/strasbourg2_fr.pdf Daniel Ackroyd Programmer, Intelligent Games. IG House, Palliser Road, London, W14 9EB, UK. Email: dackroyd at igl.co.uk Internet: www.igl.co.uk This email may contain confidential information and is only for the intended recipient. Unauthorised review or use of any confidential information in this message is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete it from any computer. From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 22 Aug 2001 18:38:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 18:38:38 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] IRC Meeting tonight at 2000 A couple of quick ones for tonight: 1. Cambridge leafletting event on Saturday - details and organisation 2. Protest on London 30th - I would like to get some idea of the number who will be attending. A.O.B Feel free to suggest anything else you would like discussed. Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 23 Aug 2001 08:51:41 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 08:51:41 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Arraignment postponed until 30 August Dmitry's arraignment has been postponed until 30 August (conveniently, the date of our next London protest). For details, see: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/20010821_eff_sklyarov_bunner_pr.html Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 23 Aug 2001 09:32:00 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 09:32:00 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Arraignment postponed until 30 August Turns out that the arraignment has been postponed to allow more time for Joseph Burton (Dmitry's Attorney) to get the charges dropped. Yahoo and News.com both have articles; note that News.com waxes lyrical on the subject of "Plea Bargains", when Burton is actually quoted in Yahoo's article as saying that he was "not specifically interested in a plea deal, but would not rule it out", and that he wanted to get the charges dropped. Yahoo: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010822/tc/tech_hacker_dc_2.html News.wrong-end-of-the-stick.com: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6949933.html?tag=mn_hd Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From pete at flatline.org.uk Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:58:35 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:58:35 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] European DMCA equivalent - useful documents On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > The final official May 22 version is here: > http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!CELEXnumdo > c&numdoc=32001L0029&lg=EN I've gone over it with a highlighter looking for concepts that I recognise, and have found the following: - This directive does not apply to copy protection of computer software. (Article 1.2.a) - "First sale" is to apply only to physical objects: you can sell on your old CDs with impunity, but not your protected ebooks. (Article 4.2, whereas clause 29) - "Technical copies" (e.g. made by caches) are allowed. This is a good clarification of the law. (Article 5.1.a) - There is some regulation concerning "fair compensation" which I don't understand, but sounds like providing for levys on blank media etc (Article 5.2.b) - There is an exhaustive list of exceptions in Article 5 - Private reproduction (allowed modulo "fair compensation") is distinct from private circumvention - Circumvention devices are allowed if they have substantial noninfringing uses (Article 6.2.abc) - It's not immediately clear whether a computer program per se is a "device, product, component or the provision of services". I suspect that distributing such a program is the provision of a service and therefore proscribed. - Possesion of a circumvention device is not a crime, unless it's for commercial purposes. - Article 6.4 might have interesting implications .. I don't know what! - Article 7 provides protection for rights management systems. It's not clear whether devices which merely remove DRM information are considered circumvention devices. - Article 7.2 allows DRM systems to embed personal identifiers in data which you are not then allowed to remove. It's not at all clear how this is going to interact with DPA law. - Article 8.3 is really worrying: it makes ISPs liable for preventing copyright infringment through their systems. - There is no reference in the Articles to cryptography research, but Whereas clause 48 states "this protection should not hinder research into cryptography" - Directive 96/9/EC seems to have a lot of relevance to DRM issues, but I've not looked at it. Summary: this isn't quite as bad as the DMCA as it stands - but the devil is in the details and the particular national implementations. We must remain vigilant and investigate the UK implementation of this directive. It's still likely to be abused. Interestingly, it provides for a committee to monitor the results in three years' time. (Article 12.1). I think such a committee should be subject to substantial lobbying by interested parties such as ourselves. :) Waking up the ISPs to the liability clause might be a good idea. Thoughts: it's apparent that this has not arisen out of thin air but is built on the results of many previous committees and directives. I assume that there will be future committees and directives directed towards Information Society issues ... Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: The Persevere Frigidaire From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 23 Aug 2001 19:03:37 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 19:03:37 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Events, T-shirts, CD's, Chumbawamba and a Treasurer - Minutes of IRC Meeting Minutes of IRC Meeting held Wednesday 22 August at 2000 ======================================================= Present: DanAck HuskyDog == rs Ronan == Ronan2 Timothy gerry jtjm matt|m timothy == micky15 mk270 == mk270a philh Almost completely different set of nicks to last week, which is encouraging ;-) Unexpurgated logs at: http://www.xenoclast.org/freesklyarov/irc_logs/sklyarov-uk_20010822.txt Cambridge Leafletting Event: 25 August 1300 - Lion Yard ------------------------------------------------------- This will go ahead as planned. All are welcome. Cambridge crowd especially encouraged to attend. Theme: raising awareness of EUCD issues. Leaflets: Julian Midgley finishing one off - will publish it asap. Placards: Dan Ackroyd to bring a couple up from London. Maps: will be published on website and mailing list asap. Post event - retire to one of many convenient hostelrys - details later ;-) US Embassy Protest: 30 August - London & Edinburgh -------------------------------------------------- Similarly - this will go ahead as planned. Assemble Hyde Park Corner 1245-1315 - move up to US Embassy to arrive at 1330. Theme: Pro-Dmitry, with hint of EUCD - Dmitry's arraignment hearing will be held on the same day- the US protesters are holding a series of large protests, and will be attending the hearing in San Jose. Leaflets: Julian Midgley & Jason Clifford. JTJM to contact James Boyle to see if he will let us use excerpts from his piece on the DMCA. Placards: Dan Ackyroyd and Gerry Magennis (plus anyone else who can lend a hand - contact Dan if you can help out) Press Releases and Liaison: Julian Midgley Maps: will be up on website asap. Post event: Suggestions for good pub to retire to afterwards very welcome. Other business discussed ------------------------ Timothy Baldwin offered to try to get a statement of public support from Chumbawamba via contacts of his, and also to be point of contact for Leeds University. Julian Midgley's meeting with Caspar Bowden was briefly discussed. FIPR keen to find volunteers to fill the roles posted on Tuesday. If you know anyone who might be interested, drop Julian an email and he'll send you a short snappy introduction to the FIPR you can use to whet their appetite. Lars Gaarden (founder of eurorights.org) is keen to ensure some degree of resource-sharing and co-ordination across Europe. JTJM is expecting delegation of uk.eurorights.org shortly. cfdr.eu.org has already been acquired. Matt MacLeod volunteered to assist Ronan in Edinburgh. Gerry Magennis had great idea for viral marketing handouts - CDs (or CD business cards) with copies of the DMCA song (ideally sung by a choir- to be supplied by Martin Keegan) and background info on the DMCA, EUCD, and Campaign for Digital Rights, etc. JTJM to follow up. Gerry and Martin Keegan both know cartoonists, and agreed to find out if said cartoonists would be willing to come up with something- could be useful to have strong images for T-shirts, website, banners/leaflets. Gerry's CD idea prompted JTJM to suggest we get some T-shirts printed. Cue long discussion on ideas for T-shirts. Best ones below. This is worth following up on the mailing list - if anyone can take one of these (or an idea of your own), and come up with a complete design for a T-shirt, we'll go ahead and get some printed. "You are not allowed to read this T Shirt" "Mummy, why are they taking our VCR?" "DAER SIHT TRIHS - GO TO JAIL" which unfortunately has a dyslexic counterpart (nice idea, needs work): "DEAR SHIT TRISH - GO TO JAIL" "Pay to view. Pay to listen. Pay to read." "detpyrcne si trihs-T sihT" DeCSS source code with "This shirt is illegal in the USA, and will be here soon" above it (or some snappier variant) "EUCD means NO CD" "DON'T TAKE OUR VCRs" "First they came for the CDs, but I didn't speak up cause i had no CD; then they came for the VCRs, but I didn't speak up, for I had no VCR, then they came for the compilers (etc)" Talk of funding T-shirts, banners and leaflets gave rise to a brief discussion on donations, setting up a bank account and appointing a treasurer. Volunteers for the treasurer position are welcome - contact JTJM if you have previous experience and would be willing to manage funds for the campaign. I've probably missed something important - if so, just bring it up on the mailing list. -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 23 Aug 2001 19:08:58 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 19:08:58 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] European DMCA equivalent - useful documents On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, Peter Clay wrote: > On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > The final official May 22 version is here: > > http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!CELEXnumdo > > c&numdoc=32001L0029&lg=EN > > I've gone over it with a highlighter looking for concepts that I > recognise, and have found the following: Excellent work, Peter - will go through it in detail when I have a moment. If you have time to follow this up, the Eurorights crowd have already done a fair bit of work on interpreting the EUCD (including a set of recommended revisions) - have a skim through their archives at: http://www.eurorights.org/pipermail/eurorights/ Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:20:55 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:20:55 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Various news articles... A good article from the Washington Post on the DMCA and Sklyarov (thanks to Gerry Magennis for spotting this one): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38463-2001Aug20.html And more on the dangers of the DMCA (not Sklyarov related) from Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/pirate/print.html Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:41:07 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:41:07 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: [Eurorights] Fixing the directive. (fwd) Some thoughts on all this I've just posted to the Euroright's mailing list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:38:05 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley To: eurorights at eurorights.org Subject: Re: [Eurorights] Fixing the directive. On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Lars Gaarden wrote: > I agree with your points. Nothing would be better than stopping this > directive before it is enacted as law in EU countries. I'm just > questioning whether it is possible to rally the amount of people > required. Indeed. That's a very fair question - a lengthy answer follows (concentrating on a different aspect to my reply earlier in the week): If we pessimistically say at the outset "we cannot achieve enough support to have the EUCD revised", and so don't even attempt it, we guarantee that we will fail at this. Unfortunately we also make it less likely that will achieve even 'the best worst case'. That's a platitude, though, and I don't want to trivialise it by presenting it without further argument: As to whether we can gather the necessary support: I firmly believe that we have a good chance of so doing, for once. Fortunately, the EUCD has the potential to affect such a significant cross section of society that the number of people whom we can realistically canvass for support is vast, considerably larger than previous 'dodgy' legislation such as RIP in the UK. RIP primarily affected businesses, ISPs, and those concerned about cryptography. The man in the street doesn't particularly care whether he can safely use encryption or not, and is barely interested in whether his ISP is going to have to fork out cash to install the government's listening devices. The DMCA and EUCD, by comparison, clearly affect academics and programmers in the first instance. Furthermore, instead of merely inconveniencing them or making their lives more difficult or the businesses less profitable, these laws *prevent* them doing their work. They make illegal what was previously legal, and why do the do it? Not to protect the interests of customers or governments, but the profits of corporations which are already making an obscene amount of money. The man in the street will understand this injustice even before you've explained the details to him. Tell him that I can't write a program that will let the blind listen to Adobe's eBooks, even if I ensure that this program never gives out plain text copies of the book in a form that can be copied. Point him at the eBook licence that forbids you from lending it to a friend. And then you can tell him how the law could affect him, and his son at university, and his teenage daughter with her unbounded consumption of pop records and videos. Tell him the story of metatext.com, with their electronic text books that expire after 180 days so that his son has to buy them again for each new year of the course, and which cost a mere 2/3 of the price of a paper copy, which the law forbids his son to lend (not copy, lend) to a friend, and which, they proudly announce to publishers, will abolish the market in second hand books. Tell him that if his daughter goes to America on her year out, she'd better take all the music she wants with her, and not buy any over there, because it won't work when she brings it home. And that although that geeky kid next door who now has his own company has worked out how to make that music work back in England, if he tells anyone he will be imprisoned for longer than a drunk-driver who has been found guilty of manslaughter. Tell him the story of the libraries in the States which are already under immense pressure from the publishers to charge people for borrowing the publishers information. And finally remind him that all this is not being done to defend him from the communist invader, or the evil hackers, or the legions of pornographers, the mafia, the terrorists or any other of the countless excuses for draconian legislation we've seen in the past. No- this is being done because the recording and publishing industries have worked out a way to fleece him for every penny he's got, and have gone one step further still, and worked out how they can legislate the competition out of existence. "Hello there, Small Record Company- What's that you say? Everyone has replaced their CD players with our new ones, and you can't sell your out-dated CDs any more. You'll being wanting to burn some of our next-generation CDs - you'd better let us do that for you. What's that you say, you want to do it yourself? That's fine, fine, we can licence you our copyright protection technology for $50 million dollars. Too much, you say? Sophisticated stuff this, can't give it away. Look, why don't we cut you a deal, we'll burn the CDs for you, and you give us 25% royalties. You don't like that either? Oh well, I suppose you can always flog your old CDs as beer mats- it won't make you much, but it's got to better than the dole." "The EUCD threatens all this", he'll ask, incredulous. Oh, yes. It's already started happening in the States. (Cue examples) The educated man might respond "but doesn't the EUCD contain clauses making exemptions for fair dealing, academic research and interoperability". Yes, in theory, but in the DMCA they've been rendered practically useless- if we're not careful same will happen here. "You're having me on!". Not at all - the FTAA is pushing for DMCA-like legislation to be introduced in all 34 countries within its borders; this time round, they haven't even bothered to include the exemptions (see recent EFFector). We can start small with programmers and academics, build up through students (plenty of them, and they're not known for their aversion to public activity) using the protests to attract media attention and genuine discussion of the issues. Simultaneously, with the support of organisations such as the FIPR, we can start lobbying MPs and MEPs with sound arguments (with the emotional spin removed or toned down), small and medium businesses, associations of teachers and librarians, etc. All of which have a vested interest. You may have noticed that the UK protest (first one we'd held) managed to get BBC Newsnight coverage. I don't quite know how we were so fortunate, but if you saw the piece (Realmedia copy linked off the UK Free Sklyarov website - see my .sig), you'll notice that they were able to present the issues really quite clearly for the general public. This is an issue which not only affects, but can also be understood by, the general public. That increases our chances of success significantly. I firmly believe that: a) It is possible to co-ordinate a Europe wide campaign on a grand scale b) There are sufficient people affected that the proportion who are prepared to be active will be numerous enough to catch the media interest c) Whatever the final outcome or extent of such a campaign, it will leave us with fairer EUCD legislation than if we don't attempt it all. In consequence, I can see no reason not to give it a shot. It will require a lot of work, but that should eventually be spread across many people. Julian References: http://www.metatext.com/ : time limited, electronic books. They've already formed a relationship with several US universities EFF's FTAA alert: http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010816_eff_ftaa_alert.en.html BBC Newsnight coverage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1470000/video/_1472872_copycat22_coomarasamy_vi.ram -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Fri, 24 Aug 2001 16:44:11 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 16:44:11 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Cambridge Leafletting Event - Tomorrow (25 August) The Cambridge Leafletting Event will take place tomorrow, as planned. We will meet at 1300 at the south-east corner of Market Aquare (near the entrance to Petty Curry) - roughly where the arrow is pointing on the map below: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?grid2map?x=544750&y=258250&zoom=1&isp=200&ism=500&arrow=y?168,26 For those travelling up from London by train, I'm quite happy to meet you at Cambridge station, and give you a lift into town. Please email in advance me if you want a lift. I'll be at the station from 1215-1240, waiting outside the entrance. You'll find the train times at the bottom of this email. Contact Number (if you can't find us, etc): 07713 166000 Dan's bringing a couple of placards - I'll be providing the leaflets. Afterwards we'll head off to the Mill (pub) for a drink or two. I'd be grateful if those intending to come would drop me an email so I have some idea of numbers to expect. All the best, Julian Train Times =========== Either of two fast trains will suit: London Kings Cross -> Cambridge: 1. Depart 1115 Arrive 1202 2. Depart 1145 Arrive 1230 -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Fri, 24 Aug 2001 16:58:57 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 16:58:57 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Cambridge Leafletting Event - Tomorrow (25 August) On Fri, 24 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > We will meet at 1300 at the south-east corner of Market Aquare (near the > entrance to Petty Curry) - roughly where the arrow is pointing on the map > below: s/Aquare/Square/ s/Curry/Cury/ Doh! -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From rs at rcsimpson.demon.co.uk Fri, 24 Aug 2001 21:45:55 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 21:45:55 +0100 (BST) From: Richard Simpson rs at rcsimpson.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Which? Folks, Today I was sitting at work fuming about the EUCD and thinking about how it seemed designed expressly to promote the interests of suppliers at the expense of consumers when a thought occured to me, "Consumers? Isn't that exactly the group of people that the Consumer's Association is supposed to campaign for?". Have we contacted them? They certainly run lots of campaigns and they have heaps of contacts and resources. The only web site I could find was www.which.net and that didn't seem to have anything about the association (e.g. organisation, aims, physical address etc). Perhaps I missed it. Anyway, just another idea. Regards, Richard Simpson (aka HuskyDog) -- --- Richard Simpson @ home I compute entirely on Linux. All MSWord files go straight to /dev/null. Note - The following code decrypts DVD movies. Its use and dissemination may be illegal in the USA. See www.opendvd.org // efdtt.c Author: Charles M. Hannum // Usage is: cat title-key scrambled.vob | efdtt >clear.vob #define m(i)(x[i]^s[i+84])<< unsigned char x[5],y,s[2048];main(n){for(read(0,x,5);read(0,s,n=2048);write(1,s ,n))if(s[y=s[13]%8+20]/16%4==1){int i=m(1)17^256+m(0)8,k=m(2)0,j=m(4)17^m(3)9^k *2-k%8^8,a=0,c=26;for(s[y]-=16;--c;j*=2)a=a*2^i&1,i=i/2^j&1<<24;for(j=127;++jy)c+=y=i^i/8^i>>4^i>>12,i=i>>8^y<<17,a^=a>>14,y=a^a*8^a<<6,a=a>>8^y<<9,k=s [j],k="7Wo~'G_\216"[k&7]+2^"cr3sfw6v;*k+>/n."[k>>4]*2^k*257/8,s[j]=k^(k&k*2&34) *6^c+~y;}} From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Sat, 25 Aug 2001 09:48:51 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 09:48:51 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Which? On Fri, 24 Aug 2001, Richard Simpson wrote: > Folks, > > Today I was sitting at work fuming about the EUCD and thinking about how > it seemed designed expressly to promote the interests of suppliers at the > expense of consumers when a thought occured to me, "Consumers? Isn't that > exactly the group of people that the Consumer's Association is supposed to > campaign for?". Have we contacted them? They certainly run lots of > campaigns and they have heaps of contacts and resources. We haven't, to the best of my knowledge. It's a good idea - fancy following up? > The only web site I could find was www.which.net and that didn't seem to > have anything about the association (e.g. organisation, aims, physical > address etc). Perhaps I missed it. Try this page: http://www.which.net/help/customer_service/wolteam1.html - scroll down to "About the Which? Customer Service Team". It looks like a useful place to start, anyway. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Sat, 25 Aug 2001 10:41:12 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 10:41:12 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] More press coverage NTK once more (arraignment, London Protest and FIPR recruiting) (with thanks to Danny, Dave and friends): http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=2001/now0824.txt And a couple of articles on Silicon.com: "Dmitry Gets Breathing Space" (don't you just hate it when reporters ring you up before you've had your first cup of coffee and then go and quote the rabid burblings of your caffeine and nicotine free mind? Well, it's not that bad, - I basically meant what I said, but I could have put it so much better now): http://www.silicon.com/a46743 "Freedom in the Air For Dmitry" http://www.silicon.com/a46768 -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From Ronan at footle.com Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:23:39 +0100 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:23:39 +0100 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh Protest and Leafletting, 30 August Let's hope this one is a little better organised than last time! I propose the following, suggestions for changes in arrangements are most welcome: We'll gather at the East end of Princes Street, and form a concentrated pocket of leafletting. A couple of us (or more!) will go and stake out likely spots (outside Waterstones, HMV, Virgin, etc). As far as the timing is concerned, ideally it should coincide with the London protest (i.e. we should meet at 1315, say). However, I realise that lunchtime may be quite an inconvenient time, so if it would enable more people to attend, perhaps a protest in the evening sunshine is more appropriate (let me know if this is the case!). I'll be e-mailing all of those who attended last time in person, and hopefully will be able to get some sort of announcement out on the Edinburgh Uni computer science dept. e-mail list. If anyone has access to other likely mailing lists (other Universities anyone?) do let me know. Seeing as this protest is being 'officially' announced 4 days in advance (as opposed to 1 day last time) I'm hoping that we'll be able to gather together significantly more than the 7 who made it last time. If you know anyone who's in Edinburgh (perhaps for the festival?) and might like to attend then please let them know. Ronan -- Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com From eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:39:55 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:39:55 +0100 (BST) From: Edward Welbourne eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] talking to the public ... So Julian dragged me out to the leafletting in Cambridge on Saturday and encouraged me, afterwards, to discuss what proved effective. Simple lines like `do you care about being able to take a copy of a CD to listen to while travelling ?' work better than `please take a leaflet' - albeit my sense of `work better' is biassed in favour of leading to discussion. Quite a few folk asked us questions prompted by our banners - who's Dmitry ? for instance - which made it easy to start talking to them: banners work ! I told quite a few that Dmitry is the little boy who pointed out that the emperor wears no clothes - but has been locked up, for the harm this allegedly does to the charlatan tailors. That provided a framework around which to explain the story properly, with the audience already engaged and sympathetic. This worked well each time I used it. Folk can grok rot13 as a laughable pretence at encryption (clothing): it's only an `encoding' in the same sense that ASCII is ... which is what one decodes it into. Quite a lot of the public proved receptive (once engaged in discussion) to: the things described as `copy-protection' don't actually protect against copying, they're just access restrictions (is a `restriciton' the quantum of restraint ? it was a typo). Publishers like to dress them up as `rights management' or `copy-protection', but the real effect of preventing software engineers from writing programs that `circumvent' them is to avoid the emergence of a free market in software with which legitimate purchasers of a copyright work can access that work. This gives the publishers a captive market/audience and entrenches a cartel in a position to control electronic publishing. Governments which are wedded to `free market' rhetoric should be legislating against such practices, not enshrining protection for them in law. [The publishers have effectively invented obfuscated data formats that no-one else's software can read: software which supports this data format is described as `circumventing' the obfuscations. Imagine if M$ were to release its next version of M$word with a data format that it tried to `protect' in similar manner, so as to kill competing software which supports M$word format but provides users with alternate editing and display tools (e.g. star office). To what extent is anyone entitled to require that no-one else support a file format they define ? (Hasn't this already happened with an image format patented by M$ ?) Surely this is a `prior restraint on trade' and illegal under `anti-trust' laws ?] Several people asked why we were concerned about the case: I generally answered that, aside from concern for liberty generally, we're programmers and the DMCA/EUCD prevents us from providing the public with a free market in software with which to access electronicly published works they've legitimately purchased. Folk seemed to grok that fairly well, and it provided a good opportunity to emphasise that, while the publishers lie about how the restrictions hinder illicit use, they're conspicuously silent about how they are limiting the legitimate purchaser's ability to access the published work. It's worth avoiding the word `hacker' in favour of `programmer': if necessary, correct the public's media-induced conflation of `hacker' with what hackers mean by `cracker', but don't get stuck on it ! Other points folk grokked fairly well: the publisher is, reasonably enough, only going to support those uses for which it can see `enough' demand: this won't include brail support for the blind, large-font display for the partially-sighted, `rendering to speech' for either of the above `minority' operating systems (e.g. Windows 3.1, Windows '95, ... oh, and, of course, Linux; but be sure to drum home that old versions of commonplace OSen come under this heading - every OS/version becomes `minority' eventually), minority languages (e.g. Urdu in the UK), etc. so how are folk who need that support to get it if the free market is prevented from offering it ? (The *two* authors I talked to in the course of the day were highly receptive to this one ...) the publisher's software might be crap^H^H^H^H of poor quality; and there are other valid reasons their legitimate purchasers of the copyrighted work might want alternate access software (e.g. to integrate the software with the rest of their desktop) to describe the Caesar cipher, a.k.a. rot13: `replace each letter by the one 13 away in the alphabet'. It's both correct and simple (where `rotating the alphabet' probably isn't simple to anyone who considers modular arithmetic fancy; and contains lovely potential for confusion with geometric rotation of each letter) ... while making very clear that it's farcical as crypto. to describe how to break a substitution cipher (of which Caesar is a noddy example): count how often each letter appears in the (encoded) text; the most common probably stands for e, the next for t, then a, o, i, n, s, h, r, d, l, u (IIRC, for English); once a few words come clear, the whole becomes easy. Thus ... a reasonably bright school-kid can crack Caesar; it's hideously widely known; it's in widespread use (e.g. punchlines of jokes, spoilers in film reviews) as an `alternate' character set which many news-readers will display without hassle; so ... farcical as crypto. I've doubtless forgotten a lot of what worked, but I hope the above will stir up folks' ideas usefully ;^) Eddy. From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:30:34 +0100 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:30:34 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] talking to the public ... Another thing that was noticed was that people passing by are much more eager to take a flyer, if they can see another member of the public talking to a demonstrater and actually having an interesting conversation. So if you want to hand large numbers of flyers then it would probably be a good idea to have a mixed team, with some talking to members of the public and others handing flyers out. btw After we handed out around 200 flyers I looked around to check for any litter we might have created by people chucking the flyers away after reading them, and I couldn't see a single one on the floor! so I guess once people start reading they actually find the issues slightly intersting. cheers dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Edward Welbourne [mailto:eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk] > Sent: 26 August 2001 19:40 > To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] talking to the public ... > > > So Julian dragged me out to the leafletting in Cambridge on > Saturday and > encouraged me, afterwards, to discuss what proved effective. > > I've doubtless forgotten a lot of what worked, but I hope the > above will > stir up folks' ideas usefully ;^) > > Eddy. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From jtjm at xenoclast.org Mon, 27 Aug 2001 17:24:27 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 17:24:27 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Adobe's "Dark Age" and the DMCA's international scope. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 12:08:46 -0400 (EDT) From: C. Scott Ananian This short note: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.59.html#subj4 reports on backwards compatibility failures with Acrobat reader. Dare we entrust our books to a format which a) we can't later read, and b) we can't translate to readable formats? The Dark Ages weren't "dark" because nothing of note happened; they're dark because *no records of the period have survived*. Here: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.62.html#subj7 you'll note that "just staying out of the U.S. won't necessarily" keep you out of the DMCA's reach. Two entries further down, we get this great quote from the CEO of Time Warner: A typical book, for example--the old-fashioned kind--finds its way to five or six readers beyond the original purchaser, according to Laurence Kirshbaum, CEO of Time Warner's trade-publishing arm. "One of the attractions of electronic publishing," he says, is the ability to "cut down on this pass-along." Bill Weitze responded as follows: This "loaning", as its practitioners call it, is indeed most subversive. There are even institutions, called "libraries", which carry on this sort of thing in a wholesale fashion. This was started by a very dangerous individual named Franklin; maybe Mr. Kirshbaum should sue him. Great stuff!! From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Mon, 27 Aug 2001 17:50:51 +0100 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 17:50:51 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Placard wording for Thursday Hi all, Myself and Gerry are going to be making some placards for thursday, but we could do with some more suggestions for signs, particularly anti-EUCD ones. Julian wrote: > A typical book, for example--the old-fashioned kind--finds its way to > five or six readers beyond the original purchaser, according to Laurence > Kirshbaum, CEO of Time Warner's trade-publishing arm. "One of the > attractions of electronic publishing," he says, is the ability to "cut > down on this pass-along." Blimey, I guess "EUCD kills libraries" would be a valid sign then. :( cheers dan Daniel Ackroyd Programmer, Intelligent Games. IG House, Palliser Road, London, W14 9EB, UK. Email: dackroyd at igl.co.uk Internet: www.igl.co.uk This email may contain confidential information and is only for the intended recipient. Unauthorised review or use of any confidential information in this message is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete it from any computer. From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Mon, 27 Aug 2001 18:41:09 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 18:41:09 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: Placard wording for Thursday - and New Website On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > Hi all, > > Myself and Gerry are going to be making some placards for thursday, but we > could do with some more suggestions for signs, particularly anti-EUCD ones. I'm going to be away from a computer for a couple of hours - suggest you use the suggestions for T-shirts discussed at the last IRC meeting as possible ideas (see: http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2001-August/000372.html ) Also, it would be good idea to go the IRC channel (#sklyarov-uk on slashnet.org) and hold a quick brainstorm there - suggest that anyone who can proceeds there to have such a discussion as soon as they get this email. If Dan can't actually make it, someone should take a log and post it to the list so that Dan and Gerry have something to go on. > Blimey, I guess "EUCD kills libraries" would be a valid sign then. :( Maybe 'kills' is a bit too strong, but something similar would definitely be good. Also, I've nearly finished the final touches to the new website (almost all of the hard work on which was done by Andy Clark with help from Phil Hunt). Please have a look at http://cdr.xenoclast.org/ and send any comments to the mailing list. I'll make the last few revisions before pushing it live later tonight. The News and Events sections are known not to be up to date or quite polished yet - I think the rest should work; be sure to let me know of anything that doesn't ;-) Note that when the site goes live it will be as "www.cfdr.eu.org", so don't advertise the cdr.xenoclast.org address outside the list, as that will stop functioning evenutally. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F UK Free Dmitry Protest: http://uk.freesklyarov.org/ From aardtiger at yahoo.co.uk Tue, 28 Aug 2001 07:04:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 07:04:38 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?robert=20loch?= aardtiger at yahoo.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] New Article This is quite interesting/entertaining: 'The Afghan Islamic extremist wannabee, FBI Special Agent O'Connell, fresh from a two legged human rights refresher course in Shanghai and Houston, filed an Affidavit in support of a complaint made against Dimitry by the Cuban owned Adobe Systems Inc. He has been accused of violating two sections of the N. Korean backed Digital Millennium Copyright Act' http://www.dotcomscoop.com/wtaw828.html ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie From magennisg at MailAndNews.com Tue, 28 Aug 2001 05:35:58 -0400 Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 05:35:58 -0400 From: Gerry Magennis magennisg at MailAndNews.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] T-Shirt design ideas First stab at a T-Shirt design idea from my cartoonist friend: A cartoon version of that classic picture of George Orwell, staring straight on to the camera, with a Photoshop filter to create tone using a background composed of 1's and 0's. Gag Orwell with a EUCD or DMCA taped across his mouth (and possibly eyes) On the back there could be the same Orwell picture but now only the outline of the eyes/nose/mouth still vaguely visible. The 1's and 0's background in being sucked (morphed down) into a EUCD or DMCA sinkhole. Thoughts anyone? From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Tue, 28 Aug 2001 11:46:42 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 11:46:42 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] T-Shirt design ideas On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Gerry Magennis wrote: > First stab at a T-Shirt design idea from my cartoonist friend: > > A cartoon version of that classic picture of George Orwell, staring straight > on to the camera, with a Photoshop filter to create tone using a background > composed of 1's and 0's. > > Gag Orwell with a EUCD or DMCA taped across his mouth (and possibly eyes) > > On the back there could be the same Orwell picture but now only the outline of > the eyes/nose/mouth still vaguely visible. The 1's and 0's background in > being sucked (morphed down) into a EUCD or DMCA sinkhole. > > Thoughts anyone? Sounds very cool to me. If you can find a link to "that classic picture of George Orwell", I'd be grateful, since my feeble memory can't immediately place it ;-) All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://cfdr.eu.org/ From magennisg at MailAndNews.com Tue, 28 Aug 2001 07:35:03 -0400 Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 07:35:03 -0400 From: Gerry Magennis magennisg at MailAndNews.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] T-Shirt design ideas >Sounds very cool to me. If you can find a link to "that classic picture >of George Orwell", I'd be grateful, since my feeble memory can't >immediately place it ;-) Google Images gives loads of Orwell pictures at http://images.google.com/images?q=orwell I would venture a guess that the picture he's thinking of is either: http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/eng/images/orwell.jpg or, slightly happier - but we can change that, http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/ctm/caroline/orwell.gif He is going to try and mock up an example and fax it back to me, but no timescale yet. I mentioned all the ideas from the IRC log and your e-mail afterwards. More ideas please, we could have a whole series of T's. -Gerry From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:27:06 +0100 Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:27:06 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday Hi all, I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be attending the protest on Thursday. Please you let me know if you're planning, or just hoping to attend. cheers dan From jason at uklinux.net Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:37:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:37:44 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be attending the > protest on Thursday. > > Please you let me know if you're planning, or just hoping to attend. Sorry, I've been very silent lately. I've had a LOT of work on and a few family matters to deal with as well. I hope to be there on Thursday although I've not done anything about finishing that document I started yet. Jason Clifford From pete at flatline.org.uk Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:58:10 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:58:10 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Clay pete at flatline.org.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be attending the > protest on Thursday. I intend to be there. I notice there isn't a start time on the website at the moment .. Pete -- Undiscovered band of the minute: Maybe and the Hitlerism Prototype From jtjm at xenoclast.org Tue, 28 Aug 2001 17:23:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 17:23:38 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Peter Clay wrote: > On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be attending the > > protest on Thursday. > > I intend to be there. I notice there isn't a start time on the website at > the moment .. The canonical website is now "http://uk.eurorights.org/" (as of not that many minutes ago - the old website now refers you to it (shift-reload if you don't get this immediately) - see the calendar section for details of Thursdays protests in London and Edinburgh. More details on all this as soon as I've got the press-releases out. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Tue, 28 Aug 2001 23:22:37 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 23:22:37 +0100 (BST) From: jtjm at uk.eurorights.org jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 28, 2001 Press Contact: Julian T. J. Midgley Phone: +44 7713 166000 "DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST DMITRY SKLYAROV" PROTESTS TO BE HELD IN LONDON AND EDINBURGH ON THURSDAY, 30 AUGUST 2001 Cambridge, England - Peaceful protesters from the Campaign for Digital Rights will gather again outside the US Embassy in London at 1330 on Thursday, 30 August, to demand that the charges against Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov be dropped, and the DMCA (the law under which he is charged) revised or repealed. A simultaneous event will take place in Edinburgh. All are welcome. Details of both protests are available at: http://uk.eurorights.org/calendar/ These protests reflect international outrage at Dmitry's arrest- similar protests will be held on the same day in Russia in Moscow, and in the USA in San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Black Rock City and Reno. (See http://freesklyarov.org/calendar/ for details). Background ---------- Dmitry Sklyarov's arrest on July 16, for a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), has chilled academic research into cryptography on both sides of the Atlantic, and led UK academics and programmers to call for conferences to be held outside the USA so that they can attend them without fear of lawsuits or arrest. Alan Cox, the prominent Linux kernel programmer, has resigned from the committee of USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems Association, since he no longer feels able to attend USENIX events in the USA for fear of prosecution under the DMCA for his work on the Linux kernel. Similar fears prompted Dutch Cryptographer Niels Ferguson to decide not to publish an academic paper describing security weaknesses in a content protection mechanism. In the United States, a Professor Felten was threatened with legal action under the DMCA if he published a paper describing flaws in a digital watermarking scheme. Dmitry himself will be arraigned on the 30th in San Jose, and faces a fine of up to $500,000 and up to five years imprisonment if he is found guilty; this for writing a program that, at the very worst, is nothing more than a digital crowbar, with perfectly legitimate uses. He is not charged with copyright infringement, nor has any copyright infringement been attributed to the users of the program, distributed by Elcomsoft, a Russian software company. Adobe Systems Inc, the company which sells the eBook software at which Dmitry's program was targetted, and which filed the original complaint with the FBI, has since joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation in calling for the charges against Dmitry to be dropped. Nevertheless, the case proceeds, being seen by the recording and publishing industries as an important test case for the new law, and by programmers, academics, librarians and many others worldwide as a dangerous threat to traditional freedoms. With foreign nationals being arrested for reverse engineering software programs, and academics being gagged by threats from publishing companies, the United States of America is no longer "The Land of the Free". Traditionally, those of us in Europe would sit back smugly at this point and laugh quietly at yet another ridiculous piece of American legislation that doesn't affect us. This time, we can afford to do no such thing. Not only does the DMCA itself stretch its tentacles across the Atlantic to silence our academics and still the fingers of our programmers, but, in less than 16 months, the European Copyright Directive (the EUCD) will be enacted in the EU member states, with near identical provisions forbidding the circumvention of "copy protection mechanisms". The Campaign for Digital Rights ------------------------------- The UK Campaign for Digital Rights has formed to ensure that by the time that the EUCD is passed into law, it has been revised to the extent that it no longer threatens academic research or the public's ability to make fair use of electronic books, music and videos. It is important to stress that we respect absolutely the principal of copyright; many of our members are programmers and authors whose works enjoy the traditional protections of copyright - we do not condone copyright infringement in any form. However, we firmly believe that by making the circumvention of copy protection mechanisms a crime, laws such as the DMCA and EUCD threaten legitimate academic research and the work of respectable computer programmers. Furthermore, by effectively prohibiting discussion of the weaknesses of particular copy protection schemes, these laws practically guarantee that copy protection mechanisms will be weak and easily broken, to the detriment of the very authors and musicians whose work they are designed to protect. The Campaign for Digital Rights is working together with industry, academics, the Foundation for Information Policy Research (http://www.fipr.org/), and similar organisations throughout Europe and America. For more information, mailing lists, et al, see: http://uk.eurorights.org/ -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 01:52:08 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 01:52:08 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T J Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] What's wrong with copy protection? >From an eagle-eyed correspondent: Another link for the archive, this time it is John Gilmore responding to a public request from Ron Rivest, MIT Professor and the 'R' in RSA, to start a debate on Content Protection. A little bit technical (it was originally posted to the Cypherpunks list I think) but good content: http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html or http://cryptome.org/jg-wwwcp.htm -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 02:40:16 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 02:40:16 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday On Tuesday 28 August 2001 4:27 pm, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > Hi all, > > > I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be > attending the protest on Thursday. > > Please you let me know if you're planning, or just hoping to > attend. I will be at the london protest. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** "Welcome to 21st Century America, where the profits of the major=20 record labels, movie houses, and publishing companies are more=20 important than First Amendment rights." -- Bruce Schneier =20 From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 02:43:30 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 02:43:30 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August On Tuesday 28 August 2001 11:22 pm, jtjm at uk.eurorights.org wrote: > FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > August 28, 2001 > [...] > It is important to stress that we respect absolutely the principal > of copyright; many of our members are programmers and authors whose > works enjoy the traditional protections of copyright - we do not > condone copyright infringement in any form.=20 In future literature it might be useful to point out that here we=20 differ from our hypocritical opponents in the MPAA et al who have no respect for the copyrights of the authors of DeCSS. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** "Welcome to 21st Century America, where the profits of the major=20 record labels, movie houses, and publishing companies are more=20 important than First Amendment rights." -- Bruce Schneier =20 From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 08:16:15 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 08:16:15 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitri indicted EFF: http://zork.net/pipermail/free-sklyarov/2001-August/003915.html Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010828/aponline205227_000.htm Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2001/08/28/dmitry/index.html Mk From grahamweir at blueyonder.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:28:31 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:28:31 +0100 From: Graham Weir grahamweir at blueyonder.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday On Tuesday 28 August 2001 4:27 pm, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > Hi all, > > > I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be attending > the protest on Thursday. > > Please you let me know if you're planning, or just hoping to attend. I'm hoping to be in London. My placard from the last protest ("RIP Fair Use/Free Dimitri Repeal DMCA") can't be used again though - is anyone making new ones, or are people going to rely on the ones used on 3 August? Graham Weir From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:32:18 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:32:18 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday > is anyone > making new ones, or are people going to rely on the ones used on 3 > August? Myself and Gerry Magennis will be making some more new signs, but the more signs the better. If you do have the time and the inclination, here is a good resource on how to make signs. http://csua.berkeley.edu/%7Ealexf/sklyarov/Picket-Signs-mini-HOWTO cheers dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Graham Weir [mailto:grahamweir at blueyonder.co.uk] > Sent: 29 August 2001 09:29 > To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > Subject: RE: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday > > > On Tuesday 28 August 2001 4:27 pm, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > > > I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be > attending > > the protest on Thursday. > > > > Please you let me know if you're planning, or just hoping to attend. > > I'm hoping to be in London. My placard from the last protest > ("RIP Fair > Use/Free Dimitri Repeal DMCA") can't be used again though - is anyone > making new ones, or are people going to rely on the ones used on 3 > August? > > Graham Weir > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:40:56 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:40:56 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] EFF: Grand Jury Charges Russian Company and Programmer This appeared on the US mailing list this morning. I've checked my diary and the date is _not_ 1st April. This does make it look very unlikely that Dmitry will be allowed to go home this week. dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Seth David Schoen [mailto:schoen at loyalty.org] > Sent: 29 August 2001 05:55 > To: free-sklyarov-announce at lists.xcf.berkeley.edu > Subject: [free-sklyarov-announce] [wild at eff.org: [free-sklyarov] EFF: > Grand Jury Charges Russian Company and Programmer] > > > I look forward to seeing many of you at Thursday's protest in San > Francisco (or hearing about your experiences at one of the other > protests). I'm still taking care of getting the permits for this > protest. > > I'm sorry to have the following bad news: > > ----- Forwarded message from Will Doherty ----- > > To: free-sklyarov at zork.net > From: Will Doherty > Subject: [free-sklyarov] EFF: Grand Jury Charges Russian > Company and Programmer > Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 18:16:01 -0700 > > Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release > > For Immediate Release: August 28, 2001 > > > Contacts: > > Cindy Cohn, EFF Legal Director, cindy at eff.org, > +1 415 436-9333 x108 (office), > +1 415 823-2148 (cell) > > Will Doherty, EFF Online Activist / Media Relations, > press at eff.org, +1 415 436-9333 x111 (office), > +1 415 794-6064 (cell) > > > Grand Jury Charges Russian Company and Programmer > > Adds Conspiracy to Circumvention Trafficking Charge > > San Jose, California - A United States grand jury this > afternoon indicted Russian company Elcomsoft along with > previously jailed programmer Dmitry Sklyarov on charges > of trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in a copyright > circumvention device. > > Since the grand jury handed down a five-count indictment, > Sklyarov -- who is out of custody on $50,000 bail -- could > face a prison term of up to twenty-five years and a US > $2,250,000 fine. As a corporation, Elcomsoft faces a > potential US $2,500,000 fine. > > "We have been hearing from many people about lawful > uses of Elcomsoft's computer program," explained Cindy > Cohn, Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director. > "It's outrageous that the unconstitutional Digital > Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) could put this young man > away for much of the rest of his life." > > "We were hoping that the government would see the wisdom > and justice in not pursuing a case against Sklyarov," > said his attorney, Joseph M. Burton of Duane Morris in > San Francisco. "Even if one were to ignore the serious > legal questions involving the DMCA, this case hardly > cries out for criminal prosecution. Sklyarov's and > Elcomsoft's actions are not conduct that Congress > intended to criminalize. We will vigorously contest these > charges." > > Sklyarov and his attorneys will appear at an arraignment > scheduled for 9:30 AM Pacific time this Thursday, > August 30, with US Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg > presiding, in courtroom 4, 5th floor of the Federal > District Court for the Northern District of California, > San Jose Branch, 280 South 1st Street, in San Jose, > California. > > Well-dressed observers plan to attend the arraignment > and nonviolent protests are scheduled in Moscow (Russia), > London (England), Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, > and Black Rock City, Nevada. > > Directions and map to San Jose Federal Building: > http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/CourtInfo.nsf/6f311f8841e7da 2488256405006827f0/f3b46c67b334132e88256682007f6ba9?OpenDocument Background on the Sklyarov case: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/ Calendar of protests related to the Sklyarov case: http://freesklyarov.org/calendar/ 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 websites in the world: http://www.eff.org/ - end - _______________________________________________ free-sklyarov mailing list free-sklyarov at zork.net http://zork.net/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Seth David Schoen | Its really terrible when FBI arrested Temp. http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | hacker, who visited USA with peacefull down: http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF) | mission -- to share his knowledge with http://www.freesklyarov.org/ | american nation. (Ilya V. Vasilyev) _______________________________________________ free-sklyarov-announce mailing list free-sklyarov-announce at lists.xcf.berkeley.edu http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-announce From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:43:50 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:43:50 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Numbers for thursday On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Graham Weir wrote: > On Tuesday 28 August 2001 4:27 pm, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > > > I'd like to get a rough estimate of how many people will be attending > > the protest on Thursday. > > > > Please you let me know if you're planning, or just hoping to attend. > > I'm hoping to be in London. My placard from the last protest ("RIP Fair > Use/Free Dimitri Repeal DMCA") can't be used again though - is anyone > making new ones, or are people going to rely on the ones used on 3 > August? I don't know, a man detained on bail in a foreign country, unable to return to his wife and children, is not "free" by any stretch of the imagination. Don't see any reason not to use this one as well. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:05:54 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:05:54 +0100 (BST) From: jtjm at uk.eurorights.org jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Implications of Sklyarov case for medical privacy A thoughtful piece from Ross Anderson, which explores the complexities of copy protection mechanisms, looking at both sides of the argument: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/med-privacy/2001q3/000276.html Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:24:46 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:24:46 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release from the US Attorney's Office re. the indictment FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tel: (415) 436-7200 Fax: (415) 436-7234 August 28, 2001 The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that Elcom Ltd. (also known as Elcomsoft Co. Ltd.) and Dmitry Sklyarov, 27, both of Moscow, Russia, were indicted today by a federal grand jury in San Jose, California on five counts of copyright violations. The defendants were each indicted on one count of conspiracy to traffic in technology primarily designed to circumvent, and marketed for use in circumventing, technology that protects a right of a copyright owner, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371; two counts of trafficking in technology primarily designed to circumvent technology that protects a right of a copyright owner, in violation of Title 17, United States Code, Section 1201(b)(1)(A); and two counts of trafficking in technology marketed for use in circumventing technology that protects a right of a copyright owner, in violation of Title 17, United States Code, Section 1201(b)(1)(C). This is the first indictment under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), enacted by Congress in 1998. The DMCA requires that the government prove a defendant offered to the public, provided, or trafficked in technology that was primarily designed to circumvent copyright protections, or was marketed for use in circumventing copyright protections. The statute provides criminal penalties where the copyright violations are perpetrated for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain. The DMCA also contains certain exemptions for nonprofit libraries, archives, and educational institutions, as well as for reverse engineering and encryption research. According to the indictment, Elcom and Mr. Sklyarov are alleged to have conspired, for commercial advantage and private financial gain, to traffic in a technology that was primarily designed and produced for the purpose of circumventing, and was marketed by the defendants for use in circumventing, the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader. The indictment alleges that prior to June 20, 2001, Mr. Sklyarov and others wrote a program called the Advanced eBook Processor ("AEBPR"), the primary purpose of which was to remove any and all limitations on an ebook purchaser's ability to copy, distribute, print, have the text read audibly by the computer, or any other limitation imposed by the publisher or distributor of the ebook. The indictment alleges that Elcom made the AEBPR program available for purchase on the website elcomsoft.com which was hosted in Chicago, Illinois. According to the indictment, individuals wishing to purchase the AEBPR program were permitted to download a partially functional copy of the program from elcomsoft.com, and then were directed to pay approximately $99 to an online payment service RegNow, based in Issaquah, Washington. Upon making a payment via the RegNow website, Elcom provided purchasers a registration number permitting full-use of the AEBPR program. The indictment states that Adobe Systems Inc. distributes the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader for the reading of electronic books on personal computers. Consumers wishing to purchase ebooks formatted for the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader can download a free copy of the eBook Reader to their personal computer and then purchase the ebook from an online retailer. Upon purchasing the ebook from the online retailer, a series of electronic communications between and among the computers of the online retailer including, typically, an Adobe-supplied server and the consumer's computer authorized the ebook to be read on the computer from which the purchase was made. It is further alleged that when an eBook purchased for viewing in the Adobe eBook Reader format is sold by the publisher or distributor, the publisher or distributor of the ebook can authorize or limit the purchaser's ability to copy, distribute, print, or have the text read audibly by the computer. The eBook Reader permits the management of such digital rights so that in the ordinary course of its operation, the eBook Reader effectively permits the publisher or distributor of the ebook to restrict or limit the exercise of certain copyright rights of the owners of the copyrights for books distributed in the eBook Reader format. The maximum statutory penalties for each count in violation of Title 17, United States Code, Sections 1201(b)(1)(A) and 1201(b)(1)(C) are five years imprisonment for an individual and a fine of $500,000 for an individual or corportation. The maximum penalties for a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, are five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 for an individual, and a fine of $500,000 for a corporation. However, any sentence following conviction would be dictated by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of factors, and would be imposed in the discretion of the Court. An indictment simply contains allegations against an individual or corporation and, as with all defendants, Elcom and Mr. Sklyarov must be presumed innocent unless and until convicted. Mr. Sklyarov made his initial appearance in federal court in San Jose on August 6, 2001. He was released on bail based on an agreement between the United States and the defendant. The corporation has not yet made an initial appearance in federal court. The next scheduled appearance is at 9:30 a.m. on August 30, 2001 for arraignment for both defendants before Judge Seeborg. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Scott Frewing and Joseph Sullivan of the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property ("CHIP") Unit are the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who are prosecuting the case with the assistance of legal technician Lauri Gomez. A copy of this press release and key court documents filed in the case may also be found on the U.S. Attorney's Office's website at: www.usdoj.gov/usao/can/ All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be directed to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew J. Jacobs at (415)436-7181 or Elizabeth de la Vega at (408)535-5032. [Matthew Jacobs' signature] From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:36:49 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:36:49 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] EFF: Grand Jury Charges Russian Company and Programmer On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > This appeared on the US mailing list this morning. I've checked my diary > and the date is _not_ 1st April. > > This does make it look very unlikely that Dmitry will be allowed to go > home this week. I wonder if this is a bargaining tactic by the US govt. to try and intimidate Dmitry into a plea bargain so that they can walk away with a guilty virdict thus confirming DMCA. Doesn't change the fact that we need to campaign against this however it is interesting to note the use of intimidatory tactics designed to prevent Dmitry from enjoying the freedoms "guaranteed" under the US constitution. Jason From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:24:01 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:24:01 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] EFF: Grand Jury Charges Russian Company an d Programmer > I wonder if this is a bargaining tactic by the US govt. to try and > intimidate Dmitry into a plea bargain Does anyone know what happens if the management in Elcomsoft refuse to go to the US to defend themselves in the trial ? Would they be tried in their absence or would all the charges just fall on Dmitry ? dan > -----Original Message----- > From: Jason Clifford [mailto:jason at uklinux.net] > Sent: 29 August 2001 10:37 > To: Dan Ackroyd > Cc: Free-Sklyarov-Uk (E-mail) > Subject: Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] EFF: Grand Jury Charges > Russian Company > and Programmer > > > On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Dan Ackroyd wrote: > > > This appeared on the US mailing list this morning. I've > checked my diary > > and the date is _not_ 1st April. > > > > This does make it look very unlikely that Dmitry will be > allowed to go > > home this week. > > I wonder if this is a bargaining tactic by the US govt. to try and > intimidate Dmitry into a plea bargain so that they can walk > away with a > guilty virdict thus confirming DMCA. > > Doesn't change the fact that we need to campaign against this > however it > is interesting to note the use of intimidatory tactics > designed to prevent > Dmitry from enjoying the freedoms "guaranteed" under the US > constitution. > > Jason > > > > _______________________________________________ > Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list > Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org > http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk > From jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 12:02:10 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 12:02:10 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Flyers for tomorrow Volunteers to print flyers for tomorrow...? Various flyers at: http://uk.eurorights.org/resources/flyers.shtml The "Beware the EUCD" flyer (as used at the Cambridge leafletting event) is available, and the "Drop the Charges" flyer is still pretty much spot on. The US protesters have some new ones - I'll get hold of any that are useful and stick them up on the website. On the subject of which- would be useful to have a "flyer co-ordination bod" to oversee flyer production, printing, keep an eye out for cool flyers from other sources, etc. Your name in lights in the hall of fame that is our contact page and a free email address @uk.eurorights.org to the first to volunteer ;-) Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From mk270 at cam.ac.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 12:28:55 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 12:28:55 +0100 (BST) From: Martin Keegan mk270 at cam.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] old media article about EUCD http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,480027,00.html From Ronan at footle.com Wed, 29 Aug 2001 13:55:02 +0800 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 13:55:02 +0800 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Edinburgh protest final details Hello everyone, I had a phone call from the police this morning confirming that we have permission to protest under the Wellington monument (beside Burger King) from 1315 until 1800, with a march up to the consulate at 3pm if there are sufficient numbers. As such, the protest will be something of a two staged affair - centred around two 'gathering times' of 1315 and 1700, although you can turn up anytime you can make it! I'll be there for the whole thing, although I envisage people coming and going as they please. If you can make it for one of the gathering times, then please do, as a large number of people all at once will look decidedly more impressive. I'm just about to go and get the flyers and placards done (enough for everyone), but please bring your own (and placards too) if you can (we can always save extra ones for later). As far as numbers are concerned, I can say for certain that there will be at least 8 of us appearing at some point throughout the day (but I'm working on raising that figure!). See you tomorrow, Ronan From jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 14:48:07 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 14:48:07 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Article on silicon.com http://www.silicon.com/a46902 Some gratuitous misquoting going on, though - I shall have to be more careful: JTJM said "... stepping up its actions against computer crackers", and completed the sentence with "which [action against crackers] is not unreasonable - however, the DMCA's prohibition on the discussion of the flaws in copy protection mechanisms is [unreasonable, a threat to cryptographic research, etc]". Computer crackers were only mentioned because he prompted their discussion. Ho, hum... Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:02:47 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:02:47 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Article on silicon.com On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > Some gratuitous misquoting going on, though - I shall have to be more > careful: > > Computer crackers were only mentioned because he prompted their > discussion. It is important when talking to journalists to remember that always have the story they want to write in their mind before they talk to you. You are being interviewed in order to provide them with statements supporting their story's line. This makes is very important to be ultra cautious of your wording. Jason From ian at maul.deepsky.com Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:38:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:38:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Ian Firla ian at maul.deepsky.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] more fuel for the fire I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to attend this protest. :( Good luck! and I'll be watching for more coverage on newsnight. Here's another article which outlines a case where the threat of the DMCA in general and of Dmitry's case in particular has had another very detrimental effect: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=211491&thesection=technology Ian ------------ Dr Ian Firla Robert Graves Trust St John's College, Oxford OX1 3JP - +44-(0)7855-310565 http://www.robertgraves.org From caroline.middleton at portmet.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:50:06 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:50:06 +0100 From: Caroline Middleton caroline.middleton at portmet.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] more fuel for the fire Hi all I'm sorry I can't make it either as it's rare that I can leave work at lunch-times. But you have my continued support and I'll try to make the next one. Caroline Caroline Middleton Portfolio Communications, Russell Chambers, The Piazza, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 8AA Tel: +44 (0) 207 240 6959 Fax: +44 (0) 207 240 4849 -----Original Message----- From: Ian Firla [mailto:ian at maul.deepsky.com] Sent: 29 August 2001 15:39 To: free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] more fuel for the fire I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to attend this protest. :( Good luck! and I'll be watching for more coverage on newsnight. Here's another article which outlines a case where the threat of the DMCA in general and of Dmitry's case in particular has had another very detrimental effect: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=211491&thesection=technol ogy Ian ------------ Dr Ian Firla Robert Graves Trust St John's College, Oxford OX1 3JP - +44-(0)7855-310565 http://www.robertgraves.org _______________________________________________ Free-sklyarov-uk mailing list Free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org http://mailman.xenoclast.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov-uk From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 18:17:47 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 18:17:47 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] IRC Meeting - tonight at 2000 #sklyarov-uk on slashnet.org:6667 The weekly IRC meeting will go ahead this evening to discuss final preparations for the protests in London and Edinburgh tomorrow. All welcome. V. Rough Agenda: 1. Leaflets 2. On site press liaison for London 3. Pub for meeting afterwards 4. Any other business Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Wed, 29 Aug 2001 19:01:17 +0100 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 19:01:17 +0100 From: Dan Ackroyd DAckroyd at igl.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] IRC details Just in case you can't find them, here are the IRC details: #sklyarov-uk slashnet.org:6667 cheers dan From jtjm at xenoclast.org Wed, 29 Aug 2001 19:56:05 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 19:56:05 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] BBC News article "Protests greet Copyright Charges" http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1514000/1514969.stm -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From tim at reinhouse.freeserve.co.uk Thu, 30 Aug 2001 00:21:14 +0100 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 00:21:14 +0100 From: Timothy Baldwin tim at reinhouse.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August On Tuesday 28 August 2001 11:22 pm, jtjm at uk.eurorights.org wrote: > It is important to stress that we respect absolutely the principal of > copyright; A large and growing number of our potential supporters are opposed to copyright. > many of our members are programmers and authors whose works > enjoy the traditional protections of copyright. That reads like a statement in favour of copyright. > we do not condone copyright infringement in any form. The Campaign for Digital Rights should not condemn and probably not condone copyright infringement, nor should it support or oppose copyright, i.e. it should remain absolutely neutral. Individuals when not representing CFDR are of course free to campaign these and other issues. For the CFDR to adopt such a position would be to exclude people of the opposite position, we should be instead trying to build the largest possible campaign. For example the campigain to renationalise Railtrack would be a lot smaller if it took to position the train operating companies should not be nationalised. Perhaps supporting copyright infringement in relation to acts which are currently covered by fair use with respect to physical copies would be sensible. I kindly request that no one makes statements about the position of the CFDR which have not been agreed upon. And remember this is a campaign against (certain provisions of) EUCD and similar laws, and the release of those imprisoned under those laws. This is not a campiagin for or against copyright, other forms of intellectual property, capitalism of anything else. > Furthermore, by > effectively prohibiting discussion of the weaknesses of particular > copy protection schemes, these laws practically guarantee that copy > protection mechanisms will be weak and easily broken, to the detriment > of the very authors and musicians whose work they are designed to > protect. Are we not against Digital Rights Management, as it inherently restricts fair use? > The Campaign for Digital Rights is working together with industry, > academics, the Foundation for Information Policy Research > (http://www.fipr.org/), and similar organisations throughout Europe > and America. For more information, mailing lists, et al, see: > http://uk.eurorights.org/ -- Timothy Baldwin Member of WYLUG, SWP, SA and GR 2nd year Computer Science, University of Leeds From jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Thu, 30 Aug 2001 01:32:27 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 01:32:27 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at uk.eurorights.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Timothy Baldwin wrote: > On Tuesday 28 August 2001 11:22 pm, jtjm at uk.eurorights.org wrote: > > > It is important to stress that we respect absolutely the principal of > > copyright; > > A large and growing number of our potential supporters are opposed to > copyright. This is a very important matter, and critical to our chances of success - I would appreciate it if members of the list would discuss this point of view as a matter of priority. The rest of this post represents my own opinions, and not those of the Campaign: As an author and a programmer, I make use of copyright to ensure that my works are available to all. Without copyright, I would not have the ability to release my works under the GNU Public Licence, for example. I oppose poorly thought out copy protection laws, and I oppose the needless extension of copyright for ever longer periods in the interests of corporations. I do not oppose the principles of copyright per se (indeed I support them, as do almost all open source programmers of my acquaintance). > > many of our members are programmers and authors whose works > > enjoy the traditional protections of copyright. > > That reads like a statement in favour of copyright. It is. > > we do not condone copyright infringement in any form. > > The Campaign for Digital Rights should not condemn and probably not condone > copyright infringement, nor should it support or oppose copyright, i.e. it > should remain absolutely neutral. > > Individuals when not representing CFDR are > of course free to campaign these and other issues. For the CFDR to adopt such > a position would be to exclude people of the opposite position, we should be > instead trying to build the largest possible campaign. For example the > campigain to renationalise Railtrack would be a lot smaller if it took to > position the train operating companies should not be nationalised. You have a point, but if we are to persuade those with most influence on the legislative process we will find it difficult to do so if we give the impression of being against copyright (and believe me, being neutral on the issue will be presented in the press as our being in favour of copyright infringement - once that happens, we will have lost). If you can devise a neutral answer to the question "Do you oppose copyright?" that cannot be used as evidence that you might oppose copyright (not in a court of law, but in the media), then you are a better man than I. I believe that we will be at a significant disadvantage if we are unable to state that we support the principles of copyright, and have gained the impression (from the mailing list, IRC, and private conversations) that this view is is supported by the majority of the active members of the campaign. I may well be wrong in this - I will wait to see the results of any ensuing discussion. > > Perhaps supporting copyright infringement in relation to acts which are > currently covered by fair use with respect to physical copies would be > sensible. Acts covered by fair use or fair dealing provisions of existing legislation (excluding DMCA and EUCD) are by definition not copyright infringements. > I kindly request that no one makes statements about the position of the CFDR > which have not been agreed upon. I notice that this is your third post to the list (as tim at reinhouse.freeserve.co.uk) and that at no point prior to today have you raised similar objections (nor, so far as my fragile memory can recall, has anyone else). I would be delighted if it were possible to have everything I say or write on behalf of the Campaign ratified first by unanimous votes. In practice, it's not, and I have to do my best to represent the majority of the publicly stated opinion of the Campaign's supporters. I am very happy to be corrected where I have got this wrong - I don't yet believe that this is one of those cases (but stand waiting to be corrected). > > Are we not against Digital Rights Management, as it inherently restricts fair > use? No - I believe that we are against laws making it illegal to circumvent Digital Rights Management for the purposes of fair use. The distinction is significant. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Thu, 30 Aug 2001 02:10:12 +0100 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 02:10:12 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August On Thursday 30 August 2001 12:21 am, Timothy Baldwin wrote: > On Tuesday 28 August 2001 11:22 pm, jtjm at uk.eurorights.org wrote: > > It is important to stress that we respect absolutely the > > principal of copyright; > > A large and growing number of our potential supporters are opposed > to copyright. But as an organisation, we mustn't be seen to take that line. This is really important folks: our enemies would like nothing better=20 than to portray us as "thieves" and "pirates". If some of our supporters are against copyright ihn principle, then as an intellectual argument I have some sympathy for them. But in terms of what's practical, they should either modify their ideas or shut up. To do otherwise makes it more likely that the likes of Adobe, the MPAA, the RIAA, and Microsoft will win. > > many of our members are programmers and authors whose works > > enjoy the traditional protections of copyright. > > That reads like a statement in favour of copyright. Umm... because it's meant to? > > we do not condone copyright infringement in any form. > > The Campaign for Digital Rights should not condemn and probably > not condone copyright infringement, nor should it support or oppose > copyright, i.e. it should remain absolutely neutral.=20 Why? Do you think we are likely to be more successful in getting the EUCD modified in the ways we want if we do this? It seems to me that the opposite is morte likely. Bear in mind that politicians aren't likely to view kindly any suggestion that copyright be abolished. > Individuals > when not representing CFDR are of course free to campaign these and > other issues. For the CFDR to adopt such a position would be to > exclude people of the opposite position, we should be instead > trying to build the largest possible campaign. For example the > campigain to renationalise Railtrack would be a lot smaller if it > took to position the train operating companies should not be > nationalised. Yes, buit to use your analogy, the train operating companies are unpopular. The principle of copyrights *isn't* unpopular, most people, including most lawmakers, support it. > Perhaps supporting copyright infringement in relation to acts which > are currently covered by fair use with respect to physical copies > would be sensible. If it's fair use, it isn't infringement, of course. IMO, our policy should broadly be if something is an existing right that people have, then the new legislation shouldn't take it away. > I kindly request that no one makes statements about the position of > the CFDR which have not been agreed upon. We do need to formally agree a position. > And remember this is a campaign against (certain provisions of) > EUCD and similar laws, and the release of those imprisoned under > those laws. This is not a campiagin for or against copyright, other > forms of intellectual property, capitalism of anything else. True. I think we need also to oppose some (if not all) software patents.=20 The DMCA has the effect of allowing a cxompany to "own" a file=20 format, as no-one may decode that format without their permission.=20 Software patents can be used to have the same effect.=20 > > Furthermore, by > > effectively prohibiting discussion of the weaknesses of > > particular copy protection schemes, these laws practically > > guarantee that copy protection mechanisms will be weak and easily > > broken, to the detriment of the very authors and musicians whose > > work they are designed to protect. > > Are we not against Digital Rights Management, as it inherently > restricts fair use? My personal position is that anyone should be allowed to put a DRM system on software. And anyone should be allowed to make a system that cracks the DRM, so long as the crack has significant fair-use purposes. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** Do you live in London, and think that it shouldn't be a crime to help blind people read electonic books? If so, join the protest=20 against the DMCA and the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov. Location: Hyde Park Corner Tube,=20 Time: Thursday 30 August, from 12:45 pm onwards.=20 See for details, or phone me on 07720 644417. From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Thu, 30 Aug 2001 02:48:26 +0100 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 02:48:26 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August On Thursday 30 August 2001 1:32 am, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > As an author and a programmer, I make use of copyright to ensure > that my works are available to all. Without copyright, I would not > have the ability to release my works under the GNU Public Licence, > for example. I oppose poorly thought out copy protection laws, and > I oppose the needless extension of copyright for ever longer > periods in the interests of corporations. =20 I agree with all this. > I do not oppose the > principles of copyright per se (indeed I support them, as do almost > all open source programmers of my acquaintance). Personally, I can live with or without copyright. From an intellectual point of view i can see that making it a crime to arrange your=20 physical property the way you like -- which is what copyright laws imply -- is an unfair imposition. OTOH, reasonable, not too=20 restrictive copyright laws are in practical terms OK in that they lead to the production of content that might otherwise not be=20 produced. Not only that, since we alreadsy live in a society with=20 copyright laws, changing to a society without them would cause significant disruption during the changeover period, which would be a non-starter politically. But copyright laws like the DMCA, which seek to outlaw whole=20 technologies, are totally against the interests of society. They benefit a few powerful corporations, at the expense of everyone=20 else. > I believe that we will be at a significant disadvantage if we are > unable to state that we support the principles of copyright, and > have gained the impression (from the mailing list, IRC, and private > conversations) that this view is is supported by the majority of > the active members of the campaign. =20 It is certainly supported by me. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** From Matt.at.Newsome.dot.com at seville.screaming.net Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:50:12 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:50:12 +0100 (BST) From: Matt Newsome Matt.at.Newsome.dot.com at seville.screaming.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Opinions re. CfDR direction free-sklyarov-uk-announce-admin at xenoclast.org wrote (Thursday 30 August 2001 06:26 +0100): > I believe it is important that we reach > consensus on this issue, and therefore urge those on the announcement list > who might not normally participate in the discussions on the main list to > read the email below, and post their opinions to > free-sklyarov-uk at xenoclast.org. I entirely agree that the UK media will either ignore or disparage the campaign if an anti-copyright or neutral stance is taken. After all, Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, based the entire GNU General Public License on existing copyright law - the existence of copyright law is fundamental to its operation. Most people I've talked to don't oppose copyright law in itself - indeed, most see an entirely valid place for it in modern culture. Instead they would like to see an increased use of FSF-style copyleft licenses for certain works, e.g. operating systems software, some forms of literature and music, etc. I absolutely agree that the campaign should not seek to oppose copyright law (it would almost certainly fail if it tried) but instead should raise awareness of the implications of the EUCD/DMCA for (particularly UK) civil liberties. Fair use and reverse engineering should be specifically focussed as these would be the easiest issues to highlight to the general public and are likely to have the largest impact to UK/EU/US rights. The campaign organisers should seek to maintain very close relations with US organisations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation who are already very active on this issue. Existing UK/EU civil liberty groups (such as the UK's Liberty) should be encouraged to get involved. I, for one, would be willing to contribute to a fund in support of anti-EUCD work should the a campaign take the direction I've outlined above. -- Matt Newsome From magennisg at hotmail.com Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:48:05 +0000 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:48:05 +0000 From: Gerry Magennis magennisg at hotmail.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry protest today Julian, Although the CDR website is very nice and good, the protest today gets a total of only one line mention from the main page, and even then the details are only on the click thru. Following the trail from LWN->FreeSklarov.org->uk.eurorights.org ends up with almost no mention of Dmitry now. Can we get the details of todays protest including time and location right up there at the top of the uk.eurorights.org page. People are going to be interested in doing something today, with all the coverage, so we should make it explicit who we're supporting and where and when. -Gerry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:27:31 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:27:31 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry protest today On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Gerry Magennis wrote: > Julian, > > Although the CDR website is very nice and good, the protest today gets a > total of only one line mention from the main page, and even then the details > are only on the click thru. Following the trail from > LWN->FreeSklarov.org->uk.eurorights.org ends up with almost no mention of > Dmitry now. > Can we get the details of todays protest including time and location right > up there at the top of the uk.eurorights.org page. People are going to be > interested in doing something today, with all the coverage, so we should > make it explicit who we're supporting and where and when. We certainly can ;-) If I had infinite reserves of time, I might have done it sooner. Looking at the web logs though, practically every first hit the uk.eurorights.org site is getting is going to the calendar page, and the majority of those who enter at the main page go to the calendar next. Unfortunately, if I'm to stand any chance of getting to the protest today, there's some important work (business work) I need to finish off in the next couple of hours. Andy, if you get a chance, could you advertise the protest on the front page? Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From jason at uklinux.net Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:43:35 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:43:35 +0100 (BST) From: Jason Clifford jason at uklinux.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Timothy Baldwin wrote: > > It is important to stress that we respect absolutely the principal of > > copyright; > > A large and growing number of our potential supporters are opposed to > copyright. That is their right however it's important to consider exactly what we're campaigning for. We're campaigning for the charges against Dmitry to be dropped and the DMCA to be repealed/amended. More immediately to us (in geographic terms) we're seeking to raise awareness of the dangers of the EUCD and the legislation that will arise from it across the EU. We have a goal. It is to ensure that legislation that must be introduced in accordance with EU law will be sufficiently sane that the horrors contained in the DMCA will not be asserted in law here. > That reads like a statement in favour of copyright. I think that most of us are in favour of copyright. I write programs as well as having written songs and other stuff. I want others to acknowledge that it was me who produced these things and not to run off claiming they did. I also want to be able to protect any income I may generate using them. Importantly I want to be sure I can protect myself from "corporate theft" in this respect which is one of the cornerstones of UK copyright law. > The Campaign for Digital Rights should not condemn and probably not condone > copyright infringement, nor should it support or oppose copyright, i.e. it > should remain absolutely neutral. As others have pointed out this position would severely weaken the campaign. Indeed many of those who might otherwise support us would not be willing to do so. Being "neutral" in this respect is the same as supporting those who practice copyright theft. Theives generally don't get much public support. > For the CFDR to adopt such > a position would be to exclude people of the opposite position, we should be > instead trying to build the largest possible campaign. For example the > campigain to renationalise Railtrack would be a lot smaller if it took to > position the train operating companies should not be nationalised. Yet were that campaign to demand that anyone should be permitted to run trains on the lines at any time regardless of licensing and timetables it wouldn't have any support. > Perhaps supporting copyright infringement in relation to acts which are > currently covered by fair use with respect to physical copies would be > sensible. As has been pointed out that is not infringement. The law is very clear that those acts are not infringing copyright. > I kindly request that no one makes statements about the position of the CFDR > which have not been agreed upon. Yes, this is important so we need to be certain of our position on it. I've been involved in a similar discussion with a few members already however it certainly wont do any harm for more people to express their views on the subject and to gain a clear view of how the CFDR as a whole see it. > And remember this is a campaign against (certain provisions of) EUCD and > similar laws, and the release of those imprisoned under those laws. This is > not a campiagin for or against copyright, other forms of intellectual > property, capitalism of anything else. By definition we're campaigning on issues of copyright and fair use. That means we must have definite views on this matter else we're not going to be seen as serious. > Are we not against Digital Rights Management, as it inherently restricts fair > use? We're opposed to anything that seeks to prevent anyone from exercising their rights to use the products they have lawfully bought in accordance with existing copyright law. That includes fair use/dealing as per the CPDA 1988. Jason Clifford From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:14:25 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:14:25 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Chairman of Ashpool Telecom gives company day off to attend London Protest Neil Newell, Chairman of Ashpool Telecom, has cc'ed me on an email in which he invited all the members of his company to take the day off in order to attend today's protest in London. To the best of my knowledge this is a first for the Campaign, and a very encouraging sign of things to come; it is extremely important that we obtain support from the leaders of industry if we are to achieve our aims. Ashpool Telecom's website: http://www.ashpool-telecom.com/ Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:22:31 +0100 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:22:31 +0100 From: Theodore Hong twh1 at doc.ic.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August --M9NhX3UHpAaciwkO Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Personally I am in favor of a copyright system which balances the interests of creators and users of information. I think there is a difference between the person converting a CD to mp3 to listen to in the car and the person sitting in a warehouse pressing thousands of unauthorised disks to sell on the sidewalk. Neither the DMCA nor a no-copyright system make a distinction between the two. As a practical matter, a successful campaign against EUCD/WIPO will need the support of the general public, businesses, and authors and artists. I believe that the majority of all of these groups would shy away from an organisation that advocates the abolition of copyright. I like the formulation that we want to make sure our existing rights in the physical world are preserved in the digital arena, which has much wider appeal. I think a better analogy than renationalising Railtrack would be the movement to decriminalise marijuana. While some individual supporters of the movement might favour broader action to legalise all drugs, the chances for success are much greater if the issue is kept narrowly focused. theo -- Theodore Hong Department of Computing, Imperial College t.hong at doc.ic.ac.uk 180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~twh1/ --M9NhX3UHpAaciwkO Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 iQA/AwUBO44T5kV+lYNqtIdrEQLIQQCfajFjbIHo86UAnANL0Ao4iv0XG2kAoL7d 8dE/4clkghfH93tAIfD1Fy1C =uXod -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --M9NhX3UHpAaciwkO-- From Gus.Reid at motorola.com Thu, 30 Aug 2001 13:58:24 +0100 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 13:58:24 +0100 From: Reid Angus-BAR04Z Gus.Reid at motorola.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Prote sts 30 August On Thursday 30 August 2001 1:32 am, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote: > > As an author and a programmer, I make use of copyright to ensure > that my works are available to all. Without copyright, I would not > have the ability to release my works under the GNU Public Licence, > for example. I oppose poorly thought out copy protection laws, and > I oppose the needless extension of copyright for ever longer > periods in the interests of corporations. =20 I also pretty much agree with this position. I certainly agree that it's the correct position for the CFDR to take on this issue. To try and avoid this being a 'me too' post, I'd like to add a little more discussion which I think is relevant to this point. Apologies if I start by going over old ground. Copyright has been a good system, and up until recently has worked well as a way to encourage/allow production of content. In the presence of an unfettered communications system though, it gets much harder to enforce it. Without draconian laws like the DMCA, it *will* become more and more difficult to enforce. As DRM software is cracked, and it will be if you believe Bruce Schneier et al, then digital media will probably be broadcast far and wide. The problem will be that it won't be large, centralised, prosecutable, piracy operations that do the copying, it'll be a napster/gnutella/freenet type system. Loads of little guys swapping stuff*. Prosecuting them with current copyright laws would be exceptionally difficult and inefficent. Using something like the anti-circumvention sections of the DMCA allows prosecutors to attack small targets again. We are likely to be asked how we propose to defend copyright in the absence of a legal defence of DRM systems. It's a reasonable question. If we support copyright, how do we defend it? My own opinion is that it's probably impossible, without turning the internet into some kind of police state (I know that sounds like FUD, but I can't think of a better way to describe it). Without that kind of protection, then charging by the copy will become a worse and worse business model as time goes on, and file sharing software improves. However, if the CFDR is to be taken seriously as a supporter of copyright, then I think we might need to come up with a better answer to that question. I guess a more fundamental question is whether Julian's proposed position is internally consistent? If we ever make it to Newsnight again, is Paxo just going to skin and gut us on this issue? Luck for the protests this afternoon. Sorry I can't make it this time. Cheers, Gus * NB I know that even on Gnutella this isn't the case at the moment; it tends to be people with fat pipes that host most of the content. They're prosecutable now, but I posit that this will change as broadband becomes widespread and more people can become providers. From eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Thu, 30 Aug 2001 14:27:09 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 14:27:09 +0100 (BST) From: Edward Welbourne eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] pro/con trad copyright ? [was Re: protest, 30th Aug] This morning, Timothy Baldwin said: > A large and growing number of our potential supporters are opposed to > copyright. and Julian asked for discussion; so hand up, I'm one such: but I don't think that is the business of the present list. (See below.) Timothy went on to say: > The Campaign for Digital Rights should not condemn and probably not > condone copyright infringement, This isn't a civil disobedience campaign: we're not condoning any breach of any law. We're campaigning to change a pernicious US law and prevent an unwelcome change to our own law. There is no point campaigning for good law unless one respects the law. [Indeed, I suspect organised criminals who traffic in drugs, for instance, are all in favour of the prohibition of drugs, since it's the mainstay of their business model; whereas a campaign to legalise drugs would necessarily take an official position of compliance with the law until it gets changed, so as to avoid legal hassles for `incitement'.] If anyone breaks any law under the CFDR's banner, I'm going to condemn them, I can't speak for the rest of you. I don't want this campaign brought into disrepute ! CFDR is raising public awareness through legal means; if someone wants to set up a civil disobedience campaign, that's their business (and legal lookout) and they can't *expect* help from CFDR or FIPR (though they might get it all the same, who knows). and then: > nor should it support or oppose copyright, i.e. it should remain > absolutely neutral. which should help with Julian's: > If you can devise a neutral answer to the question "Do you oppose > copyright?" that cannot be used as evidence that you might oppose > copyright (not in a court of law, but in the media), then you are a > better man than I. Answering that one is easy: `the CFDR does not oppose copyright'. This is, indeed, the neutral answer; and it's safe. The harder question, which Julian is going to be thrown (and I think it's what he really had in mind above), is: "Do you support copyright?" to which, technically, the neutral response is, again, No (neither support nor oppose). However, as Julian and Phil have pointed out, such an answer will be misrepresentable as saying the CFDR opposes copyright, which is neither true nor what we want to say. One answer would be: "I personally support copyright, the CFDR takes no official position on it". I can believe Julian might have worries about how follow-up questions would twist that answer. Remember that the press is a branch of the publishing industry, so unlikely to be neutral. Another: `Yes, the CFDR supports traditional copyright'. This makes Julian's life a lot easier and lets him put across a clearer message, 'though it would conflict with Tim's desire for total neutrality; and opponents of copyright would be in conflict with CFDR policy over it; but `support' is not a transitive relation (I support CFDR which supports copyright, but I don't support copyright) and I, for one, would not have a problem with this conflict - I'm supporting the CFDR in order, pragmatically, to achieve a specific aim, the suppression of DMCA/EUCD and similar expansions of copyright, and am happy to ally myself with folk who support traditional copyright in pursuit of this common cause. If a majority of CFDR supporters are pro-copyright, I don't mind being personally at odds with official policy on this. Grown-ups can work together without agreeing on every last detail. Note the careful use of `traditional' in the above to distinguish the New Model of copyright (which is about the publisher having total control over how a work is used) from the old (which is only concerned with preventing copying and misrepresentation of authors). We need to make the public aware that the new laws being brought in for electronic copyright are massively expanding the publisher's side of the deal at the expense of the consumer. Publishers are claiming that `all' the changes are doing is preventing illicit copying: when, in fact, they do a great deal more. Publishers, enjoying the natural advantage of their trade, have disseminated their propaganda: we need to get Our Truth out to the public; which requires speaking with care ! I would suggest (rather than neutrality on copyright) that CFDR take the position that it is campaigning for the lawful purchaser of a copyright work to have the same rights in relation to that work when it is electronicly published as when it is published as a book on paper and, in particular, for those rights to remain the classically defined rights, including `fair use'. What do other folk think ? Note that the wording stresses that our interest is the rights of lawful purchasers: and that this position accepts the precedents of book publishing. Note that we enjoy the right to own a photocopier or other device which `could be used' to infringe someone's copyright, provided the device has at least some non-infringing use - and it always will, because anything that can be used for re-publishing can be used for publishing - so the above would say this should be as true for electronic publications as for paper ones. Note that such a position does imply the right (for instance) to reverse-engineer or even decompile a computer program (as a published work, its binary code is available to me to read, understand and translate into some other form). This does not give anyone the right to publish copies or translations without the copyright-holder's consent, but if I write (from scratch) a functionally equivalent (or superior) program I do get the right to publish it. Eddy. -- More at: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~eddy/politics/decode.html From jtjm at xenoclast.org Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:41:57 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:41:57 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] EFF: Russian Programmer & Co. Plead Not Guilty Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release For Immediate Release: August 30, 2001 Contacts: Cindy Cohn, EFF Legal Director, cindy at eff.org, +1 415 436-9333 x108 (office), +1 415 823-2148 (cell) Will Doherty, EFF Online Activist / Media Relations, press at eff.org, +1 415 436-9333 x111 (office), +1 415 794-6064 (cell) Russian Programmer & Co. Plead Not Guilty Sklyarov Faces 25 Years for Providing eBook Format Converter San Jose, California - Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and his employer Elcomsoft today pled not guilty to charges of providing electronic book format conversion software in the United States. Sklyarov, who had the benefit of a court interpreter, spoke the plea himself in English. The court heard a five-count grand jury indictment against Elcomsoft and previously jailed programmer Sklyarov on charges of trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in a copyright circumvention device. Sklyarov -- who is out of custody on US $50,000 bail -- could face a prison term of up to twenty-five years and a US $2,250,000 fine. As a corporation, Elcomsoft faces a potential US $2,500,000 fine. "Dmitry has programmed a format converter which has many legitimate uses including enabling the blind to hear eBooks," explained Cindy Cohn, Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director. "The idea that he faces prison for this is outrageous. The EFF will support Dmitry through the end of this ordeal." "We were hoping that the government would see the wisdom and justice in not pursuing a case against Sklyarov," said his attorney, Joseph M. Burton of Duane Morris in San Francisco. "Even if one were to ignore the serious legal questions involving the DMCA, this case hardly cries out for criminal prosecution. Sklyarov's and Elcomsoft's actions are not conduct that Congress intended to criminalize. We will vigorously contest these charges." Sklyarov and his attorneys appeared at the arraignment with US Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg presiding. The next court appearance scheduled in the case is 9:00 AM Pacific on September 4 before Judge Ronald Whyte in the San Jose Federal Court building. Well-dressed observers attended the arraignment and nonviolent protests occurred in Moscow (Russia), London (England), Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Reno, and Black Rock City, Nevada. Hundreds of protestors are expected to march today from the LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco to the Federal Court building. Background on the Sklyarov case: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/ Calendar of protests related to the Sklyarov case: http://freesklyarov.org/calendar/ Sklyarov Defense Fund: http://www.elcomsoft.com/??? 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 websites in the world: http://www.eff.org/ - end - From andrew at andrewr.co.uk Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:53:52 +0100 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:53:52 +0100 From: AndrewR andrew at andrewr.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Reg article Just to let you all know, The Register wrote an article about our protest today, http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/21375.html Andrew -- WARNING: Curiosity may be harmful to your cat's health. http://www.AndrewR.co.uk - AndrewR Software - Windows apps, VB controls, and QBASIC and visual BASIC things. Email address is spam trapped. ICQ 53186881 From ian at maul.deepsky.com Thu, 30 Aug 2001 19:04:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 19:04:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Ian Firla ian at maul.deepsky.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Lessig speaks out Another good analysis of the broader situation from a well-known spokesperson: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7004860.html Ian ------------ Dr Ian Firla Robert Graves Trust St John's College, Oxford OX1 3JP - +44-(0)7855-310565 http://www.robertgraves.org From rs at rcsimpson.demon.co.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 01:48:14 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 01:48:14 +0100 (BST) From: Richard Simpson rs at rcsimpson.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Quick (possibly obvious) thoughts to improve future demos 1) Advertise dates and times at least 2 weeks in advance. 2) Hold it on a Saturday. 3) Get someone to bring along a ghetto blaster. The singing will be improved (possibly from dreadful to just bearable) if everyone can hear the tune whilst they are singing. 4) Improved leaflets: Leaflets are like operating systems. Everyone has fixed ideas on how they should be designed and feels moved to violently disagree with everyone else's view. So, here is mine :-) We need double sided A5 leaflets. The front should contain short punchy instantly comprehensible statements in large text (i.e. none of this Pii stuff). For example: ------------------------------------------------------------ In the near future it might be illegal to: Lend a book to a friend. Copy your music onto cassette. Run a second hand bookshop ------------------------------------------------------------ Followed by a short paragraph (no more than 5 lines) explaining who we are and what our basic aims are. This is aimed at grabbing people's attention and is all that Joe Sixpack will read anyway. Then, on the other side, we could have a lengthy semi-technical explanation of the details (we probably already have this on the current leaflets). We should put a lot of effort into getting this right and then get lots of these (several thousand) printed with the front in more than one colour. "It doesn't mention Dmitry!" Yes, I know, but I believe that we should have separate simpler and cheaper leaflets about Dmity. His situation could change quite quickly and and if we have two messages on the same leaflet (Free Dmitry & Stop EUCD) it gets too confusing for Joe Sixpack. I think that we should minimise the amount we put in about security research. The vast majority don't know that anyone does this sort of research anyway, don't think that it concerns them, "Why should I encrypt my emails? I'm not a terrorist", have been conditioned to believe that a secure computer system cannot be constructed (since Microsoft haven't succeeded), and that the only solution to computer security problems is locking up "hackers". Mention security research briefly and those who are interested can read more on our web site. Am I volunteering to design these new leaflets. No, but I am prepared to fire up my RiscPC (still no better platform for DTP) and try to generate some ideas worked up examples. 5) Lastly, we need to be in a position to get the message through to the student population when they return in October. We need leaflets aimed at them (probably quite similar to our current ones) and contacts in computer science departments to spread the word. Regards, Richard "HuskyDog" Simpson -- --- Richard Simpson @ home I compute entirely on Linux. All MSWord files go straight to /dev/null. Note - The following code decrypts DVD movies. Its use and dissemination may be illegal in the USA. See www.opendvd.org // efdtt.c Author: Charles M. Hannum // Usage is: cat title-key scrambled.vob | efdtt >clear.vob #define m(i)(x[i]^s[i+84])<< unsigned char x[5],y,s[2048];main(n){for(read(0,x,5);read(0,s,n=2048);write(1,s ,n))if(s[y=s[13]%8+20]/16%4==1){int i=m(1)17^256+m(0)8,k=m(2)0,j=m(4)17^m(3)9^k *2-k%8^8,a=0,c=26;for(s[y]-=16;--c;j*=2)a=a*2^i&1,i=i/2^j&1<<24;for(j=127;++jy)c+=y=i^i/8^i>>4^i>>12,i=i>>8^y<<17,a^=a>>14,y=a^a*8^a<<6,a=a>>8^y<<9,k=s [j],k="7Wo~'G_\216"[k&7]+2^"cr3sfw6v;*k+>/n."[k>>4]*2^k*257/8,s[j]=k^(k&k*2&34) *6^c+~y;}} From ian at maul.deepsky.com Thu, 30 Aug 2001 21:47:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 21:47:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Ian Firla ian at maul.deepsky.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] another fascinating piece with very good links http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/31/dmca_report/index.html ------------ Dr Ian Firla Robert Graves Trust St John's College, Oxford OX1 3JP - +44-(0)7855-310565 http://www.robertgraves.org From Ronan at footle.com Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:06:00 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:06:00 +0100 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] report on Edinburgh protest The Edinburgh protest went well - I lost count of exactly how many people turned up. At least 15 people appeared at some point during the day, although we didn't number any more than about 10 at any one time. We distributed leaflets, and had people sign the petition to the US Attorney as we explained the issues. We marched up to the US consulate chanting, 'Free Dmitry, Free Speech' and rang their doorbell. Sadly there were only 2 people inside and neither would come out from behind the security door to talk to us. There's a bunch of photos of the event in chronological order at http://www.informinus.com/dmca/ if you're interested. Thanks everyone for coming! Ronan From a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 12:47:55 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 12:47:55 +0100 From: Anton Chterenlikht a.chterenlikht at sheffield.ac.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] defence fund Dear all, Can we put a Dmitry's defence fund address on the site. Maybe it is already somewhere deep inside but I could not find it. As far as I know there is no fraud. He also received some money from Boycottadobe people. Is it possible to put some indication of Dmitry's case at the home page? anton From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:52:38 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:52:38 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] if there is no DMCA/EUCD, how will copyright be enforced? On Thursday 30 August 2001 1:58 pm, Reid Angus-BAR04Z wrote: > > Copyright has been a good system, and up until recently has worked > well as a way to encourage/allow production of content. In the > presence of an unfettered communications system though, it gets > much harder to enforce it. Without draconian laws like the DMCA, it > *will* become more and more difficult to enforce. As DRM software > is cracked, and it will be if you believe Bruce Schneier et al, > then digital media will probably be broadcast far and wide. The > problem will be that it won't be large, centralised, rosecutable, > piracy operations that do the copying, it'll be a > napster/gnutella/freenet type system. Loads of little guys swapping > stuff*. Prosecuting them with current copyright laws would be > exceptionally difficult and inefficent. Using something like the > anti-circumvention sections of the DMCA allows prosecutors to > attack small targets again. > > We are likely to be asked how we propose to defend copyright in the > absence of a legal defence of DRM systems. It's a reasonable > question.=20 It is indeed a reasonable question, and we must have answers prepared to it. (I think our answers should go in the FAQ, which at the moment is=20 purely about Dmitry; it needs to be extended to cover the EUCD.) > If we support copyright, how do we defend it? My own > opinion is that it's probably impossible, without turning the > internet into some kind of police state (I know that sounds like > FUD, but I can't think of a better way to describe it).=20 This is my analysis too. There was an article recently in Salon (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/pirate/index.html) about someone who tried to log on and found their ISP had shut them down on the orders of the MPAA, who were acting as judge, jury and executioner. What we need to establish in any new copyright act is the principle of "no punishment without due process of law": and ISP cannot be liable if they don't shut a client's account down, unless and until that client has been found liable or guilty of=20 something in a court of law. > Without > that kind of protection, then charging by the copy will become a > worse and worse business model as time goes on, and file sharing > software improves. File sharing will become easier, as technology improves. But so will copyright holders ability to give their customers cheap easy access to their wares, e.g. downloading an album by pressing a single button, which initiates the downmload and charges the customer a modest amount, say 50p. Oh, they won't make so much profits as they do now, but that's an inevitable and desirable effect of new technology: it makes things cheaper. > However, if the CFDR is to be taken seriously as a supporter of > copyright, then I think we might need to come up with a better > answer to that question. I guess a more fundamental question is > whether Julian's proposed position is internally consistent? If we > ever make it to Newsnight again, is Paxo just going to skin and gut > us on this issue? This was brought up briefly during the pub meeting yesterday. I suggest our answer should be in 4 parts. (1) the media corporations have cried wolf many times before. Bemember "home taping is killing music"? Remeber Valenti likening VCR users to "rapists"? (2) even if unauthorised copying became ubiquitous and nobody paid for legal copies of content, it wouldn't stop the delivery of most=20 content. Films make money from cinema audiences, merchandise and TV=20 showing. TV programs are paid for by advertising of the license fee, musicians get paid for live performances and merchandise, book authors mostly don't earn a living wage for it now (and therefore must be writing books for other reasons) and could be compensated by an extension of the existing scheme where they are paid for library borrowings of their books. (3) it won't come to that anyway, because better technology will make it easier for the content distribution industry (or a new slimmed-down version of it) to deliver content cheaply and easily to people. (4) The alternative is a police state. Argument for politicians:=20 everyone reads books or listens to music or watches films and TV programs. The new copyright law would harm everyone, except employees of the content distribution industry, who are maybe 1% of the electorate. It thus has the potential to be less popular than the Poll Tax, with similar effects on the careers of those introducing=20 it. > Luck for the protests this afternoon. Sorry I can't make it this > time. > > Cheers, Gus > > * NB I know that even on Gnutella this isn't the case at the > moment; it tends to be people with fat pipes that host most of the > content. They're prosecutable now, but I posit that this will > change as broadband becomes widespread and more people can become > providers. P2P hidden within encrypted emails, where the peered nodes are one's=20 "buddies" within an AIM-like system, would be rather hard to detect by ISP monitoring software, I imagine. To stop this, the authorities would have to outlaw encryption, which I suppose is a possibility, but it isn't on the cards at the moment (indeed the movement is the other way: the USA and France have=20 loosened crypto regulations, Germany is funding GnuPG). --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** From marcus.holmes at eclipse.fm Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:13:06 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:13:06 +0100 From: Holmes, Marcus marcus.holmes at eclipse.fm Subject: [FS-UK-announce] Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - Londo n and Edinburgh Protests 30 August (fwd) This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C13205.870E129A Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Firstly, thanks for the invite to post. My opinions: First, a set of assumptions: 1. It seems to be universally accepted that people who produce information-based goods, such as artists, musicians, programmers, authors, and so on, are entitled to financial reward for their efforts. In other words, they need to be paid somehow, otherwise, how are they going to continue to work? 2. It is very difficult, but not impossible, to prevent the copying of digital information, and in this century, all information is digital. If something can be copied at no cost, it inherently has no (financial) value, and therefore cannot attract a payment, meaning that the producer of such information cannot be rewarded for it. 3. The music and film publishing industry, in particular, are technically inept at digital protection. Because of the nature of their industry and the mentality of the people who rise to the top of such organisations, they massively prefer a legal solution to a technical solution to their problems. 4. The music and film publishing industry has seen returns in recent decades far beyond what one could reasonably expect for such a business model. This has mostly been caused by the inability to cheaply copy their products when they were in analogue form, and the restrictive nature of the publishing contracts they set up, effectively giving them a monopoly in the market for each piece of music or film. This effective monopoly has allowed them to charge whatever they like for that piece of music or film, and they have taken advantage of this. To illustrate, if you want to see the film Aliens, you must go to Fox or one of it's distributors. You cannot get this film from any other source, so Fox can charge what it likes for this film. 5. Moving to digital form has reduced the price per copy to the point where illegal copying is now widespread. This effectively breaks the monopoly of film and music distributors, as customers can now purchase any given film or piece of music from either the publisher or from an illegal copier. The original artist does not receive any reward from the illegal copier, so this is unethical, but the monopoly policy of the publishers is also unethical, so the public do not consider their actions in purchasing vast amounts of illegally copied material to be unethical. 6. To counter this and protect their monopolies, the music and film publishing industry has embarked on a legal solution that will damage the freedoms of individuals. They could have spent about the same amount of money financing a truly workable copy protection scheme that would have achieved the same end without restricting freedoms and without having to be replicated in every jurisdiction in the world, but chose not to (see assumption 3, above). So, my opinions, drawn from these assumptions, is: 1. There is nothing ethically wrong with either the concept or application of copyright, and it must be preserved in order to allow people to continue making music, films, books and programs. 2. The business model used by the publishing industries must be changed. Their current activities rely on having a monopoly on each artist's production, which must be challenged in court and prevented in future. An alternative suggested model is outlined below. Suggested alternative model for publishing: - Each artist produces work that they see fit to produce. The artist may be funded by agents or distributors to produce the work initially, but this funding may not restrict the distribution agreements that the artist may enter into. - A distributor takes the work that the artist produces, and presents it for sale to the general public, for whatever price they feel they can charge. Because each work may be distributed by several distributors, normal price competitiveness applies, and the price is held to what the market can bear, rather than what the distributor thinks it can get away with. This will be close enough to the costs of production that illegal copying will cease to be a problem, in fact, you would expect current "pirates" to become legitimate distributors very quickly. - Agents may be used to handle the distributor agreements, but again, there must not be an exclusivity clause in the agent's contract, so the artist can engage more than one agent, and each agent can arrange distribution deals with more than one distributor. Essentially, this whole problem of copyright protection is caused by the exclusive nature of the contracts between artists and publishers. If we remove that exclusivity, then we should remove the artificial price that is maintained by these mini-monopolies, and the whole problem will disappear. As a course of action, I suggest someone with a legal background investigates the possibilities of taking the music, film and book publishing companies to court under the Prevention of Monopolies act, which, in my feeble understanding of the law, would require that we establish that the market for any given film or book is a valid market in which a monopoly may operate. All my own humble opinion. Cheers, Marcus Holmes Please note that internet communications are not secure and therefore FM Image Management Ltd does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. Any views or opinions presented should be verified independently. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C13205.870E129A Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable RE: [FS-UK-announce] Re: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - = London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August (fwd)

Firstly, thanks for the invite to post.

My opinions:
First, a set of assumptions:
1. It seems to be universally accepted that people = who produce information-based goods, such as artists, musicians, = programmers, authors, and so on, are entitled to financial reward for = their efforts. In other words, they need to be paid somehow, otherwise, = how are they going to continue to work?

2. It is very difficult, but not impossible, to = prevent the copying of digital information, and in this century, all = information is digital. If something can be copied at no cost, it = inherently has no (financial) value, and therefore cannot attract a = payment, meaning that the producer of such information cannot be = rewarded for it.

3. The music and film publishing industry, in = particular, are technically inept at digital protection. Because of the = nature of their industry and the mentality of the people who rise to = the top of such organisations, they massively prefer a legal solution = to a technical solution to their problems.

4. The music and film publishing industry has seen = returns in recent decades far beyond what one could reasonably expect = for such a business model. This has mostly been caused by the inability = to cheaply copy their products when they were in analogue form, and the = restrictive nature of the publishing contracts they set up, effectively = giving them a monopoly in the market for each piece of music or film. = This effective monopoly has allowed them to charge whatever they like = for that piece of music or film, and they have taken advantage of this. = To illustrate, if you want to see the film Aliens, you must go to Fox = or one of it's distributors. You cannot get this film from any other = source, so Fox can charge what it likes for this film.

5. Moving to digital form has reduced the price per = copy to the point where illegal copying is now widespread. This = effectively breaks the monopoly of film and music distributors, as = customers can now purchase any given film or piece of music from either = the publisher or from an illegal copier. The original artist does not = receive any reward from the illegal copier, so this is unethical, but = the monopoly policy of the publishers is also unethical, so the public = do not consider their actions in purchasing vast amounts of illegally = copied material to be unethical.

6. To counter this and protect their monopolies, the = music and film publishing industry has embarked on a legal solution = that will damage the freedoms of individuals. They could have spent = about the same amount of money financing a truly workable copy = protection scheme that would have achieved the same end without = restricting freedoms and without having to be replicated in every = jurisdiction in the world, but chose not to (see assumption 3, = above).

So, my opinions, drawn from these assumptions, = is:
1. There is nothing ethically wrong with either the = concept or application of copyright, and it must be preserved in order = to allow people to continue making music, films, books and = programs.

2. The business model used by the publishing = industries must be changed. Their current activities rely on having a = monopoly on each artist's production, which must be challenged in court = and prevented in future. An alternative suggested model is outlined = below.

Suggested alternative model for publishing:
- Each artist produces work that they see fit to = produce. The artist may be funded by agents or distributors to produce = the work initially, but this funding may not restrict the distribution = agreements that the artist may enter into.

- A distributor takes the work that the artist = produces, and presents it for sale to the general public, for whatever = price they feel they can charge. Because each work may be distributed = by several distributors, normal price competitiveness applies, and the = price is held to what the market can bear, rather than what the = distributor thinks it can get away with. This will be close enough to = the costs of production that illegal copying will cease to be a = problem, in fact, you would expect current "pirates" to = become legitimate distributors very quickly.

- Agents may be used to handle the distributor = agreements, but again, there must not be an exclusivity clause in the = agent's contract, so the artist can engage more than one agent, and = each agent can arrange distribution deals with more than one = distributor.

Essentially, this whole problem of copyright = protection is caused by the exclusive nature of the contracts between = artists and publishers. If we remove that exclusivity, then we should = remove the artificial price that is maintained by these = mini-monopolies, and the whole problem will disappear.

As a course of action, I suggest someone with a legal = background investigates the possibilities of taking the music, film and = book publishing companies to court under the Prevention of Monopolies = act, which, in my feeble understanding of the law, would require that = we establish that the market for any given film or book is a valid = market in which a monopoly may operate.

All my own humble opinion.

Cheers,

Marcus Holmes



Please note that internet communications are not = secure and
therefore FM Image Management Ltd does not accept = legal
responsibility for the contents of this = message.
Any views or opinions presented should be = verified independently.

------_=_NextPart_001_01C13205.870E129A-- From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:31:34 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:31:34 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Quick (possibly obvious) thoughts to improve future demos On Friday 31 August 2001 1:48 am, Richard Simpson wrote: > 1) Advertise dates and times at least 2 weeks in advance. Or at least one week in advance. Publicise through as many means possible. > 2) Hold it on a Saturday. Reasonable. Many people are working on thursdays and can't turn up. > 3) Get someone to bring along a ghetto blaster. The singing will > be improved (possibly from dreadful to just bearable) if everyone > can hear the tune whilst they are singing. It was bad, wasn't it. Hey, maybe we could do to the Americans what they did to Noriega :-) > 4) Improved leaflets: Leaflets are like operating systems.=20 > Everyone has fixed ideas on how they should be designed and feels > moved to violently disagree with everyone else's view. So, here is > mine :-) > > We need double sided A5 leaflets. The front should contain short > punchy instantly comprehensible statements in large text (i.e. none > of this Pii stuff). For example: > ------------------------------------------------------------ > =09In the near future it might be illegal to: > =09=09Lend a book to a friend. > =09=09Copy your music onto cassette. > =09=09Run a second hand bookshop > ------------------------------------------------------------ Well, the 2nd is illegal already. But I agree that we need to go short and snappy, and (most important) MAKE IT RELEVANT TO THE AVERAGE MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC. > Followed by a short paragraph (no more than 5 lines) explaining who > we are and what our basic aims are. This is aimed at grabbing > people's attention and is all that Joe Sixpack will read anyway. > > Then, on the other side, we could have a lengthy semi-technical > explanation of the details (we probably already have this on the > current leaflets). I agree with all this. > We should put a lot of effort into getting this right and then get > lots of these (several thousand) printed with the front in more > than one colour. > > "It doesn't mention Dmitry!"=20 Our main focus should be the EUCD. Obviously we are still concerned=20 with Dmitry. Another cause we should take up if the bill recently=20 introduced which will make circumvention legal to help blind people. We should contact the MP introducing this and give our support. Perhaps we could have a demo in favour of this bill outside=20 parliament; if so I'm sure groups for the blind will want to join us. > Yes, I know, but I believe that we > should have separate simpler and cheaper leaflets about Dmity. His > situation could change quite quickly and and if we have two > messages on the same leaflet (Free Dmitry & Stop EUCD) it gets too > confusing for Joe Sixpack. This is a good point. > I think that we should minimise the amount we put in about security > research. Agreed. > Am I volunteering to design these new leaflets.=20 I will have a go at the wording today, and post my ideas to the list for discussion/improvement. > 5) Lastly, we need to be in a position to get the message through > to the student population when they return in October. We need > leaflets aimed at them (probably quite similar to our current ones) > and contacts in computer science departments to spread the word. The general-purpose leaflets will be useful here. Don't forget,=20 most students don't do comp sci, but *all* students read / listen to music / watch films / watch TV. The detailed stuff will be on our website for those interested in details. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** From free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:40:58 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:40:58 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley free-sklyarov at effector.xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Quick (possibly obvious) thoughts to improve future demos On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Richard Simpson wrote: > 1) Advertise dates and times at least 2 weeks in advance. Indeed - one of the reasons that yesterday's demo was advertised on the old and new websites for at least two weeks (which website gets a pretty continuous stream of hits via www.freesklyarov.org/calendar, even when it's not being referred to from news items). > 2) Hold it on a Saturday. In general, this is a good idea. Except: a) If you are protesting outside the US Embassy (which isn't open on a Saturday). b) If you are protesting on the same day as nine or ten other protests throughout the world, and that day isn't a Saturday ;-) > 3) Get someone to bring along a ghetto blaster. The singing will be > improved (possibly from dreadful to just bearable) if everyone can hear > the tune whilst they are singing. Good idea. Make certain to check what permits are required for amplification equipment or ghetto blasters or whatever. > 4) Improved leaflets: Leaflets are like operating systems. Everyone has > fixed ideas on how they should be designed and feels moved to violently > disagree with everyone else's view. So, here is mine :-) Absolutely ;-) Writing a leaflet also takes time (quite a lot of time to make a truly effective leaflet). We've been calling for volunteers to write leaflets for a while. [snip basically sound leaflet idea - suggest we do write such a leaflet] > Am I volunteering to design these new leaflets. No, but I am prepared to > fire up my RiscPC (still no better platform for DTP) and try to generate > some ideas worked up examples. That would an excellent start- look forward to seeing them. > 5) Lastly, we need to be in a position to get the message through to the > student population when they return in October. We need leaflets aimed at > them (probably quite similar to our current ones) and contacts in computer > science departments to spread the word. Agreed absolutely - I intend to have leaflets and sections on the website targetted at different audiences, as soon as time permits. On which note, see my next post to the list. All the best, Julian -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From jtjm at xenoclast.org Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:55:50 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:55:50 +0100 (BST) From: Julian T. J. Midgley jtjm at xenoclast.org Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Appeal for action... It's very good to see a lot of discussion on the list about things we should be doing, leaflets we need, sections on the website which require updating and so on, constructive criticism of things we haven't yet got right, etc. Keep it up... I'm going to do my best to take as many of these ideas as possible and act on them. However, I notice that the number of posts, paragraphs or sentences beginning "we need...", "someone should...", "this/that/the other ought to be changed/written/done" is considerably greater than the number beginning "I will write...", "I have changed...", "I am working on...", "Here is a...", etc. It would be very nice (TM) to have a few volunteers to write up articles about the EUCD, content for the website, etc. Basically, if you can take any of the useful ideas suggested recently and run with them, I'll happily publish them on the site. Let the mailing list know what you're working on, though, so that we don't have ten people working on the same thing ;-) It takes a lot less time for ten people to prepare new leaflets, website material, etc, then it does for two or three people to do the same. All the best, Julian Ps. Sometime later today will write up a report of yesterday's protest. -- Julian T. J. Midgley http://www.xenoclast.org/ Cambridge, England. PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F Beware the European Copyright Directive: http://uk.eurorights.org/ From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 15:19:18 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 15:19:18 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Re: Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August On Friday 31 August 2001 11:13 am, Holmes, Marcus wrote: > > Firstly, thanks for the invite to post. > > My opinions: > First, a set of assumptions: > 1. It seems to be universally accepted that people who produce > information-based goods, such as artists, musicians, programmers, > authors, and so on, are entitled to financial reward for their > efforts.=20 Only if other people deem them good enough to be paid. E.g. I don't think we are entitled to be paid for our singing outside the US embassy yesderday! > In other words, they need to be paid somehow, otherwise, > how are they going to continue to work? That doesn't follow. There are 80,000 books published in the UK every year, and less than 5,000 writers make a living wage from their books. It therefore follows that *the vast majority* of writers are writing books for other reasons. > 2. It is very difficult, but not impossible, to prevent the copying > of digital information, and in this century, all information is > digital. If something can be copied at no cost, it inherently has > no (financial) value, and therefore cannot attract a payment, If the legal sources of content make the content available cheaply (i.e. one single click downloads a book or CD, and charges the user a modest amount (like 50p)) then the vast majority of people won't use the illegal download routes, because even though it isn't=20 difficult, it is slightly more hassle than buying a copy. Of course, this means that the content distribution industry will have to change in ways it doesn't like; so don't expect it to do this without a lot of kicking and screaming -- it'd much rather set up a worldwide DMCA-like information police state, which is its current model of coping with the challenges of the digital world. It won't seek a new model until this model is in ruins, trampled over by a combination of politicans and publics who've wised up to its=20 unending lust for money and power, and computer users and programmers who've eaten into it's profits with Napster-likes. > meaning that the producer of such information cannot be rewarded > for it. Not true; see above. You are succuming to their propaganda. They've cried wolf before; remember "home taping is killing music"? If so, it's taking a long time dying. > 3. The music and film publishing industry, in particular, are > technically inept at digital protection. Because of the nature of > their industry and the mentality of the people who rise to the top > of such organisations, they massively prefer a legal solution to a > technical solution to their problems.=20 True, but I'm sure they can get better at it in time. > 4. The music and film > publishing industry has seen returns in recent decades far beyond > what one could reasonably expect for such a business model. This > has mostly been caused by the inability to cheaply copy their > products when they were in analogue form, and the restrictive > nature of the publishing contracts they set up, effectively giving > them a monopoly in the market for each piece of music or film. This > effective monopoly has allowed them to charge whatever they like > for that piece of music or film, and they have taken advantage of > this. To illustrate, if you want to see the film Aliens, you must > go to Fox or one of it's distributors. You cannot get this film > from any other source, so Fox can charge what it likes for this > film.=20 The whole point of copyright laws is to create a (theoretically temporary) monopoly on some content. > 6. To counter this and protect their monopolies, the music and film > publishing industry has embarked on a legal solution that will > damage the freedoms of individuals. They could have spent about the > same amount of money financing a truly workable copy protection > scheme=20 Ahem. You are again succumbing to our opponents' lying propaganda. Such schemes aren't about "protection" so "copy prevention" would be more accurate. Howver they tend not to prevent copying, so "use prevention" would be even more accurate. We mustn't let our opponensts control the terms of discussion. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** From Ronan at footle.com Fri, 31 Aug 2001 15:37:10 +0000 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 15:37:10 +0000 From: Ronan Burnett Ronan at footle.com Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] report on Edinburgh protest Oops, forgot to mention - I will be leaving the country on Tuesday 4th Aug and will be totally out of contact of any sort (on purpose, it's a holiday!) until Sept 22nd. Therefore, I won't 'organising' any Edinburgh-based protests during that period - anyone want to take over? Ronan On Friday 31 August 2001 1:06 pm, I wrote: > The Edinburgh protest went well - I lost count of exactly how many people > turned up. At least 15 people appeared at some point during the day, > although we didn't number any more than about 10 at any one time. From nick at regiocom.net Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:43:15 +0200 (CEST) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:43:15 +0200 (CEST) From: NickM nick at regiocom.net Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] report on Edinburgh protest Quoting Ronan Burnett : > Oops, forgot to mention - I will be leaving the country on Tuesday 4th > Aug Err I think you missed your holiday already ;) From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:52:05 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:52:05 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Suggestion for wording of new leaflets. On Friday 31 August 2001 2:31 pm, phil hunt wrote: >=20 > I will have a go at the wording [of leaflets] today, and post my=20 > ideas to the > list for discussion/improvement. OK, here's what I've provisionally come up with. Any comments? # ideas for a leaflet -- comments start with # # by Philip Hunt, 31-Aug-2001 # version 1.0 # first, say who we are # (white text on a black background, perhaps): =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Campaign for Digital Rights http://uk.eurorights.org/ =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D # simple intro, get them interested Do you ever: * lend a book to a friend, or buy a second-hand book? * record a TV program on a VCR for time-shifting? * buy a DVD in one country and play it in another? # this one's perhaps a bit iffy: (anyone got a better idea?) * copy a CD onto cassette or MP3 player so you can listen to it=20 on the move? A new law is under discussion which will prevent you from doing all of these things. The European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) is set to become UK law in the next 16 months, and aims=20 to take many of your existing rights away. # now explain in greater detail: * publishers want to replace paper books with electronic books. These won't be transferrable (you'll only be able to read them=20 on one computer) and a second-hand market won't exist. You won't be able to print out a hard copy (useful for reading on the tube) of output the text to a speech synthesizer (usful for visually impaired people). If you try to circumvent these use restrictions, you'll be thrown in prison, like Dmitry Sklyarov was in the USA.=20 * in future, TV programs will be digital. They'll come with digital information saying whether they can be copied to VCR. If the TV company don't want you to video their programs, you won't be able to. In fact even owning a VCR that can record them will be illegal. * Every DVD comes with region encoding, saying which region it can be played in. At them moment it isn't a problem, since you can buy a multi-region DVD player. In future, you won't be able to do so: it'll be a crime to possess, manufacture and distribute multi-region DVD players. This means that the DVD manufacturers will be able to rip us off my charging more in some markets than others.=20 Region coding is also planned for future CDs. Don't worry, you won't be able to play these on your existing CD player, you'll have to buy a new one. # (is this true? I want to get my facts straight) * Universal have released 250,000 CDs on the UK markets which have been deliberately tampered with to reduce their sound quality. This is so you can't play the CD on your computer's CD drive, and copy it into MP3 format. It also means that you might not be able to play it on an old CD player (you'll havce to buy a new one which co-incidently means more profits for the industry). You might be able to find software so you can play the new CDs on your computer. If so, do it now, as it'll be illegal in 16 months time for you to play a CD which you legally own on a computer that you legally own. The same will be true of computers with DVD drives of course: software already exists to play any region DVD. This software will become illegal. In fact any software that plays CDs and DVDs will be illegal unless the software producer pays as large=20 license. This will mean you will have to pay more, for lower-quality software. It will also eliminate the supply of=20 open source software that does the job; if the media barons=20 don't feel like supporting the operating system you use, tough, it'll be a crime to write your own software. # general comments:=20 # # (1) this document needs footnotes giving URLs # for all the restrictions mentioned. Agree/disagree? # # (2) have I been too forthright in my invective? we don't # want to alienate members of the public by appearing=20 # extreme # # (3) perhaps we need to say something about the way the EUCD # bans cicumvention of technological protection measures? Or # is this too detailed. # # (4) after detailing all this bad news, we need to give some # good news, e.g. "if you don't like what they've planned for you, # join the CfDR". #end --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** From philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 18:07:25 +0100 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 18:07:25 +0100 From: phil hunt philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] if there is no DMCA/EUCD, how will copyright be enforced? On Friday 31 August 2001 1:52 pm, phil hunt wrote: > On Thursday 30 August 2001 1:58 pm, Reid Angus-BAR04Z wrote: > > > > We are likely to be asked how we propose to defend copyright in > > the absence of a legal defence of DRM systems. It's a reasonable > > question. > > It is indeed a reasonable question, and we must have answers > prepared to it. > > (I think our answers should go in the FAQ, which at the moment is > purely about Dmitry; it needs to be extended to cover the EUCD.) > > > If we support copyright, how do we defend it? My own > > opinion is that it's probably impossible, without turning the > > internet into some kind of police state (I know that sounds like > > FUD, but I can't think of a better way to describe it). > > This is my analysis too. There was an article recently in Salon > (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/pirate/index.html) > about someone who tried to log on and found their ISP had > shut them down on the orders of the MPAA, who were acting as judge, > jury and executioner. What we need to establish in any new > copyright act is the principle of "no punishment without due > process of law": and ISP cannot be liable if they don't shut a > client's account down, unless and until that client has been found > liable or guilty of something in a court of law. > > > Without > > that kind of protection, then charging by the copy will become a > > worse and worse business model as time goes on, and file sharing > > software improves. > > File sharing will become easier, as technology improves. But so > will copyright holders ability to give their customers cheap easy > access to their wares, e.g. downloading an album by pressing > a single button, which initiates the downmload and charges the > customer a modest amount, say 50p. Oh, they won't make so much > profits as they do now, but that's an inevitable and desirable > effect of new technology: it makes things cheaper. > > > However, if the CFDR is to be taken seriously as a supporter of > > copyright, then I think we might need to come up with a better > > answer to that question. I guess a more fundamental question is > > whether Julian's proposed position is internally consistent? If > > we ever make it to Newsnight again, is Paxo just going to skin > > and gut us on this issue? > > This was brought up briefly during the pub meeting yesterday. > > I suggest our answer should be in 4 parts. > > (1) the media corporations have cried wolf many times before. > Bemember "home taping is killing music"? Remeber Valenti likening > VCR users to "rapists"? > > (2) even if unauthorised copying became ubiquitous and nobody paid > for legal copies of content, it wouldn't stop the delivery of most > content. Films make money from cinema audiences, merchandise and TV > showing. TV programs are paid for by advertising of the > license fee, musicians get paid for live performances and > merchandise, book authors mostly don't earn a living wage for it > now (and therefore must be writing books for other reasons) and > could be compensated by an extension of the existing scheme where > they are paid for library borrowings of their books. > > (3) it won't come to that anyway, because better technology will > make it easier for the content distribution industry (or a new > slimmed-down version of it) to deliver content cheaply and easily > to people. > > (4) The alternative is a police state. Argument for politicians: > everyone reads books or listens to music or watches films and TV > programs. The new copyright law would harm everyone, except > employees of the content distribution industry, who are maybe 1% of > the electorate. It thus has the potential to be less popular than > the Poll Tax, with similar effects on the careers of those > introducing it. Does anyone have any comments on this? (Julian?) If no-one has any objection I think I will put a modified version of this in the FAQ. --=20 *** Philip Hunt *** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk *** From andrew at andrewr.co.uk Sat, 01 Sep 2001 00:40:38 +0100 Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 00:40:38 +0100 From: AndrewR andrew at andrewr.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Quick (possibly obvious) thoughts to improve future demos Richard Simpson wrote: > 1) Advertise dates and times at least 2 weeks in advance. > Advance notice is good, I would say at least 1 week, 2 is good. > > 2) Hold it on a Saturday. > Would get more people, but if outside the US embassy, would be shouting at an empty building. > > 3) Get someone to bring along a ghetto blaster. The singing will be > improved (possibly from dreadful to just bearable) if everyone can hear > the tune whilst they are singing. > Heh. The singing could hardly be worse, could it? :-) > > 4) Improved leaflets: Leaflets are like operating systems. Everyone has > fixed ideas on how they should be designed and feels moved to violently > disagree with everyone else's view. So, here is mine :-) > > We need double sided A5 leaflets. The front should contain short punchy > instantly comprehensible statements in large text (i.e. none of this Pii > stuff). For example: > ------------------------------------------------------------ > In the near future it might be illegal to: > Lend a book to a friend. > Copy your music onto cassette. > Run a second hand bookshop > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Technically, the second is already illegal. I'm not sure about double sided, although it can give more information, it can seem quite cluttered, imho. > > Followed by a short paragraph (no more than 5 lines) explaining who we are > and what our basic aims are. This is aimed at grabbing people's attention > and is all that Joe Sixpack will read anyway. > > Then, on the other side, we could have a lengthy semi-technical > explanation of the details (we probably already have this on the current > leaflets). > > We should put a lot of effort into getting this right and then get lots of > these (several thousand) printed with the front in more than one colour. > > "It doesn't mention Dmitry!" Yes, I know, but I believe that we should > have separate simpler and cheaper leaflets about Dmity. His situation > could change quite quickly and and if we have two messages on the same > leaflet (Free Dmitry & Stop EUCD) it gets too confusing for Joe Sixpack. > > I think that we should minimise the amount we put in about security > research. The vast majority don't know that anyone does this sort of > research anyway, don't think that it concerns them, "Why should I encrypt > my emails? I'm not a terrorist", have been conditioned to believe > that a secure computer system cannot be constructed (since Microsoft > haven't succeeded), and that the only solution to computer security > problems is locking up "hackers". Mention security research briefly and > those who are interested can read more on our web site. > > Am I volunteering to design these new leaflets. No, but I am prepared to > fire up my RiscPC (still no better platform for DTP) and try to generate > some ideas worked up examples. > As a general point about design, of the two leaflets we had yesterday, the DMCA one was the better designed, but the EUCD one more relevant. Both seemed a bit too text heavy, although I think that it's not possible to say everything we want to on a single A5 page without seeming text heavy. > > 5) Lastly, we need to be in a position to get the message through to the > student population when they return in October. We need leaflets aimed at > them (probably quite similar to our current ones) and contacts in computer > science departments to spread the word. In a month's time, I will be going to Bristol to study Computer Systems Engineering, and I would be willing to take on a "contact person" role Andrew -- WARNING: Curiosity may be harmful to your cat's health. http://www.AndrewR.co.uk - AndrewR Software - Windows apps, VB controls, and QBASIC and visual BASIC things. Email address is spam trapped. ICQ 53186881 From eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Fri, 31 Aug 2001 16:14:31 +0100 (BST) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 16:14:31 +0100 (BST) From: Edward Welbourne eddy at vortigen.demon.co.uk Subject: [Free-sklyarov-uk] Press Release - London and Edinburgh Protests 30 August > Apologies if I start by going over old ground. even re-inventing the wheel is useful in so far as the re-inventor is bound to learn in the process; while re-expressing previously-covered ideas is often constructive (especially if the prior expression was fumbling towards a right way of saying the matter); and you spent more time on new ground than old, anyway. > Copyright has been a good system, and up until recently has worked > well as a way to encourage/allow production of content. (I would contest this, as unproven, but some other time, off list.) > In the presence of an unfettered communications system though, it gets > much harder to enforce it. and much harder to justify - what's it for if publishing a work takes negligible capital outlay ? In any case, a law which can't be systematically and fairly enforced should be repealed (or, at least, reformed) as a threat to justice (in the partiality of its enforcement) at public cost (court time, police time, etc). > Without draconian laws like the DMCA, it *will* become more and more > difficult to enforce. and if one must give up fundamental liberty in order to provide an incentive to authors and publishers, I'd sooner make do with the works of those authors (c.f. http://www.chaos.org.uk/~eddy/island.html) who are prepared to write, and let the public read, without incentive. However, even without copyright there are incentives: some business models for publication remain feasible (but require rather more sophistication than was to be found in the markets of a few centuries ago, when copyright was introduced). E.g.: variants on the following scheme are viable: Author writes book. Does deal with first-publisher (probably, indeed, a publishing house specialising in first-publishing) to prepare the work for publication (proof-reading, sub-editing, etc.). They sell a small number of copies of the work, at a quite astonishing price, mostly to publishers. The first-publisher and author may well then take consultancy work with the onward-publishers to assist them in marketing the work at mass-market prices. The first-publisher (who might actually be the author, to be fair) will probably take pains to ensure that the first copies (which will be high information-content, machine-readable and designed for use in publishing the work) reach the first customers simultaneously: what they are paying for is the `first to market' advantages of hitting the shelves before their competitors (who can't start work until they've purchased one of the first copies to hit the mass-market shelves; and won't get their own product onto the shelves until a while after that; by which time the book-shops have already found suppliers). After the first few weeks, any book would be available cheaper than it was on the first day. All the same, despite the on-line edition (which is free and more up-to-date) the New Hackers' Dictionary still sells plenty of paper copies: folk will pay extra for their preferred format. It's possible the first-publisher (in such a scheme) would pull a lead on its first customers for their own mass publication, too: they'd have to decide how far this impacts the price they can get first-purchasers to pay. For instance, the first-publisher might release the beautiful hardback (expensive) coffee-table edition, while the first-customers are producing the (cheap) electronic, softback, etc. editions, based on a CD (purchased from the publisher) containing everything they need to get into the shops faster than the folk who're buying a copy of the glossy edition to plagiarise. Notice that none of this is a huge leap beyond what Richard Stallman did as his first mechanism for publishing GNU software. As Red Hat shows, the fact that downstream purchasers can re-publish doesn't stop one making some money out of selling copies ... in many ways, the relationship between the open source movement (as author) and the Linux distributors (as first-publishers) is a variant on the scheme above (and, these days, even including some payments to authors). The free market does provide some business models for remuneration of authors, even without protectionist legislation ... remove that legislation and I dare say modern markets would come up with further business models. Meanwhile, literary prizes are a quite different kind of incentive to write; and money isn't the only motivator in this world. Note that I'm quite happy to argue for what Europe describes as the `moral rights' of the author, and suspect these would suffice to support something very like the GPL. [Publishing a modified work infringes these rights unless you make plain what the changes are; which the original author may fairly insist involves making [changes to] source code available.] > Using something like the anti-circumvention sections of the DMCA > allows prosecutors to attack small targets again. but only to the extent of forcing future equivalents of the DeCSS authors to publish anonymously via gnutella, freenet, &c., surely ? Note that freenet (and there will be better variants) provides for totally anonymous publication of *absolutely anything*, including copyrighted works and libels, with no mechanism whatever for discovering whose computer is `storing' the data, let alone who put the data into freenet. This makes enforcement much harder ... the DeCSS crack, and its kin, can live there in safety. > We are likely to be asked how we propose to defend copyright in the > absence of a legal defence of DRM systems. To which we can reply: `legal defence of DRM systems' could be less draconian, e.g. (as I believe someone on this list suggested) judges could be allowed to take into account, when sentencing, whether a `DRM' system was circumvented in the course of a copyright violation (c.f.: armed robbery is more severely punished than robbery, even when the robber's possession of the weapon was, in itself, legal). On its own, without any violation of copyright, circumvention should be legal. The thing about digital rights management is that it really controls use of the work to an extent vastly in excess of the *rights* of the author/publisher. The publisher can get their `DRM' system to enforce all sorts of restraints on use of the work, not just the ones mandated by the legal rights of the author and publisher. The DMCA gives such restraints the force of law, effectively enabling publishers to arrogate to themselves, as rights in relation to a published work, anything that they can implement in their `DRM'. While the law might allow such arrogance, it has no business providing defence for any other aspect of `DRM' than its role in preventing (actual) illicit copying. The real effect of DMCA &c. is to foreclose on any free market in the means (software and/or hardware) by which one accesses published works, thus ensuring that the publisher has *total control* of how the work is accessed. This goes way beyond the publisher's *rights*, erodes the rights of the consumer and makes a mockery of the free market. Meanwhile, while I'm on the subject, notice that `DRM' can also protect copyright violators: if I think my art-work or music has been plagiarised, I need full access to the data to check for the digital watermark *I* put on *my* work, but I can't get at it without circumventing the plagiarist's so-called copy-protection. > It's a reasonable question. If we support copyright, how do we defend > it? My own opinion is that it's probably impossible, hence my remarks about abandoning unenforceable law ... secular authority should abstain from attempting the impossible. > without turning the internet into some kind of police state (I know > that sounds like FUD, but I can't think of a better way to describe > it). I appreciate the problem. I try to find non-melodramatic ways to express the same, without success. However, in practice, authority would fudge an issue somewhere down the line and stop short of a police state. They'd make do with merely stripping us of enough freedoms to move the point of unenforceability somewhere less blatant, while using the problems of enforcement to justify severe penalties for breaches when prosecuted ... the law would then be enforced partially and ferociously, resulting in gross injustice (whose victims would be demonized by their persecutors as `pirates'). I think we can safely expect that only large publishing corporations would be able to benefit from the law, even if the common citizen retains the right to publish. > Without that kind of protection, then charging by the copy will become > a worse and worse business model as time goes on, and file sharing > software improves. Yes. But see above for alternate business models. > However, if the CFDR is to be taken seriously as a supporter of > copyright, then I think we might need to come up with a better answer > to that question. I think CFDR can afford to say `yes, there are problems with copyright law in the digital era, but taking away fundamental rights of the public is not a legitimate solution to those problems.' We don't claim to be campaigning for a specific solution to copyright's problems in the digital era: we're campaigning against an erosion of the public's liberty, `justified' by false claims of solving copyright's problems. and remember: the CFDR's support for copyright is an incidental matter of expediency, reflecting the majority view of its supporters; its primary goal is to protect the public's rights against DMCA/EUCD/etc. We shouldn't get bogged down in defending copyright. > I guess a more fundamental question is whether Julian's proposed > position is internally consistent? If we ever make it to Newsnight > again, is Paxo just going to skin and gut us on this issue? Just be ready with the brutal answers: copyright is a privilege granted in order to encourage particular economic desiderata; the fundamental rights to free speech and curiosity take precedence; if existing laws don't suffice to achieve copyright's aims, by all means let governments look for a replacement, but *not at the expense of fundamental liberty*. Be ready to answer loaded questions with: Do you really believe copyright can't be sustained without depriving the public of our traditional liberties ? Without the right to free speech, what use is the ability to make money out of exercising that right ? If the problem proves intractable (as I believe it does, but I suppose other folk don't) we always have the option of abolishing copyright and relying on the free market to find its own ways of rewarding authors and publishers. Governments and mega-corporations ask us to bow down to the free market for all else: why then don't they believe in it in this domain ? After all, Red Hat manages to make money by selling CDs without forbidding downstream copying. Sorry about my failure to be brief ... even after much shortening. Eddy. -- On a `level playing field' the giants can stomp all over us little folk. Especially if the giants get to write the rules, do the levelling *and* put in fences big enough to stop us, but not big enough to slow them.