The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently launched the “Teach Copyright” campaign to provide a more balanced copyright curriculum that encourages students to make full and fair use of technology that is revolutionizing learning and the exchange of information compared to the new one being peddled by the Copyright Alliance, backed by the recording, broadcast, and software industries.

“Kids and teens are bombarded with messages from a myriad of sources that using new technology is high-risk behavior,” reads the program’s website. “Downloading music is compared to stealing a bicycle — even though many downloads are lawful. Making videos using short clips from other sources is treated as probably illegal — even though many such videos are also lawful.”

The EFF wants to help educators give students the real story about their digital rights and responsibilities on the Internet, unlike the entertainment industry which portrays the use of new technology as a high-risk behavior in it’s ominous sounding “Think First, Copy Later” campaign.

“Today’s tech-savvy teens will grow into the artists and innovators of tomorrow,” said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. “They need to understand their digital rights and responsibilities in order to create, critique, and comment on their culture. This curriculum fills an educational void, introducing critical questions of digital citizenship into the classroom without misinformation that scares kids from expressing themselves in the modern world.”

The “Teaching Copyright” curriculum is a detailed, customizable plan that connects students to contemporary issues related to the Internet and technology. “Teaching Copyright” invites discussion about how creativity is enabled by new technologies, what digital rights and responsibilities exist or should exist, and what roles students play as users of technology. The website at www.teachingcopyright.org includes guides to copyright law, including fair use and the public domain.

“Kids are bombarded with messages that using new technology is illegal,” said EFF Activist Richard Esguerra. “Instead of approaching the issues from a position of fear, “Teaching Copyright” encourages inquiry and greater understanding. This is a balanced curriculum, asking students to think about their role in the online world and to make informed choices about their behavior.”

The “Teaching Copyright” curriculum was apparently developed with the input of educators from across the US, and has been designed to satisfy components of standards from the International Society for Technology in Education and the California State Board of Education.

The class is especially important in California because back in 2006 it passed a law requiring schools that accept technology funding to educate students about copyright, plagiarism, and the basics of Internet safety (other states have since considered similar laws). Until now it has usually been entertainment industry backed groups like the Copyright Alliance that have been the ones providing material to schools and teachers to help “educate” students.

jared@zeropaid.com

After the jump we explain what’s in the Bill and what concerned Australians can do.

The Bill makes Australia’s TPM law more like the DMCA. After the AUSFTA it was inevitable that there would be some movement in that direction. But what’s surprising is that the final version of the bill released on October 19 differs in a key respect from the Exposure Draft issued a month ago. The first version linked the scope of legal protection for DRM to copyright infringement. That’s good policy. It’s also consistent with current Australian law and the key recommendation of the February 2006 Australian House of Representatives’ Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee report on TPM exceptions. The new version does not make that crucial connection, and therefore creates a broader TPM ban.

While the new version’s TPM ban is broader, the Bill does contain two carve-outs: First, there’s no legal protection for region-coding access control technologies on video games and DVDs. That is likely to avoid some of the potentially anti-competitive impacts of geographic market segmentation via TPMs – a practice that involves no copyright right. The carve-out is presumably designed to preserve the 2005 Australian High Court ruling in the Sony v. Stevens PlayStation modchip case, but unfortunately, does so in the narrowest possible way. Second, there’s an attempt to exclude misuses of TPM provisions on embodied computer programs like the printer cartridge and garage door opener cases invoking the DMCA.

The government has already tried once before to meddle with the EFF’s case against AT&T. It had an earlier attempt to dismiss the EFF case shut down after the judge for the Northern District of California determined that the state secrets doctrine would not prevent disclosure of AT&T’s involvement (or, to be fair, possible non-involvement) in the NSA’s wiretapping scheme. Now, the government has asked to appeal that decision to the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

You’ll remember, of course, that the plaintiffs in the suit, represented by the EFF’s cracker-jack legal team, allege that AT&T violated US constitutional and statutory law by diverting public telephone calls going through its San Francisco station into a “secret room” set up by the NSA that contained a pattern-matching computer. They also accuse the telco giant of turning over subscriber information to the Feds in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

The government, in its petition to the Ninth Circuit, calls the Northern District’s denial of the federal privilege a “highly unusual action.” And, after all, it must be quite unusual for this administration to not get its way in the courts, although they should be getting more used to it these days.

At issue in the landmark case being appealed to the San Francisco circuit court of appeals is whether Google infringed on copyrights by creating links to Perfect 10 pictures copied from its website and posted elsewhere on the Internet, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

“The stakes are high and everybody is out expressing an opinion,” EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann told AFP. “Links are really the whole enchilada when it comes to the worldwide web.”

A Perfect 10 court victory would stifle the sharing of website links whether it be by bloggers, search engines, online newspapers, or simply people sending e-mail to friends, von Lohmann said.

Ray Beckerman, a lawyer with the EFF, and the law firm of Vandenberg & Feliu in New Yor,k said that typical tactics being used by the RIAA would not be possible in Europe.

He said that the RIAA was a multibillion dollar cartel suing all sorts of people who have no resources whatsoever to withstand it.

The aim was not to catch pirates, but build up enough case history to rewrite copyright law, he claimed.

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of library organizations filed a brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday supporting Google Image Search in a showdown over critical digital copyright issues.

Adult entertainment publisher Perfect 10 claims that Google’s Image Search service violates copyright law by indexing Perfect 10 photos posted on unauthorized websites, then making and delivering thumbnail images of those photos in its search results. Perfect 10 also contends that Google should be held liable for any copyright infringement that occurs on sites that Google links to.

“Perfect 10 wants to hold Google responsible for the misdeeds of the websites it links to,” said Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “No search engine could survive if that were the rule, nor, for that matter, could most bloggers or other web publishers. If Perfect 10 succeeds in convincing the court that in-line linking and framing of images constitutes a public display or distribution of copyrighted work, then millions of web publishers and bloggers will suddenly be on the wrong side of copyright law — as well as the millions of web users who may follow a link to a website with infringing content.”

“Asking hard questions is a way of ‘keeping honest people honest’ and revealing when they’re actually being deceptive,” EFF writes. I tend to agree. It seems that all too often, much like in the PR savvy world of politics, the real question on your mind is either sidestepped or ignored and afterwards your are left with more questions than answers. So perhaps by taking control of the interview from the get go, and by posing the tough questions over and over, then perhaps they won’t be able to sidestep or ignore them forever.

In any event, below is the list of the questions that the EFF has compiled for one to use when needed. They also ask you to send any additions to the list you think necessary to editor@eff.org.

Music

1. The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 music fans for file sharing, yet file sharing continues to rapidly increase both online and offline. When will you stop suing music fans?

2. The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing, who have on average paid a $3,750 settlement. That’s over $75,000,000. Has any money collected from your lawsuits gone to pay actual artists? Where’s all that money going?

3. The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing. Recently, an RIAA representative reportedly suggested that “students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford [P2P lawsuit] settlements.” Do you stand by this advice? Is this really good advice for our children’s futures?

4. The RIAA said that it only went after individual file sharers because you couldn’t go after P2P system creators. After the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, shouldn’t you stop going after music fans?

5. Major entertainment companies have repeatedly brought lawsuits to block new technologies, including the VCR, Digital Audio Tape recorders, the first MP3 player, the ReplayTV PVR, and now P2P software. Why is your industry so hostile to new technologies?

6. DRM has clearly failed to stop songs from getting on file sharing networks, but it does prevent me from moving lawfully purchased music onto my iPod and other portable devices. Unlike the major record labels, many popular indie labels offer mp3 downloads through sites like eMusic. Why won’t you let fans purchase mp3s as well?

7. The RIAA says that it doesn’t mind if I rip CDs to my personal computer and put them on my iPod. Do I need your permission to do this or can I legally do it even if you object?

8. Recording off the radio is clearly permitted by copyright law and something Americans have done for over 25 years, but the RIAA supports legislation restricting devices that record from digital radio. Why are you against TiVo for radio?

9. Sony BMG recently implemented a DRM technology that damaged users’ computers. But for independent researchers’ analyses, this serious flaw may have gone undiscovered. After this scandal, will record labels allow any computer scientist or security expert to examine these products and agree not to sue them under the DMCA?

Video

1. The major movie studios have been enjoying some of their most profitable years in history over the past five years. Can you cite to any specific studies that prove noncommercial file sharing among fans, as opposed to commercial DVD piracy, has hurt the studios’ bottom line in any significant way?

2. Is it legal for me to bypass CSS DVD encryption in order to skip the “unskippable” previews at the beginning of so many DVDs? Why should I have to be forced to watch these ads when I already bought the DVD?

3. Is it legal for me to skip the commercials when I play back time-shifted TV recordings on my TiVo or other PVR? How is this different than getting up and going to the bathroom?

4. Why are there region-code restrictions on DVDs? How does this prevent copyright infringement? Is it illegal for me to buy or and use a region-free DVD player, or to modify a DVD player to be region-free?

5. In several lawsuits, the MPAA has repeatedly said that it’s illegal to make a back-up of a DVD that I purchased. Why is this illegal?

6. Is it ever legal for me to use software like DVD Shrink or Handbrake to rip a digital copy of a DVD I own onto a video iPod or my laptop? What if I want clips to use for a class report? Or if a teacher wants to include a clip in a PowerPoint slide?

7. Is there anything illegal about copying TV shows I’ve recorded off the air onto my video iPod?

8. If the MPAA-backed “broadcast flag” bill passes, I won’t be able to move recorded TV content digitally to my current video iPod. Why should TV studios get to take away my ability to lawfully time- and space-shift?

9. Major entertainment companies have repeatedly brought lawsuits to block new technologies, including the VCR, Digital Audio Tape recorders, the first MP3 player, the ReplayTV PVR, and now P2P software. Why is your industry so hostile to new technologies?

10. Hollywood is pushing legislation to “plug the analog hole.” These restrictions won’t keep copyrighted video off of file sharing networks, but they will would block me from excerpting a recorded TV show for a school report or using tools like the Slingbox to send recorded TV shows to myself over the Internet. Why are you trying to restrict these legitimate uses?

Hopefully these questions will come in handy for more than a few of you out there and at last lead to an honest dialogue between parties on both sides of the “file-sharing fence.”

Digg It!!

Support the EFF – Digg this story!

“These are aging industries run by aging men, and they’re up against 17-year-olds who have turned themselves into electronic Hezbollah because they resent the content industry for its proprietary practices. And I don’t have a question about who’s going to win that one eventually.”

Read the whole thing

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Wednesday filed the legal briefs and evidence supporting its motion for a preliminary injunction in its class-action lawsuit against AT&T. After asking EFF to hold back the documents so that it could review them, the Department of Justice consented to EFF’s filing them under seal — a well-established procedure that prohibits public access and permits only the judge and the litigants to see the evidence. While not a party to the case, the government was concerned that even this procedure would not provide sufficient security and has represented to the Court that it is “presently considering whether and, if so, how it will participate in this case.”

EFF’s evidence regarding AT&T’s dragnet surveillance of its networks includes a declaration by Mark Klein, a retired AT&T telecommunications technician, and several internal AT&T documents. This evidence was bolstered and explained by the expert opinion of J. Scott Marcus, who served as Senior Technical Advisor for Internet Technology to the Federal Communications Commission from July 2001 until July 2005.

The internal AT&T documents and portions of the supporting declarations have been submitted to the Court under a tentative seal, a procedure that allows AT&T five court days to explain to the Court why the information should be kept from the public.

“The public deserves to know about AT&T’s illegal program,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “In an abundance of caution, we are providing AT&T with an opportunity to explain itself before this material goes on the public docket, but we believe that justice will ultimately require full disclosure.”

The NSA program came to light in December, when the New York Times reported that the President had authorized the agency to intercept telephone and Internet communications inside the United States without the authorization of any court. Over the ensuing weeks, it became clear that the NSA program has been intercepting and analyzing millions of Americans’ communications, with the help of the country’s largest phone and Internet companies, including AT&T.

“Mark Klein is a true American hero,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. “He has bravely come forward with information critical for proving AT&T’s involvement with the government’s invasive surveillance program.”

In the lawsuit, EFF is representing the class of all AT&T residential customers nationwide. Working with EFF in the lawsuit are the law firms Traber & Voorhees, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP and the Law Office of Richard R. Wiebe.

For the notice of motion for preliminary injunction:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/NotMot.pdf

For the motion to lodge under temporary seal:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/MotionReSealing.pdf

For more on EFF’s suit:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/