Speech-licensing regime for digital world challenged in court

27 August 2016 by Steve Blum
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You have the right to a lobbyist. If you cannot afford one, you’re screwed.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation launched a constitutional challenge to a federal law that criminalises what you do with digital media and devices that you think you own. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act outlawed nearly anything anyone does that circumvents restrictions on DVDs you buy, mobile phones you own and pretty much anything that involves digital intellectual property. The language is so broad that it can turn millions of unwitting people into criminals every day.… More

Collateral damage could kill hotspots


Toll barrier coming down on free range WiFi.

Free public WiFi access might be an unintended casualty of the imminent onslaught of the Copyright Alert System, otherwise known as the Six Strikes rule. I say “might” because I’m not completely sure that the damage will be unintentional. There’s no doubt there will be damage.

This joint effort by major U.S. ISPs and the recording and movie industry associations is a monitoring program that watches Internet traffic for illegal downloading activity.… More