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EFFector - Volume 23, Issue 10 - EFF's Fred von Lohmann Wins Copyright Award

EFFECTOR

EFFector - Volume 23, Issue 10 - EFF's Fred von Lohmann Wins Copyright Award

EFFector Vol. 23, No. 10  April 9, 2010  editor@eff.org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
ISSN 1062-9424

effector: n, Computer Sci. A device for producing a
desired change.

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In our 533rd issue:

* JOURNALIST EVAN RATLIFF WILL DISCUSS HIS ATTEMPT TO
"VANISH" at the next installment of EFF's dynamic Geek
Reading series on Tuesday, April 13. In a groundbreaking
experiment last August, Evan challenged readers of
Wired Magazine to track him down as he dodged across
the country. Evan will share his behind-the-scenes
experiences of what it means to disappear in the digital
age, exploring the questions of privacy, surveillance,
and identity. Join us this upcoming Tuesday at 7 PM at
111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. Hope to see you there!

For ticketing information:
http://action.eff.org/site/Calendar?view=Detail&id=100181

* THE D.C. CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS DEALT A BLOW TO THE
FCC'S PROPOSED NET NEUTRALITY REGULATIONS by overturning
the FCC ruling against Comcast for interfering with the
BitTorrent traffic of its subscribers. This is the right
outcome for the court case -- if the FCC's "ancillary
jurisdiction" argument had been accepted today for
net neutrality regulations (something we might like),
it could just as easily have been invoked tomorrow for
any other Internet regulation that the FCC dreams up
(including things we won't like).

The fight now moves back to Congress and the FCC, with
numerous net neutrality advocates urging the FCC to
"reclassify" Internet access services under Title II
of the Communications Act -- another effort to find
FCC authority to regulate ISPs without having to go to
Congress. In the meantime, everyone who cares about net
neutrality will continue to watch ISPs closely for more
evidence of discriminatory practices.

For more about the FCC, Comcast, and net neutrality:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/court-rejects-fcc-authority-over-internet

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EFF Updates

* EFF's Fred von Lohmann Wins Copyright Award
Kudos to EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann,
who was named the 2010 winner of the L. Ray Patterson
Copyright Award issued by the American Library Association
Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) and its
Copyright Advisory Subcommittee.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/effs-fred-von-lohmann-wins-copyright-award

* Digital Due Process: Coalition Urges Privacy Reforms
EFF and a broad coalition of technology companies and
privacy groups issued recommendations for strengthening
the federal privacy law that regulates government access
to private phone and Internet communications and records,
including cell phone location data.

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/03/30

* Court Rules That Warrantless Wiretapping Violated Law
Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the federal district court
in San Francisco found that the government illegally
wiretapped an Islamic charity's phone calls.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/court-rules-warrantless-wiretapping-illegal

* Sham Email Subpoena Violates Constitutional Rights
EFF defends email privacy once again, after a
prosecutor used a sham grand jury subpoena to obtain a
whistleblower's personal email communications.

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/03/31

* Fair Use Gets a Fair Shake in Second Life
Linden Lab updated the Terms of Service for its virtual
world, Second Life, to include language that will protect
fair use of screenshots and machinima.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/fair-use-gets-fair-shake-second-life

* Sony Steals Feature From Your PlayStation 3
A remote firmware update to the video game console
removed support for the option to run GNU/Linux, again
demonstrating how DRM silently waits to protect someone
else's interests, at the expense of the user's.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/sony-steals-feature-from-your-playstation-3

* 50,000 New Lawsuits Against Movie Downloaders
A group of lawyers has quietly targeted 20,000 BitTorrent
users for legal action, explicitly for the purpose of
extracting money from the peer-to-peer users.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/50-000-i-new-i-lawsuits-against-movie-downloaders


* New Protections from Hidden Video Surveillance Needed
EFF argued for better privacy laws at a Congressional
hearing convened in response to reports that school
administrators secretly spied on students in their homes
by remotely activating the webcams on school-issued
laptops.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/privacy-protections-against-hidden-video

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miniLinks

~ UK to Disconnect Suspected Infringers
The House of Lords passed the Digital Economy Bill,
which allows users to be disconnected from the Internet
for suspected copyright infringement.

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/disconnection/why-care

~ Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright's Safe Harbor
Copyright scholar Wendy Seltzer's paper on why the DMCA
is chilling free speech.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1577785

~ Don't Feed The Troll!
Electronic Frontiers Australia on why a mandatory
government censorship scheme is just "feeding the trolls."

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-mollycoddling-internet-policy-is-just-feeding-the-trolls-20100328-r535.html

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Announcements

* "Life 2.0" at the San Francisco International Film Fest

EFF is proud to be a presenter of Life 2.0, directed
by Jason Spingarn-Koff, at the 53rd San Francisco
International Film Festival (April 22-May 6). EFF
consulted with the filmmakers during the making of
this film.

Documented both online and in the real world, Life 2.0
examines the effects both humorous and unnerving of the
virtual world Second Life by focusing on the lives of
its users and chronicling their successes, failures,
lives and loves.

Showings at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas:
Friday, April 30 at 3:00 PM
Sunday, May 2 at 1:00 PM
Wednesday, May 5 at 9:15 PM

For more information on Life 2.0, visit
http://fest10.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=45

For tickets and more information on SFIFF53:
http://fest10.sffs.org

* Work With EFF and Tor for Google's Summer of Code

EFF and Tor are looking for student coders to help us with
tech projects as part of Google's Summer Of Code 2010.

Projects at EFF include:

1) TOSBack, which tracks changes to the terms of service
of the Internet's most popular websites;
2) OurVoteLive, which tracks problems in elections with
polling places and voting machines across the US; and
3) Switzerland, a passive IP-layer network neutrality
testing system.

Our friends and colleagues at the Tor project have dozens
of ideas for improving their software, which allows users
to route around Internet censorship and surveillance.

For more about the Google Summer of Code with EFF:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/gsoc

* Help EFF Go to SouthEast LinuxFest!

EFF is looking for donations of airline miles, flight
vouchers, and hotel points for travel to SouthEast
LinuxFest in Spartanburg, NC, as well as other conferences
and speaking engagements. If you have enough airline miles
for a free ticket and would like to send an EFF staffer
to a conference, let us know, and we will help you with
the process of making the reservation. Please note that
at this time we are unable to combine miles from multiple
individuals. We are also looking for hotel rewards points
to help reduce our overall travel costs.

As a thanks for your donation, we can offer a free
membership and a mention in EFFector (if you'd
like). Please contact aaron@eff.org if you can help!

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* Administrivia

EFFector is published by:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street
San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA
+1 415 436 9333 (voice)
+1 415 436 9993 (fax)
http://www.eff.org/

Editor:
Richard Esguerra, EFF Activist
 richard@eff.org

Membership & donation queries:
 membership@eff.org

General EFF, legal, policy, or online resources queries:
 information@eff.org

Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is
encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent
the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles
individually, please contact the authors for their express
permission.

Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be
reproduced individually at will.

Current and back issues of EFFector are available via the
Web at:
 http://www.eff.org/effector/

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