So After Torturing Bradley Manning For Months, US Officials Offer Him A Deal If He Says Assange 'Conspired' With Him

from the dirty-tricks dept

This is hardly a surprise, but after locking up Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for seven months -- a condition that much of the world has deemed to be torture -- and looking for ways to use a computer hacking law to charge Julian Assange, rumors are that officials have offered Bradley Manning a plea deal, in which he would claim that Assange "conspired" with him to get and leak the documents. From all the info that's come out already, there's been little to suggest that there was any actual conspiring, but it appears that our Justice Department has decided (incorrectly) that Julian Assange is the more important target than Bradley Manning, and so it wants to bring Assange down.

Of course, as many have been saying all along, bringing charges against Assange, even with Manning accepting a plea bargain, will do serious harm to the US. It will highlight how the Justice Department twists laws in an attempt to harm the publisher of information, very much against the basic principles of the First Amendment. If this does come to pass, it will represent a massive chilling of free speech rights, from an administration that has put itself forth as a champion of such free speech rights around the globe. However, the one thing it won't do is actually chill such leaks from happening. As more and more competitors to Wikileaks pop up, you can bet that a legal attack on Assange will only increase the resolve of some of the folks behind those other offerings.

Filed Under: bradley manning, conspiracy, julian assange, plea bargain, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

CyberSitter Sues The Chinese Government (In Los Angeles) Over Green Dam Filters

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Last summer, of course, there was a lot of attention paid to China's announced plans that every PC sold in China needed to include the new "Green Dam Youth Escort" software, which was a client-side filtering program. After international outrage over the plan actually had some sort of impact, the government backed down. A smaller story, that came out during all of this, was that the Green Dam software appeared to copy significant portions of the commercial filter product, CyberSitter. Now, CyberSitter has sued the Chinese government and a bunch of companies for $2.2 billion. The lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles, and I would wonder what jurisdiction a Los Angeles district court has over the Chinese government concerning software that was only to be used in China.

While the lawsuit does include the expected copyright claim, it also goes much further to claim trade secret violations and "conspiracy." And while the Chinese government is obviously the headline grabber, it also includes Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, ASUSTek, BenQ and Haier, claiming that these computer makers were in on the conspiracy. While many of those have US operations, it seems like a longshot that (a) the court has jurisdiction over their actions in China or (b) the charge of "conspiracy" has any chance of sticking.

Filed Under: china, conspiracy, copyright, filters, green dam
Companies: acer, asustek, benq, cybersitter, haier, lenovo, sony, toshiba

UK Overreaction To OiNK Continues

from the typical-overreaction dept

About a year ago, we noted that the IFPI had continued its totally counterproductive game of whack-a-mole and convinced UK authorities to shut down the popular private BitTorrent tracker site, OiNK. The site was quite popular -- and even Trent Reznor noted how useful it was and how it filled a void in the music space that the industry wasn't filling. However, with every whack of a mole, it was only a matter of days until plenty of alternatives sprung up.

Since then, though, there's been some question about additional fallout from the closure, as authorities were arresting certain folks who used the site. While, authorities kept postponing filing actual charges, there was talk that they were going to charge them with "conspiracy to defraud the music industry," which sounds a lot like "felony interference of a business model" -- the mocking term we use whenever companies seem to think it's illegal for others to compete in their industry. And, make no mistake about it, as Reznor pointed out, OiNK was about filling a niche for music lovers, as a place to discover and learn about new music.

Well, now the other shoe has dropped, and the administrator of the site has, indeed, been charged with conspiracy to defraud while two users of the site, each of whom only uploaded a single CD, were charged with criminal copyright infringement. For a single CD upload. This all seems a bit extreme. Once again, the government is basically making criminal charges over what is really a business model issue. OiNK filled a needed void in the music industry -- one that the industry itself could fill if it wanted to. But, because it refuses to do so, that's somehow conspiracy to defraud the industry and people may go to jail for it. At some point, years from now when people recognize the promotional value of free music, they're going to look back at the industry (and authorities') overreaction to these sorts of things and shake their heads in amazement.

Filed Under: conspiracy, copyright, oink, pre-release, recording industry, uk

UK Authorities Charging OiNK Users With 'Conspiracy To Defraud The Music Industry'

from the well,-that's-a-stretch dept

Last fall, authorities in the UK shut down OiNK, a private file sharing community, complete with plenty of hyperbole over what was going on. In discussing how silly this was, we pointed out that it seemed like the only real charge here was "felony interference of a business model." We meant it as a joke (interfering with a business model isn't a crime -- it's called competition, normally). However, it looks like UK authorities are taking it seriously. They're going around arresting users of the site and charging them with "Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry." Most specifically, those who uploaded albums before they were released are being hauled off -- even though the UK doesn't treat pre-release infringement any differently than post-release infringement. Other countries do have such laws, and the entertainment industry has long pushed for "pre-release" leaks as being considered criminal, rather than civil, offenses. But without such a law in place, it does seem a bit extreme to claim that anyone uploading a pre-release album is guilty of "conspiracy to defraud the music industry." There was no conspiracy to defraud -- there was just people who want to listen to music and share it with others. No one seems to be able to explain how this is actually a criminal issue at all, rather than a civil issue. In the meantime, we're waiting to see if the police try to arrest Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who has proudly stated that he was an OiNK member who supported the site.

Filed Under: conspiracy, copyright, oink, pre-release, recording industry, uk