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Man Sued for Linking to Freeware

Drew Wilson — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:11:20 +0000

A man from the Netherlands is being sued by RealNetworks for linking to a freeware application. The application, RealAlternative, is considered by some to be a competitive product to software from RealNetworks. RealNetworks alleges that the software in question is infringing on its trademarks and is demanding the accused hand over all computer equipment in its investigation.

Software developers can create freeware for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's to test their development skills, other times, it's to make everyone's lives a little bit easier with no financial incentives. Many site owners like freeware because they sometimes come with licenses that allow them to be redistributed or linked to without any worry about copyright problems. That might be what Hilbrand Edskes thought until he received a legal notice from RealNetworks. According to PCAdvisor, codecpack.nl was linking to software known as RealAlternative. From the report:

To date there have been two court sessions, and in December Edskes will have to testify under oath. There is a heavy pricetag attached to the case. So far Edskes has incurred more than €66,000 in legal fees. He says the costs cut his savings, hindering him from buying his own house. If he loses the case Dutch law requires him to cover all legal fees of RealNetworks. According to documents Webwereld.nl has studied these costs are nearly €75,000.

I think this is absolutely ridiculous. What's next? Microsoft suing every website that contains links to Linux OS distributions? Adobe suing every website that links to GIMP? I really wonder if this is the kind of software that would be censored if the PROTECT-IP Act. I mean, don't like your competition? Order ISPs to censor them. We're already seeing something like this with RealNetworks, what's to stop other companies from adopting similar policies of using copyright and trademark laws to crush all competition? [Via /.] Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

ZeroPaid Interviews Russell McOrmond 2 – Canadian Bill C-32 (Part 3 of 3)

Drew Wilson — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:01:05 +0000

We have been interviewing Russell McOrmond. The interview is in three parts. Parts 1 and 2 are already available. We now conclude our three part interview.

We have been interviewing Russell McOrmond in a three part interview. In part 1, we discussed the complexity of Bill C-32, copyright terms and anti-circumvention provisions. In part 2, we discussed DRM in physical devices, the closeness of Canadian policy making and American policy making, and the WIPO Internet treaties. We now come to our conclusion of our interview: ZeroPaid (ZP): There's a review of the laws being put forth every five years, but you mention in your FAQ that it's not a review held by an external body such as the copyright board. In the US, the DMCA review seems to be held by the copyright office. Is this one of those few cases where Canada should actually look at the DMCA as a model and hold reviews externally as opposed to within committee? What do you think is the ideal way to review copyright law? Russell McOrmond (RM): While US copyright modified by the DMCA is better than Canadian copyright modified by Bill C-32 in many respects, including this one, there is an easier way to deal with this issue. I believe changes to copyright must be managed in a different way. Canada has tended to create massive, divisive and unreadable omnibus bills once every decade. The process is long, and nobody is ever happy or even able to understand the result. I believe Canadian copyright law has only become worse to a vast majority of stakeholders over time because of this process. We should instead have a larger number of smaller bills. Copyright law is becoming as hard to understand as tax law. We change tax law through much smaller bills, recognizing that it would be unmanageable to make massive changes to tax law all at the same time. Copyright must receive similar respect. For instance, if WIPO treaty ratification is the major goal of C-32, then we should rip out anything that isn't part of the two 1996 WIPO treaties. We can then discuss these treaties, and our implementation of these treaties, without there being so many other things generating noise. If we have some prerequisites that need to be passed before legislation that would implement the WIPO treaties makes sense, then we should table, debate, amend and pass them first. There is no reason for Canada to feel rushed to ratify the 1996 treaties. There are various older WIPO treaties that Canada hasn't ratified, and others that the USA hasn't ratified. If we use how long the USA took to ratify Berne as a comparison, we don't need to ratify the 1996 treaties until 2104 or so... ZP: Does this bill have an impact on the open source and free software movement and GNU/GPL projects in Canada? RM: Bill C-32 style legal protection for technological measures harms nearly all software authors. Before copyright can protect our interests, including our contracts and license agreements like the GPL being enforceable, hardware owners need to be able to make their own software choices. If people can't make their own software choices, then how can they choose our software? Access Control technical measures on content limit access to content to a subset of software that have the keys, and thus is anti-competative. This is harmful to the entire technology sector, excluding those few monopolies which benefit from this anti-competative practise. Access Control technical measures on devices mean that the manufacturer, not the owner, make software choices which is even more harmful to the entire software sector. This shouldn't be seen as an issue that only harms the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) sector, but that harms all independent and competitive software regardless of what contractual/licensing terms are being used to protect our interests. ZP: From your perspective, has the reception of the bill been as strong as ever? Are there as many or even more people interested in this bill as seen in previous bills or has attention to legislation like this faded? RM: I think the government was surprised by the amount of participation in the 2001 consultations, but hasn't been as surprised since. The proponents and opponents of the bill haven't really changed. There are people who blindly believe that if some copyright is good, more is better, and look favourably overall at C-32. In many cases I don't think they have actually read the bill, or analysed the impact of the bill on their own interests. The same is true for some of the opponents who believe that Copyright is already unbalanced and tilted in favour of incumbent copyright holders, and oppose this bill as a whole. There are only a few of us in the middle that will do clause-by-clause analysis and commentary, and that don't blindly believe that Copyright can be simplified to claiming that "more" or "less" is better. There is a lot of arm-chair politics on all sides, with people that will be upset but not follow through with talking to policy makers. We need to somehow translate this interest and emotion into actions that can impact the policy. How many people contacted their or other members of parliament over the summer? How many meetings did they have? If someone did meet with your MP to discuss copyright, I would love to hear about it so that it can be reported on the Digital-copyright.ca site. I posted about a meeting I had with Justin Trudeau over the summer. Parliament is returning on September 20th. This period when the parties are having caucus meetings prior to returning to parliament is a good time to ensure that Copyright is added to their agenda. If you are shy to meet, then I can help. You may also be willing to help encourage your MP to meet with someone like myself if you feel I could present your case for you. Thanks, and I hope to hear from more people about meeting with MPs soon. --- We would like to thank Russell McOrmond for taking the time out of his busy schedule to talk with us. For more information, you can visit Russell McOrmonds blog at digital-copyright.ca. His blog includes an information page on Bill C-32 and FAQ on bill C-32 as well as information pages on the Conservatives Bill C-61 and the Liberals Bill C-60 for previous bills. A chronology of copyright in Canada can be found here. His blog also contains petitions including one against ACTA as well as other information pages including an information page on contacting your MP. Previous parts: Part 1, Part 2. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

ZeroPaid Interviews Russell McOrmond 2 – Canadian Bill C-32 (Part 2 of 3)

Drew Wilson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:42:32 +0000

We are currently in the process of interviewing Russell McOrmond, a well known observer of Canadian copyright and policy consultant. You can read part 1 here.

In the previous part of our interview, we discussed the complexity of copyright, the length of copyright and anti-circumvention provisions found within Bill C-32. We continue with our interview: ZeroPaid (ZP): A lot of people focus on the digital locks of music and software, but another aspect of copy protection that gets less attention is the locking down of physical devices as well. Could you give us an example of the locking down of a physical device and how does this legislation affect that? Russell McOrmond (RM): I have been giving a "I am holding 4 things in my hand" presentation for years, including to a lawyer who wanted to understand this issue from a technical perspective. It comes down to translating what technical measures claim to do into technology that is based on science rather than science fiction. Content alone cannot make decisions. It can't decide to be copied or not, decide to be available on only 5 devices, or other such contractual terms that people like to talk about with technical measures. What you can do is use technology such as cryptography so that the content can only be accessed by persons and/or devices with the right unlocking keys. What this means is that the content is locked with an access control technical measure, and is then unlocked by a device that obeys those contracting terms. In order to enforce these terms in devices (rather than under the law), the devices are locked down such that those operating them are not able to be in control of them. This is fine when we are talking about a kiosk when the operator and the owner are different, but is a cause of great concern when these locks are being used to protect third parties against the owners of the devices. None of this is necessary. If technical measures were protected in contract law, then the balance of contract law would then apply to the use of technical measures to protect those contracting terms. Some uses would be protected, some unenforceable, and some illegal just as is the case with traditional contract law. All the legitimate interests of each of the parties to those contracts can be protected. What we have is technology vendors falsely claim to be selling "copy control" software, when they are in fact offering a system involving locking people out of their own technology to protect contracting terms. These contracting terms aren't even disclosed to the owners of that technology, or the people purchasing content. Hidden or otherwise undisclosed clauses would not be protected in contract law, and certainly should never be protected in copyright law. One example is Apple, who lock the various iPhone, iPad, iPod devices such that they, and not the owner, hold the keys. They claim that it should be illegal for the owner to change the locks on their own devices. They abuse peoples confusion about the connections between copyright, contract, property and other laws to justify this offensive business practice. I often wonder how locking the owners out of something that they own is all that different than theft, and consider the business practise of locking owners out of their property to be immoral. It is something I believe should be made illegal, not legally protected. A law closer to the language of the WIPO treaties wouldn't protect this practice. In the short term even the USA DMCA doesn't protect this practise. Bill C-32 would legally protect this practise, given circumventing access control technical measures and even providing tools to change the locks on what we own are being made illegal. ZP: Following the US copyright office saying that exceptions can be made in the anti-circumvention provisions in the US, the Canadian government said that they'll be looking at this development closely and legislate accordingly. Do you think that the exceptions introduced in the US go far enough? Also, what affect does this development have on the Canadian governments image that they respond so quickly to a change in the US legal development especially after the government just got out of having a nation-wide consultation with the Canadian public? RM: The country that introduced the concept of "access control" technical measures, falsely claiming it had something to do with copyright, was the USA. Given it appears the Conservative party simply cut-and-pasted this non-copyright related concept into Canadian law from the USA, it makes sense that they would need to follow the harm that this is causing within the USA. It demonstrates they aren't doing any of their own research or analysis. I believe the consultation was only for show. When the Conservative government tabled C-61 the opposition parties suggested that adequate consultations hadn't been done. They held a consultation and then tabled C-32. Now the opposition can't talk about a lack of consultation, and discussing how the bill disregarded the consultation brings us into discussing complex policy that doesn't fit into a sound bite. The Conservatives can claim they are just listening to advise, and trying to have the best law possible. Unfortunately they are following the advise of representatives of the USA, a country that is a Copyright laggard. While Canada was under the Berne convention (WIPO treaty #1) since its coming into force in 1887, the USA didn't ratify until 1989. Only a few years later the USA is then taking their inadequate understanding of Copyright and trying to push treaties through WIPO, namely the two 1996 treaties where the anti-circumvention legislation comes from. While the more mature countries rejected much of the USA's proposals on technical measures, including the back-door protection of "access", the Conservative government hasn't bothered to study or understand this history. The Conservative government, as well as some other MPs, believe the lies of the lobbiests who claim that it is Canada that is a copyright laggard with weak copyright law compared to the USA, when the opposite is true. ZP: There was a very noticeable push from some organizations to ratify the WIPO treaties. In your FAQ, you mention that the WIPO treaties are a mixed bag. Do you think it's possible to ratify the WIPO treaties in a favorable way in your view and is such a thing likely that you can see? RM: The two 1996 WIPO treaties do not allow reservations, meaning ratification is all or nothing. You can't include in copyright law things which you consider good, and reject the things you feel are bad. That said, it is possible to ratify the 1996 WIPO treaties in a way that is much less harmful than either the Conservatives or the Liberals have proposed so far. One obvious thing is to protect technological measures in the correct laws, such as contract, e-commerce and property law. This would avoid most of the harmful consequences due to technical measures and copyright being separate concepts. The WIPO treaties don't require that all changes be made to the Copyright act, and the USA has made use of similar flexibility when it comes to moral rights when ratifying the Berne convention. WIPO treaties are all modifications to previous treaties, with the copyright treaties being modification of the Berne convention. Canada could also work within WIPO towards new treaties which could fix many of the problems seen in the two 1996 WIPO treaties. This would mean that the harmful aspects of ratifying these two treaties would be short-lived, and fixed by ratifying more modern treaties. These two treaties are outdated, and older than current Canadian copyright law which the lobbiests falsely claim is antiquated. --- ~~We are currently in the process of posting our interview. Please stay tuned for part 3.~~ You can find part 1 here. Part 3 is now available here. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

ZeroPaid Interviews Russell McOrmond 2 – Canadian Bill C-32 (Part 1 of 3)

Drew Wilson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:25:25 +0000

About two years ago, we interviewed a Canadian consultant to discuss various issues surrounding copyright. It was a fascinating interview and here making his return is Russell McOrmond for a second interview.

Russell McOrmond has always had interesting insights in to Canadian copyright as it impacts technology, creators, consumers and businesses. Over three months before Bill C-61 was tabled, we had the privilege to interview him in a three part series (1, 2, 3). A lot has changed since 2008 when we interviewed him. For one, Bill C-61, the then newest copyright reform bill was tabled. Afterwords, an election was called and that killed the bill, an election was called, Canada had a nation-wide consultation on copyright, and Bill C-32, Canada's most recent copyright reform bill, was tabled earlier this year. So there was plenty of things that happened between our last interview and now. How much has changed and what seems to have never changed? That is up for debate, so we have invited Russell McOrmond back for a new interview. As you might remember, McOrmond is the host of Digital-Copyright.ca, a co-coordinator of GOSLINGcommunity.org and a policy coordinator for CLUEcan.ca to name a few projects he is doing. We begin our three part series with him: ZeroPaid (ZP): Bill C-32 is considered by most as an omnibus bill and there's so much to consider in such a complex bill. I know because I've already gone through the bill and there were so many issues being touched on, I got that feeling of being completely overwhelmed with all of the complexities. I thought with my years of knowing the copyright debate in Canada, that I could just go through the bill without too much of a problem, but I was dead wrong and I couldn't even begin to claim that I know everything about the bill even after a thorough review. Generally, though, in your view, is the bill an improvement over the last bill (Bill C-61) and the Liberal party copyright bill (Bill C-60)? Russell McOrmond (RM): These bills are each omnibus bills. Rather than having a focus that can have a reasonable discussion, both the previous Liberal government and the current Conservative government have created bills that mix so many unrelated things that it is impossible to make any overall evaluations. Canadian Copyright is already strong enough to deal with nearly all legitimate interests of copyright holders. Bill C-32 doesn't modernize copyright beyond the level it obtained in 1997, but largely pushes forward controversial ideas that originated prior to 1997. I believe that current Canadian copyright is better than it will be under C-32. While I think that modernizing Copyright is a good idea, I don't believe C-32 moves towards that goal. The issue that brought me actively into the copyright debate is so-called technical protection measures. With a technical background I analyses from a practical "what can exist in the real world". This is different than policy makers and lobbiests who are trying to provide legal protection for what is essentially snake oil being marketed by a few anti-competitive companies in the technology sector. I recently did a presentation titled "Why legal protection for technical measures is controversial" (Video and slides). The types of activities which copyright regulates all assume that you already have access to content. Copyright has never concerned itself with concept of access, which was left to other areas of law. Technical measures can restrict access, but can't in the real world directly restrict the types of activities that copyright regulates. In essence, Copyright and technical measures are disjoint, but technical measures and other areas of law such as contract and e-commerce overlap. This distinction is critical for a few reasons: a) We don't want to radically change the traditional definitions of copyright to include "access" as the concept of "access" would effectively replace the rest of the Copyright Act. b) We don't want to create a back-door protection of "access" by protecting "access control" technical measures, essentially creating two different forms of copyright: one for analog works, and one for digitally encoded works. c) We have to ask why we aren't protecting technical measures in contract, e-commerce and other laws where real-world technology overlap with uses applicable to the laws. Is this a matter of policy makers not understanding technology, or not understanding the law? Is there possibly lobby groups whose goals are to dismantle the concept of Copyright and replace it with something very different that doesn't protect the interests of creators or the general public? When I hear some lobbiests, especially those paid by the recording industry, I don't hear much respect for the traditional definitions or contours of copyright. The Liberal Bill C-60 contained a translation into Canadian law of what the 1996 WIPO treaties said. They tied legal protection for technical measures to activities that were already infringing. The two Conservative bills C-61 and C-32 included both the WIPO language that the Liberals used, plus an explicit protection of "access control" technical measures they imported from the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. On this specific issue, which happens to be the most controversial, the Liberal Bill C-60 was far more consistent with the traditional definitions of copyright and international copyright law than either of the two Conservative bills. ZP: When we were discussing the bill, you mentioned that the length of copyright is actually changing in some cases even though it is not directly mentioned in the bill. Is the length of the copyright term changing with this bill? RM: It is an over-simplification to suggest that the copyright term is the life of the author plus 50 years. There are a number of other places where the term is different for a variety of reasons. Under current copyright law, where the owner of the "initial negative or plate from which the photograph was derived" is a corporation, the term of copyright is a fixed 50 years from when the photograph was made. This is being repealed by Bill C-32, such that it will be the life of some unknown and most often unknowable person plus 50 years. Under current copyright, the term for a performers performance is 50 years from when it was performed and/or recorded. Under C-32 this is able to be extended by publishing the recording, at worst 49 years from when the recording was made giving an effective 99 year copyright term. These are both cases of recordings, in one case photography and in the other sound recordings of performances. I am a firm believer that the copyright in all recordings should be based on the date when the recording was made. Multiple recordings can be made of a real-world event, and it is impossible to differentiate which is made by which human, whether that human is working for a specific corporation, or even if a human was involved beyond installing equipment and/or pushing a button to start the recording. Knowing who this human is to determine the term of copyright that expires based on the death of this human is impractical, and should not be considered in Copyright. The changes to copyright of recordings seem to presume that all or a majority of recordings are being made by artists. These days with recording devices in the pockets of so many people, and being used casually in many places of business (and by governments for surveillance and other reasons), the number of recordings attributable to professional art is almost insignificant. It is frustrating to see Copyright changed to favour this almost insignificant minority while making life so much harder for the majority. ZP: Many consider the anti-circumvention parts of the legislation as DMCA-style, but supporters of the bill say that there are a host of exceptions and that concerns about anti-circumvention are overblown. Are the anti-circumvention provisions too broad and the exceptions too narrow? Do they protect fair dealings? RM: Bill C-32 anti-circumvention includes both WIPO style protection which was intended to respect the contours of copyright including fair dealings, and "access control" technical measures which have little to do with traditional definitions of copyright. The USA DMCA explicitly protects their flexable Fair Use regime, and makes some ties to the existing contours of their Copyright, by stating that "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title". Bill C-32 explicitly states in a few places that what limited fair dealings we have are able to be circumvented through the abuse of a technological measure. The types of excessively complex fair dealings language seen in C-32 are not necessary in the USA as it has a flexable fair use regime. Their more modern and robust fair use regime has been interpreted by their courts far more liberally and protected far more innovation and fair activities than the extremely weak fair dealings language in Canada. In other words, not only are the anti-circumvention provisions in C-32 too broad and the exceptions too narrow and unnecessarily complex, but that C-32 is far worse than the USA DMCA. I sometimes wonder if the supporters of the bill have actually read various documents such as C-32, the two 1996 WIPO treaties, existing Canadian copyright act and the USA DMCA. In some cases they are paid lobbiests whose job is to confuse and misinform, and in other cases it is people who have not done adequate research. --- ~~Part 2 of our interview is currently being posted at this time.~~ Part 2 of our interview has now been posted. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Will Prior Art Doom Apple’s Anti-Theft iPhone Patent?

Drew Wilson — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 04:10:28 +0000

There's a bit of commotion with a new patent request by Apple over on Slashdot today. The claim is that Apple is creating a new patent to stop jailbreaking.

About a month ago, we reported that a review of the DMCA put forth the possibility of jailbreaking ones phone without breaking anti-circumvention laws (though this is under a set of specific circumstances). A court also ruled that the act of circumvention in and of itself does not constitute infringement. It was a very interesting development and it's what made a recent report on Slashdot interesting as well. The posting suggested that Apple is trying to patent (through the "Systems And Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of An Electronic Device" patent) the ability to remotely disable jailbroken phones. Unfortunately, that wasn't really true going through both links in the report. First was the link to the patent application where the only mention of a jailbroken phone was way to tell if a phone was stolen. There doesn't appear to be anything about Apple disabling jailbroken iPhones, but it does discuss what Apple wants to do with phones that have been stolen and used by "unauthorized" users. We looked at the other article, the Arstechnica article, and nothing in the article says that Apple is trying to patent the ability to disable jailbroken phones. The patent was filed February 19, 2009. All this doesn't make the patent uninteresting though. Here's the first statement of claim:

1 . A method for identifying an unauthorized user of an electronic device, the method comprising: determining that a current user of the electronic device is an unauthorized user; gathering information related to the unauthorized user's operation of the electronic device in response to determining, wherein the unauthorized user's operation comprises operations not related to the authentication; and transmitting an alert notification to a responsible party in response to gathering.

This was an interesting claim and they had these claims associated with it:

5 . The method of claim 1, wherein gathering further comprises gathering one or more of screenshots, keylogs, communications packets served to the electronic device, and information related to a host device coupled to the electronic device. 6 . The method of claim 1, wherein the alert notification comprises a general message indicating that an unauthorized user has been detected. 7 . The method of claim 1, wherein the alert notification comprises at least a portion of the gathered information. 8 . The method of claim 1, further comprising: gathering information related to the identity of the unauthorized user in response to determining; and gathering information related to the location of the electronic device in response to determining.

Since the date it was filed on is important, February of 2009, anything we find prior to this date is critical to putting this patent into question. So with a little research, we've come across an article from 2005 on Forbes which appears to detail idea's, at least, similar to what is being described in the above claims. Remember, the critical point in the patent is that it's all about detecting an unauthorized user of an "electronic device". It's not specifically about protecting a phone as both Slashdot and Ars Technica suggests although, yes, it would include something like a cell phone. The Forbes article discusses LoJack for laptops. You don't have to finish reading the first paragraph to discover that this software was meant to stop laptop theft. A laptop is as much of a digital device as an iPhone in my books. Claim 5 of the patent mentions information packets - hinting towards the data stream going from device to device. What is included in that data stream? An IP address. You can read this paragraph from the review and play "Spot the Similarities":

Within seconds, Absolute can use one of three ways to determine where the wayward computer has gone. If it's a dial-up modem, it can tell what phone number the computer is using to get online, and trace the address. If it's broadband, it can track the IP address and then, with cooperation from the Internet Service Provider, locate the street address where the IP is installed. And then there's a third way that even John Livingston, Absolute's chairman and CEO won't tell us about.

Moving along to claim 6, the claim suggests that an alert is created when an unauthorized user has been detected on that device. For that, we go to the previous paragraph in the review:

It works like a charm, as soon as the bandits use your stolen laptop to go online. By the way, all the time your computer's been sitting in your office or den, it has been regularly checking in with its master in Vancouver. If the computer gets into the wrong hands and is reported stolen, Absolute's recovery team will see that status pop up on their screen.

Sounds like LoJack is creating a notification as well. Claim 7 says that parts of the information is used to track the device down. Claim 8 suggests that the information would also be used to identify the location of the stolen device and the unauthorized user. That sounds like something insinuated two paragraphs down in the review:

Once the computer's been located, the recovery team--all ex-cops, by the way, most of them from the Vancouver police--call local law enforcement and tell them where they can find the purloined device

We don't claim to be experts in the US patent system, but as far as we know, if there is prior art to a patent being filed, it puts the validity of the patent in jeopardy. With that bit of knowledge, it's not looking good for the patent. We'll skip ahead to claim 11 since there's some interesting claims related to it:

11 . An electronic device operable to detect an unauthorized user of an electronic device, the electronic device comprising: a processor operable to: receive an input from a current user of the electronic device; determine the input is not associated with an authorized user of the electronic device; and record usage information of the electronic device in response to determining; and communications circuitry operable to transmit the usage information to a remote device.

Then we have this claim:

15 . The electronic device of claim 11, further comprising: a camera operable to take a photograph of the vicinity of the electronic device; and positioning circuitry operable to determine current location information of the electronic device; and wherein the processor is further operable to: geotag the photograph by associating the photograph with the current location information.

That sounds very similar to, say, a webcam taking pictures remotely. So there's this article dated August 24, 2008. It describes a piece of anti-theft software - open source no less - called Adeona. In that article has the following paragraph:

To track your stolen property, you can do a number of things; you can track the IP addresses and/or the Wi-Fi network name and geo-coordinates to track the general area the device is in, or your laptop can even snap a photo using its webcam (if so equipped) to snap a photo every 30 seconds to show you exactly who’s using it. The overall idea is very similar to the competition, with the only real difference being that you’re the only one seeing any of your information.

This not only further compromises claim 8, but also compromises claim 15 of the patent. This particular paragraph is nice because further down the patent is another set of claims that appear to be compromised:

17 . A system comprising: an electronic device comprising; an input device operable to receive a password provided by a user; a camera operable to take a photograph of the user; a processor operable to: determine that a predetermined number of incorrect passwords have been successively received; direct the camera to take a photograph of the user; and generate an alert notification in response to the processor determining, wherein the alert notification comprises information related to the identity of the user and the photograph of the user; and communications circuitry operable to transmit the alert notification to a remote device. 18 . The system of claim 17, wherein: the camera is operable to take a plurality of photographs of the surroundings of the electronic device; and wherein the processor is further operable to: analyze each of the plurality of photographs to identify distinguishing landmarks in the photographs; and determine the location of each photograph based on the identified distinguishing landmarks.

So claim 17 and 18 is also compromised due to prior art. This patent has 21 claims and, with a little research, we've been able to shoot down 9 of those claims - most of them being core aspects of the patent. Without those 9 claims, there's not a whole heck of a lot left in the patent. Personally, I think this is another example of why there shouldn't be broad software patents. If all of these claims were to go through, how can other software and hardware developers protect their own customers legally? If other companies want to develop anti-theft technology for their devices, they should freely be able to do so as long as it is with the consent of a fully aware customer and user. The scary thing is that Techdirt notes that the US Patent Office is approving more and more patents in an effort to get through a backlog more than focusing on quality control of who should and shouldn't get patents. I'm not sure this is really going to end well, but in the mean time, maybe I should go breathing or something - you know, to get a slice of the insanity. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

ZeroPaid Interviews the Free Software Foundation

Drew Wilson — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:51:48 +0000

Open source has been in the media for quite some time whether directly or indirectly. With ACTA leak and the ASCAP letter two big news items that affects open source, we decided to sit down with the Free Software Foundation and talk about these and other things related to the open source movement.

Update: Please see note at bottom of article with regards to the use of the term "open source" There are many things happening with open source. There are big news items that effect open source such as clauses in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and, what some have called, an indirect attack coming from ASCAP through the ASCAP letter. There are also issues that go under the radar such as open source adoption. With so much happening with Open Source, we decided to sit down with Peter Brown, the Controller and Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation to get his take on various issues. What is the Free Software Foundation and how is it important to open source? The FSF is a not-for-profit foundation created in 1985 to sponsor the GNU project and promote the worldwide cause of software freedom. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses. Where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us. The GNU system that we developed with the help of a worldwide community of volunteers, is in widespread use today in the form of GNU/Linux: a combination of the GNU system and a kernel written by Linus Torvalds. Open Source is a different idea. The term was created by people in the free software movement that were concerned about appealing to the CEO's of powerful corporations, who didn't care to hear about our social movement's purpose of gaining computer user freedom. Today, more people know this history and appreciate the values of software freedom. Indeed, many representatives of Open Source organizations point to the Free Software Foundation's work and recognize that our mission is the core of their purpose. You can help the cause of software freedom by not participating in the corporate process of hiding the meaning behind this movement. Please call this work free software and not open source. Remember that the system is GNU using the Linux kernel, not just Linux. These are great and simple ways to make a difference and educate others. When people think of "free", some might think, "well, that means no one is getting paid and every contribution is voluntary to an open source project." A lot of advocates of open source I spoke to personally say that this is a big misconception about open source and people, indeed, do get paid while contributing to open source in various ways. Do you agree that free doesn't equate to no one getting paid from an open source perspective? Free software is about freedom not price. The FSF itself sells disks of free software. We are perfectly happy for people to make money using free software. So think about your freedom, not about making or spending money. Free software values mean no spying on your activities. Free software values mean no DRM (digital restrictions). Free software values mean no locked down devices. Free software values means sharing with your friends, making copies and learning about free software from studying the source code of the software you use--if you want to. A while ago, ASCAP issued a letter attacking various user rights organizations and, curiously, Creative Commons. They said that "copyleft" is undermining their "copyright". While Creative Commons responded saying that these claims are false and copyleft isn't undermining copyright because Creative Commons, in fact, is a copyright license. Some people took ASCAPs comments as being an indirect attack on open source, maybe because open source is viewed as part of the copyleft movement. First of all, do you feel that you are part of the copyleft movement? Secondly, do you think ASCAPs attack on Creative Commons was also an indirect attack on open source as well? Finally, what's your take on the ASCAP letter? The concept of copyleft was created by our founder and president Richard Stallman. The world's most popular copyleft software license is the GNU GPL--a software license published by the Free Software Foundation. So in fact we represent the founders of the copyleft movement. But we should be clear about what copyleft is. Copyleft is a technique that Stallman created to prevent free software from becoming proprietary software. It depends on copyright law, and it is composed of a set of permissions that the copyright holder grants to the user. It is not anti-copyright, though the FSF and many other organizations take the position that copyright laws have become to strict and overly broad and need major reform. ASCAP doesn't like these views because they conflict with their purpose: making as much money as possible off the back of our shared cultural heritage. The topic of software patents, as much as I can tell, has always been a very controversial topic for those in the open source movement. How can software patents, in your view, undermine the open source movement and, more broadly, undermine software development and society as well? Many corporations who represent Open Source love software patents because they own so many of them themselves. The free software movement rejects the very idea of software patents. Please watch the recent documentary film we sponsored Patent Absurdity. Advocates of software patents might argue, "Hey look, patents allows us to secure jobs and money for various companies and to be against software patents is an extreme position to be in that would hurt jobs." How would you respond to criticisms such as this? That the economic evidence doesn't support that finding. In fact, the evidence makes clear that software patents are a drag on the US economy as a whole and are a deep threat to all other nations if software patents get adopted internationally. The FSF sponsors a campaign against software patents and we present all the evidence about the harm that software patents inflict, including economic at EndSoftPatents.org. ACTA recently made its way in the media with news of its more recent leak. Do you think ACTA could potentially harm the open source movement? If so, in what ways is ACTA in its current form harmful for open source and software development? Again, many corporations that support Open Source have been silent on ACTA. The Free Software Foundation has spoken out against ACTA and is promoting a petition. ACTA encourages spying on computer users. It encourages internationalization of DRM schemes and harmful laws like the DMCA. It makes citizens wary of sharing, when sharing is what we want to encourage with free software. ACTA is simply another gift from paid-for law makers to an industry that hates technology that empowers citizens. Open source has popped up in the news here and there in fairly impressive ways. Different corporate and government organizations have made announcements over the years that they are switching to open source solutions. How positive are these types of announcements for the open source movement? Could you name a few particularly memorable announcements of organizations switching to open source? Many organizations are wary of announcing their use of free software, because proprietary software corporations like Microsoft show up to threaten and abuse them. They did this in Massachusetts when the State tried to adopt a policy of using Open Document Format. They did this to the One Laptop Per Child program when they were promoting their use of GNU/Linux. But Microsoft's power is waning, so more news is reaching the public. CERN's large Hadron Collider depends on GNU/Linux. The US armed forces have stated their dependence on free software for weapons systems. The NYSE trading platform is GNU/Linux based, and many other trading systems use free software. The White House uses Drupal for its website. And Wikipedia is served up using only free software. The list of high profile users is getting to be a long list. I personally have spoken to someone from within government who says that the big dissuading factor of an organization switching to open source is liability. The example I was given was if, say, Microsoft screws something up, a company can be blamed. If an open source product messes up, where does the blame go? How can open source overcome perceptions like that to help get more people to use open source solutions? Are there other perceptions from, say, businesses that you would like to lay to rest? If Microsoft screws something up it's just another day in the life of a proprietary software user. Microsoft isn't about to cut you a check to make it all better again. Having Microsoft to blame doesn't help you. Most organizations that use free software use a vendor who offers support and services. Free software makes it possible for anyone to get into the business of offering these services because the software gives you that freedom. It's great for local economies. Some people only know proprietary software. An example is someone saying, "hey, I know Microsoft enough to use it, why should I make this big leap to open source when all I want to do is get from point A to B." Open source, though, isn't solely tied to operating systems though. What would you say to that person if you wanted them to use more open source technology and where should that person go to find out about open source? Go to FSF.org to get an introduction and a pathway to using more free software. Using free software is great. But understanding and appreciating the values of free software is more important. That's why you should reject the term Open Source. What the FSF wants to talk about and what we want to pass on to your readers is an understanding of why it matters that you have software freedom. Why it's important for our society to build its future on a technology that we can control and that serves our interests. Think about the alternative future where free software doesn't succeed. Where a hand-full of proprietary software companies thus control all access to the internet. Where spying on your computing activities is assured. Where copying digital media files is prevented by pervasive DRM schemes. Where you're forced to do your computing on a corporation's servers: often referred to as cloud computing, or as we know it, complete spying. Where your rights that are lawful cannot be expressed because the software you use prevents you from undertaking those legal activities. And where competition is allowed to be stifled because these same corporations have collected thousands of software patents that prevent anyone else from changing the rules of the game. These examples may seem extreme, but companies like Microsoft and Apple are busy pursuing these outcomes and lobbying your government to help them. Is there anything you would like to add? Keep up to date by subscribing to receive the Free Software Supporter newsletter and alerts. Volunteer for us. There are many jobs to be done and you don't have to be a coder. The FSF receives the bulk of its funding from its Associate Members. You can become a member for $10 a month ($5 students) or donate at FSF.org.jf Happy Hacking! --- We would like to thank Peter Brown of the Free Software Foundation for taking the time to sit down and answer our questions. UPDATE - Important Note: This interview was conducted via e-mail where the questions were sent all at once and I received the answers all at once. Up until the interview, I didn't know the term "open source" was, in and of itself, a poor term for some. So for those concerned that I insisted on using the term "open source", this wasn't really meant to come off this way and I apologize for that. This interview was meant to be educational to the general public and it was even educational to me since I'm not as involved with free software as I am with general file-sharing, technology and even free speech. Rest assured, I got the message. For all intents and purposes, this interview is already doing its job of informing. Thank you for your concerns. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Humble Indie Bundle Closes on a High Note

Drew Wilson — Mon, 17 May 2010 01:17:49 +0000

It was a deal that had plenty of people talking. A "Pay What You Want" deal was launched a while ago now and the sale is now over. The results are definitely great.

The deal would last a little over a week. A pack of games for whatever the price you set. In the first 24 hours, the Humble Indie Bundle managed to get a little over a quarter of a million dollars. Since our initial report, the story spread like wildfire and the deal scored over a million dollars in less than a week - thus beating out, well, everyone's expectations. The deal was extended, but is now closed and the results are just as impressive as our earlier reports. The deal earned a grand total of nearly $1,275,000 dollars with close to 140,000 contributors pitching in. While we previously reported that the pot was sweetened, that wasn't the only things that were happening during the sale. On the back of the bundle's overwhelming success, Wolfire also made a couple of their games open-sourced. One of those games that went open source was Lugaru and within hours of the release of the source code, a patch was released by someone which allowed Windows users to play the game (not previously possible). If this taught anyone anything, it's that respecting your fans can yield positive results. Instead of putting DRM all over games, Wolfire took the opposite rout and open sourced some of their games and let people set the price and the results were amazing. One things for sure, these developers actually "got it" and did what other developers seem to think would never be possible, let alone successful. One can only hope that this experience can help set a more positive future for other game developers. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Open Source Alternatives for X Professional Software

Drew Wilson — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:29:12 +0000

The Open Source movement has always been present. Whether proprietary software seems to be gaining ground or not, open source has always been a very enticing alternative. The problem has been, how do people know whether an open source alternative exists or not? Here’s two websites that hope to change that.

If a user is sick and tired of some of the flaws of, say, Internet Explorer and they want to turn to an Open Source solution, the easy goto browser for surfing is FireFox hands down. In fact, FireFox does have what very few open source solutions have – a household name that most know about. Chances are, someone who knows someone who knows someone at the very least either knows or uses the famed browser. What about alternatives to, say, AutoCAD or Adobe Illustrator? That might be a bit more difficult to find.

Wouldn’t it make sense to have a website devoted specifically to having a directory of well known proprietary software and list all the open source alternatives? Actually, there are a handful of sites that do that sort of thing.

Open Source as Alternative or OSALT.com is one of those websites. You can simply type in their search bar something like Adobe Illustrator, then browse a list that appears to have some of the latest Adobe products, click on the software you are looking for, scroll past the description and you can have a short list of open source projects that is similar to the software you are looking for. For this example, we were able to find InkScape which appears, based on the description, to be a nice vector editing software that is open source and a potential alternative to Adobe illustrator. The page contains a right hand bar with a link directly to the Inkscape home page. It seems to be quite a handy website for those who are hoping to switch to open source.

Another website that tries to fit the bill for an open source alternative directory is Downloadpedia’s Open Source Alternative to Commercial Software page. Fittingly, it’s in a Wiki format which allows users to contribute to the site. It probably needs some help given how huge the page in question is, but one can simply use their browser to quickly search through the page. In FireFox, one can click on Edit, then Find and type in on that website, say, “AutoCAD”. The page points to two pieces of software and links directly to their home pages. One of those is BRL-CAD.

One of the problems with open source software like this is that design schools tend to teach the proprietary software rather than the free versions. This can mean that users who want to get over the learning curve of either choice either have instructor help with proprietary software or face their problems more or less on their own with the open source solutions. When it comes to open source and facing the problems on ones own, users aren’t actually on their own. YouTube have hundreds of thousands of tutorials on different pieces of software and open source is no exception.

Simply go to YouTube and, going back to the first example of InkScape, type in YouTube’s search for Inkscape tutorial. This specific example reveals a number of tutorials on the software in question.

Open Source provides an excellent opportunity for students because basic terms, in design for example, never change. A stroke will always be a stroke, measurements will be in picas, pixels, inches, etc. and layers will be layers. If one were to think about signing up for a program, even if they were to be learning Adobe Illustrator for example, learning the open source alternative even if it is for general purposes will really help understand fundamental principles in a given design project. The interface will no doubt be different and there will still be that learning curve, but that curve will more than likely shrink when one knows about the general ideas of design through learning the open source software.

There’s always the classic arguments for businesses to switch to open source alternatives such as it cuts down significantly on overhead costs. How much does it cost to upgrade over 100 machines to the latest software and properly license it? Wouldn’t it be great if it was possible to remove that cost? It certainly wouldn’t be very possible for the BSA to be coming after a given business for using legally free software.

Of course, such changes would never happen overnight – if at all. Still, that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t be aware of alternatives in the first place and it’s great that there are resources out there that will point a user in the right direction should that user choose to give open source a try.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

The Latest Frontier in Audio Engineering… Photoshop?

Drew Wilson — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:33:35 +0000

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but can that picture sing to you? Someone appears to be releasing software that could also put a whole new meaning to the term ‘photo sharing’. Sure, making pictures make sound isn’t entirely new, but it’s apparently possible to take a sound file, turn it into a bitmap and take that bitmap and turn it back into the original sound file.

When you think about it, all a spectral analyzer does is take an existing recording, and interprets it into a visual format. All the frequencies are there in various dots in various opacities. In short, all the information in a song is turned into a picture. What if you could take that image and save it as a bitmap? What if you could take that bitmap and re-interpret it as the original sound file?

Many people are certainly aware of Photoshop being a powerful tool. It’s been used in pretty much every field that deals with the standard image including government and military purposes. Bridging the power of Photoshop to sound seemed like a stretch of the imagination at best, but one video a software developer posted on YouTube clearly demonstrates that you can not only read sound via an image, but manipulate that sound and re-insert it back into the program and create a new sound file out of it.

From the perspective of those who actively engage in sampling, this kind of technology is a very exciting prospect because you don’t actually have to filter down that sound through a series of equalizers to get what you want (this method has been known to leave behind issues such as audio distortion to name one side effect)

From the perspective of security and justice, one can’t help but figure that the prospect of using photoshop could help clear up audio evidence such as clearing out pink or white noise in the background to clearly hear someone speaking. Of course, this kind of thing has happened for quite some time, but still, it could theoretically be one more tool that can be used to solve crime.

From a file-sharing perspective, this could be one more way to thwart anti-piracy methods. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, the anti-filesharing organizations manage to convince a majority of software developers to install programs onto people’s computers that deletes all sound files that didn’t come with the operating system. File-sharers could easily develop a workaround by playing images instead through these kinds of technology.

Granted, in the foreseeable future, it’s hard to envision the bitmap becoming the standard format for trading music. It should also be worth noting that it’s fairly evident the video shows an example in a very ideal circumstance (a series of high sliding notes being played over some basic drum hits) but it opens a lot of possibilities when discussing music or audio clips.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

BSA Admits Calculated Losses Due to Swedish Software Piracy Entirely Hypothetical

Drew Wilson — Thu, 21 May 2009 06:39:16 +0000

It’s another blow to the studies that are put out by the industry to highlight the problems of piracy – one of the studies published by the Business Software Alliance to highlight the problem in Sweden is apparently “built on flat fees and estimates”. In other words, they effectively gave an educated guess.

Will the pirates who believed all along that the copyright industry was making up these statistics on losses due to piracy please raise you hand? A new report in a Swedish news site, IDG, recently reported (Google translation) that officials from the BSA are now admitting that their own statistics shouldn’t be treated seriously or should be treated like a pinch of salt. From the report:

Business In its latest report, the BSA stated that 25 percent of all software in Ireland is pirated. It without having spoken to a single Swedish company. “You should probably not see these numbers as completely accurate,” says BSAs Sweden Chef John Hugosson.

In 2008 was 25 per cent of all benefit programs in Sweden pirated. The economic losses for the Swedish IT industry for the period amounted to almost three billion dollars. It strikes the broadcasters’ association BSA stated in its latest market survey, which was properly space both in Swedish and international media.

The conclusions drawn without a single American has been consulted in the matter. BSA has not contacted either the Swedish company, vendor or computer users in the process of investigation. Both the rate and loss figures for Sweden are built on flat fees and estimates, in turn, based on market research in other countries.

Further, the calculation of the industry’s losses to all the pirated versions of any program on the Swedish market would yield full license revenue for software companies – that is entirely hypothetical figures.

There’s no shortage of people who have argued for years that one download does not equal one lost sale. This latest revelation, for those that have been arguing this, seems to only confirm what they have believed for quite some time – even if it is just the study for Sweden.

Already, there’s been some notable discrepancies between IFPI piracy statistics and the need to put Canada on a “Special 301 report” priority watch list, not to mention the fact that the Special 301 report put Canada on a priority watch list gave some people reason to doubt the USTR reports accuracy entirely.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that the copyright industry is getting the United States to put in place a law that would force the government to pressure other countries into, among other things, reform copyright laws to the copyright industry’s standards because the math behind the numbers to prove the copyright industries point are increasingly looking like they aren’t really adding up. But at the very least, the BSA had the courage to admit this, so that deserves some credit, right?

[Hat tip: Michael Geist]

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.