Company Threatens EFF With Defamation In Response To EFF Trying To Bust Its Patent

from the slappity-slapp-slapp dept

Back in January, we noted that the EFF had scored another hit in its ongoing patent-busting project, getting the USPTO to re-examine a patent held by Seer Systems. It appears that Seer Systems doesn't much like being targeted by the EFF and decided to threaten the group with a defamation lawsuit over how it described Seer's actions. For example the EFF claimed that Seer was "threatening small companies" and Seer disputes the EFF's definition of small. That seems like pretty fine tooth nitpicking there, and hardly defamatory. It certainly feels like a threatened SLAPP, and (luckily) California has a pretty good anti-SLAPP law, which the EFF's attorney has suggested that Seer Systems acquaint itself with before moving forward with any lawsuits. Either way, it's fairly amazing that anyone would think it's a wise move to threaten the EFF with defamation based on something as weak as whether or not some startup is "small" or not.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, california, defamation, eff, patents, slapp
Companies: eff, seer systems

EFF And ACLU Sue FBI Over Seizure Of Activists' Computers

from the 4th-amendment-anyone? dept

The EFF and the ACLU has filed yet another lawsuit against the government, highlighting another scary abuse of power that feels straight out of a police state, rather than the free society we supposedly live in. Specifically, the FBI and other law enforcement officials raided the offices of two different activist organizations and seized all of their computers. There are two issues here that are important. First, if the FBI was concerned about the computers being used in commission of a crime, they easily could have followed the same policies used to get records off of computers at libraries (part of the issue is that these organizations offer public access computers to folks visiting their offices). The second issue is that both organizations act as publishers, and federal law makes it clear that the government can't just seize computers of publishers except in extremely narrow circumstances. So, in either circumstance, the Feds should not have seized the computers.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, aclu, activists, computers, eff, seizure

EFF's Patent Busting Project Scores Another Hit

from the more-good-news dept

While it's taken quite some time, the EFF has had considerable success with its project to bust ten awful patents. The latest is that the USPTO has agreed to re-examine a patent from Seer Systems involving online music. Again, the really tragic thing about all of this is that the EFF started this patent busting project almost five years ago, and the process is still in its early stages. And that's for ten of the most ridiculous patents you'll find today. Think of what a mess it is to challenge so many other bad patents.

Filed Under: eff, patent busting, patents
Companies: eff, seer systems

Google Is No Longer Silicon Valley's Legal Defender

from the too-bad dept

When Google settled the lawsuit over its book scanning project, we noted with disappointment how this appeared to signal the end of Google's earlier position of fighting certain legal battles on principle. For a few years, Google's legal team had been taking up a variety of lawsuits purely on principle. In many cases it would have been cheaper and easier to settle, but Google had made clear that it saw those lawsuits as a way to define better law -- and that helped all of Silicon Valley (and, in many cases, the overall economy). Yet, in settling this lawsuit, it became clear that Google was no longer fighting lawsuits on principle, and, in fact would consider settling cases knowing that it actually made life more difficult for the rest of Silicon Valley.

Obviously, as a business concern, this is Google's right -- and some may even say that it's Google's responsibility to its shareholders to do such a thing. I would disagree, simply because, in the long term, by settling these lawsuits, rather than helping to establish what the law says, Google merely invites more lawsuits from more companies hoping to "settle up" as well. Plus, without the law being clear, it creates uncertainty and inefficiency in the market, and that's not good for anyone -- including Google.

Fred von Lohmann, over at the EFF, has written up an op-ed noting pretty much the same thing. The rest of Silicon Valley can no longer rely on Google to fight their legal battles for them -- and, we're all going to be worse off for it in the long run. Not that anyone ever should have expected Google to be the rest of the tech community's legal defender, but it certainly had been a welcome development -- which is apparently now over.

Filed Under: eff, lawsuits, principle, silicon valley
Companies: eff, google

EFF, ACLU Ask News Networks To Stop Sending DMCA Takedown Notices On Political Videos

from the right-idea,-wrong-approach dept

Following the McCain campaign's request to YouTube that it exempt both major presidential campaigns from the traditional process of notice-and-takedown to DMCA complaints (which YouTube rejected), the EFF and the ACLU have sent a letter to the various television networks who were responsible for the takedowns in the first place, asking them to stop sending bogus takedowns. On top of that, they ask YouTube to reconsider and start responding to counternotices and putting content back online more quickly.

While I can appreciate the stance taken by the EFF and the ACLU, and believe that they are correct that the networks' takedown notices are incorrect, I'm going to have to side with Public Citizen in suggesting that the real answer to this issue is fixing the DMCA, not through asking various parties to simply change their behavior. The real problem is the DMCA and the unclear boundaries of fair use today. While there's clearly not time to fix the law prior to election day, it doesn't seem right to just ask people to ignore the way the law works today. If the law is the problem, fix the law -- don't ask everyone else to play by different rules. That just sweeps the problems of the law under the rug, where they'll get a lot less attention.

Filed Under: aclu, copyright, dmca, eff, takedowns

Court Tells Echostar It Doesn't Get Access To Customer Lists Of Satellite Receiver Company

from the chalk-one-up-for-privacy dept

Recently, we wrote about how satellite TV provider Echostar had been sending out subpoenas demanding customer lists from resellers who had sold satellite receivers made by a company named Freetech. Freetech's satellite receivers can be used to receive perfectly legal over-the-air satellite TV signals. Echostar's complaint was that many also used Freetech's receivers to pirate its own DishTV offering. However, that doesn't give Echostar the right to then demand the contact info on everyone who ever bought a Freetech receiver, as many could be using them for perfectly legal purposes. And, historically, with DirecTV, we've seen a similar situation where the DirecTV forced plenty of totally innocent smart card device buyers to pay up by threatening them with lawsuits over pirated satellite TV.

Luckily, it looks like the EFF helped convince the judge that Echostar was out of line, and the judge has said that the buyers' privacy trumps Echostar's right to the info. As the EFF notes, this is a big ruling, in that it's "the first time a federal court has explicitly rejected a third-party subpoena on the basis of the privacy interests of nonparty consumers." Chalk one up for the right to privacy.

Filed Under: eff, piracy, privacy, satellite tv, subpoenas
Companies: directv, echostar, freetech

EFF Sues The Gov't Twice In One Day: Over Surveillance And ACTA

from the busy,-busy,-busy dept

The EFF sure has been busy today. First it filed a lawsuit against the US Trade Representative for keeping info on the ACTA negotiations secret, and then it sued the NSA, President Bush and Vice President Cheney over the warrantless wiretapping issue. Must be a busy day at the EFF office. In both cases, it seems likely that the lawsuits may draw some additional attention to the issues, but it seems unlikely to have much of an impact on actual government policies.

Filed Under: acta, eff, government, lawsuits, nsa, surveillance, wiretapping
Companies: eff

Uri Geller Realizes His Psychic Powers Don't Extend To Twisting Copyright Law

from the stick-to-spoons dept

About a year ago, Uri Geller tried to abuse the DMCA to get videos critical of his "mentalist" act taken down. The videos in question debunked Geller's claims to having supernatural powers, and Geller claimed they were copyright infringement because they used 8 seconds worth of a Geller-copyrighted clip in the entire 13 minute video. Also, it's quite clear from the fact that it was a critique of Geller that this was fair use. Of course, Geller went beyond just issuing a DMCA takedown notice. He also sued. The EFF stepped in and sued Geller back.

It appears that it took some time, but Geller's mental powers do not, in fact, extend to either abusing the DMCA or convincing the EFF that his claim was legit. Instead, Geller appears to have caved completely and settled the case. Beyond just giving up the takedown notice and the lawsuit, Geller has agreed to license the disputed clip under a non-commercial Creative Commons license, meaning that others can make use of those 8 seconds as well (for non-commercial reasons) should they also wish to debunk Mr. Geller's claims of supernatural powers.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, eff, uri geller

EFF Gets Another Victory Over Bogus Patents

from the good-for-them dept

It's been four years since the EFF first announced its bogus patent busting project, where it lined up 10 awful patents that needed to be revoked. While it's taken some time, slowly but surely it's been winning each battle. Back in January, we noted another win, and now the EFF has announced that the Patent Office has rejected all 95 claims on a patent held by NeoMedia. The patent in question covers scanning a barcode and connecting it to a website to look up info about the product. The EFF presented a bunch of prior art that (of course) the Patent Office had failed to consider. This is just the preliminary rejection, so NeoMedia can (and probably will) respond -- but it's going to have to explain why not a single claim survived.

Filed Under: barcode scanning, eff, patent busting, patents
Companies: neomedia

Don't You Feel Safer Now That Google Added A Link To Its Privacy Policy?

from the phew! dept

One of the more idiotic accusations thrown at Google of late was this idea that it was somehow a problem that it didn't link directly to its privacy policy from its home page. It had a privacy policy. That privacy policy was easy to find. Almost no one actually reads its privacy policy -- but a bunch of privacy groups who surely had more important things to spend their time on got all upset that Google refused to link from its front page. It appears that Google has now given in and agreed to link to the privacy policy, oddly removing the word "Google" from its copyright notice and replacing it with a link to the privacy policy.

Perhaps more idiotic is the response from a bunch of privacy groups claiming that this somehow makes a difference. It doesn't. It's privacy theater. It looks good, but it means nothing. People still won't read the privacy policy -- and even if they did, they probably wouldn't even remember what it said. Where a privacy policy is linked from a website is meaningless compared to what a company actually does to take the privacy of its users seriously. Getting up in arms over whether or not Google links to the privacy policy from its front page is a joke. And, oh yeah, some are noticing that just linking to the privacy policy probably does not fulfill the legal obligation required by California's law on linking to privacy policies. Perhaps these "privacy advocate" groups have something else to complain about now.

Filed Under: aclu, eff, hype, privacy, privacy policies, privacy theater
Companies: google