RIAA and MPAA Try to Gut Anti-Pretexting Bill
By Rebecca Jeschke
Remember the Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal of last year? Private investigators hired by HP obtained phone records of journalists and its own board members by pretending to be the individuals themselves. The scandal was the catalyst for a congressional investigation, and some California lawmakers decided consumers needed more protection from these privacy violations. State Sen. Ellen Corbett introduced SB 328, a bill that would ban the use of false statements and other misleading practices to get personal information.
Good news for Californians, right? Not if the entertainment industry has anything to say about it. The RIAA and the MPAA are reportedly lobbying legislators for amendments to the bill. According to the Los Angeles Times, those amendments would allow pretexting if a company was trying to enforce its intellectual property rights. EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann believes this carve-out would gut the bill altogether. As he said in the Times article, "I don't see why the recording industry shouldn't have to follow the same laws that everyone else follows... It appears they want to make the loophole so big that nobody else has to follow the law, either." Copyright shouldn't trump privacy. We hope the California State Senate agrees.
EFF Asks Supreme Court To Reverse Dangerous Rulings About API Copyrightability and Fair Use
Washington D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that functional aspects of Oracle's Java programming language are not copyrightable, and even if they were, employing them to create new computer code falls under fair use protections.The court is reviewing a long-running lawsuit...
Deeplinks Blog by Katharine Trendacosta | December 22, 2019
Yet Another Year of Fighting a Bad Copyright Bill: 2019 Year in Review
There is certainly more than enough room in this world for new copyright laws that would improve the lives of artists and their audiences. And then there's the Copyright Alternatives in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (CASE Act), a proposal which doesn't help the artists it claims to be for and would...
Deeplinks Blog by Elliot Harmon | December 19, 2019
Global NGO Community Demands a Stop to the Sale of .ORG
Over 500 organizations and 18,000 individuals have signed a letter urging the Internet Society to stop the private equity takeover of the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the organization that manages the .ORG top-level domain. It's rare that EFF, Greenpeace, Consumer Reports, Oxfam, the YMCA of the USA, and...
Deeplinks Blog by Elliot Harmon | November 22, 2019
Nonprofit Community Stands Together to Protect .ORG
EFF and 26 other organizations just sent a letter to the Internet Society (ISOC) urging it to stop the sale of the Public Interest Registry (PIR)—the organization that manages the .ORG top-level domain—to private equity firm Ethos Capital. Our message is clear: .ORG is extremely important to the non-governmental...
Deeplinks Blog by Cara Gagliano | November 15, 2019
EFF to Court: Don't Let Private Organizations Control Access to the Law
Public.Resource.Org has one simple mission: to improve public access to government documents, including our laws. Public Resource believes—and EFF agrees—that everyone should be able to read, analyze, and share the laws that govern us, without having to pay a gatekeeper or sign a contract. Sounds uncontroversial, right? Not for...
Deeplinks Blog by Katharine Trendacosta | October 29, 2019
Nickelback's Record Label Abuses Copyright to Silence Political Speech
EFF legal intern Samantha Hamilton co-wrote this blog post Nickelback never asked to become a meme. And yet, after the Internet decided it hated the Canadian alternative rock band and due to the lead singer's unique voice, users have shared their image millions of times. But their record label decided...
Deeplinks Blog by Elliot Harmon | October 25, 2019
What if "Sesame Street" Were Open Access?
The news of iconic children's television show "Sesame Street"'s new arrangement with the HBO MAX streaming service has sent ripples around the Internet. Starting this year, episodes of "Sesame Street" will debut on HBO and on the HBO MAX service, with new episodes being made available to PBS "at...
The House Votes in Favor of Disastrous Copyright Bill
It's Not Too Late: The Senate Can Still Stop the CASE Act The House of Representatives has just voted in favor of the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (CASE Act) by 410-6 (with 16 members not voting), moving forward a bill that Congress has had no hearings and no...
Deeplinks Blog by Kit Walsh | October 11, 2019
One Weird Law That Interferes With Security Research, Remix Culture, and Even Car Repair
How can a single, ill-conceived law wreak havoc in so many ways? It prevents you from making remix videos. It blocks computer security research. It keeps those with print disabilities from reading ebooks. It makes it illegal to repair people's cars. It makes it harder to...