Liberian Laws Are A Secret Due To Copyright; Even The Gov't Doesn't Have Them

from the you-can't-have-them dept

We've seen a few ridiculous cases whereby local governments claim copyright on a law, but it's still stunning to see what's going on in Liberia. Tom sends in the news that no one knows what the law covers in Liberia, because one man, leading a small group of lawyers, claims to hold the copyright on the laws of the country and won't share them unless people (or, rather, the government of Liberia) is willing to pay. Oh, and did we mention that the US government paid for some of this?

The story is a bit convoluted, but apparently, Liberia hasn't really had a full copy of its laws, as they were mixed and matched in "incomplete sets" throughout different libraries. A professor at Cornell had begun a (free) project to compile the country's laws, but after he died, a group of lawyers in Liberia took over the project -- and were given $400,000 by the US Justice Department. The lawyers then "numbered, bound, and indexed" all of the recent laws, and claim that because of that, they now own the copyright on it.

While perhaps copyright law is different in Liberia, most places have rejected "sweat of the brow" arguments for copyright. If you didn't create the actual content, you're not supposed to get the copyright. You don't get a copyright just for compiling the work of others without adding anything new. If this lawyer wanted to get paid for the work, he should have negotiated that upfront. Instead, he's holding the country's laws hostage, and asking for $150,000 to $360,000 to turn them over to the government.

What's really amazing is that this guy is currently serving as Liberia's justice minister. The work he did on the laws happened before that, and he claims that he'd give up the laws for free, but that the other lawyers he worked with will not.

Perhaps Liberia should just start from scratch and create all new laws, wiping out the value of these particular locked up laws.

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Lawyers Write Law, And Then Are The Only Ones To Make Millions Directly Off Of It

from the regulatory-capture-and-rent-seeking dept

It's difficult not to become even more cynical when you read stories like the following one. Sent in by Eric Goldman, it's about a state law in California that was mainly written by two lawyers: Joaquin Avila, a law professor from Seattle, and Robert Rubin, the "legal director" for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. So, here's the interesting thing: since this state law has been put in place (seven years ago), the only lawsuits have been brought by Rubin's committee or Avila and they've made themselves over $4 million with a few more lawsuits pending and a bunch more threatened (again, all from either Avila or Rubin's committee).

What a great deal: write a law, and then be the only lawyers to use the law to make millions.

As for the law itself, it was a law that apparently very few people were asking for -- requiring that state courts carve out specific districts that favor minority groups, so they are not excluded from local elections. Here's how the AP describes it:

The California statute targets commonly used "at-large" elections -- those in which candidates run citywide or across an entire school district. Avila said that method can result in discrimination because whatever group constitutes the majority of voters can dominate the ballot box and block minorities from winning representation. As a remedy, the law empowers state courts to create smaller election districts favoring minority candidates.

Officials in several California communities said they never heard complaints of voter discrimination until the lawyers stepped forward. In one case, the Tulare Local Healthcare District, now known as Tulare Regional Medical Center, was sued even though its five-member governing board is a rainbow of diversity -- two emigres from India, a Hispanic, a black and a white. The lawsuit argues Hispanics, who make up about a third of local voters, have been shortchanged.

Of course, there are many reasons why the exact makeup of a governing board might not match the exact percentage of the population (including the simple fact that most people vote on issues, not the ethnicity of the people they're voting for). But, even if there was a problem it seems highly questionable that the two lawyers who wrote the bill are now profiting tremendously from it and appear to be the only ones who do so.

It's stories like this one that make us so nervous about so much legislation. This is the type of law they create: it maysound good (who's going to argue against diversity?). But, the actual law appears to have been nothing more than a way for these lawyers to go around collecting millions, while disrupting communities and schoolboards, and sending their taxpayer money to these lawyers.

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Oregon Tries Claiming Copyright Over Gov't Materials Again

from the and-again dept

You may recall last year that the state of Oregon tried to claim copyright in preventing others from republishing Oregon laws. Yes, that seems incredibly counterproductive, and eventually the state backed down. However, it looks like Oregon's Attorney General is now also claiming copyright on the Attorney General's Public Record and Public Meeting Manual. Yes. A government official claiming copyright over a document on the public record. Wonderful. Carl Malamud is trying to get the Attorney General to issue an opinion that such things will not be covered by copyright. But, again, can anyone provide any good reason why any government document should be covered by copyright?

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Congress Moving Forward On 'P2P' Warning Law

from the unintended-consequences,-anyone? dept

Back in May, we wrote about a bill being proposed by Congress, at the urging of the entertainment industry, to force any kind of file sharing app to put certain ridiculous restrictions on the app, such as requiring it to put up a big warning sign every time you use it for sharing files, and requiring the user to "consent" to use the software. Public Knowledge notes that the bill is back in action and going through the markup process, with little in the way of complaints or warnings from the many, many software developers this will impact. Public Knowledge outlines many of the problems with the bill:

1. Legislating Software Design: The bill is aimed at a specific technology and kind of application instead of simple non-tech-focussed consumer protection and disclosure principles. Instead it's aimed at legislating the design and workings of common software. It's the exact kind of thing that has all kinds of unintended and unforeseeable consequences.

2. Over / Under Inclusive Definition: No matter how narrow the definition of "covered file-sharing program" may seem, it's going to include more and less than is intended or desirable. Over inclusive: bill would include basic operating systems like Windows 7 and Mac OS X that enable file sharing; iTunes shares media files as well. Under inclusive: bill would not include applications that simply upload the entirety of a user's hard drive to the web.

3. "Initial Activation" Needs Clarification: The amendment, just like the previous bill, requires the software to notify the user at installation and "initial activation of a file sharing function." The problem remains that there are a number of interpretations of what this means, here are three: A. The first time an application is installed and launched; B. Every time the application is launched; or C. Every time the feature is enabled. Unless the language is made clear, developers not wanting to incur penalties will err on the side of notice, which means the most notifications.

4. Applies to Software Already Written: Software that has already been written and is still being distributed, but not maintained by a developer or manufacturer may fall prey to the provisions of this bill. Unless otherwise exempted, this would require developers to update their older software at great cost, unless they wanted incur penalty of law.

5. Interferes with User and Administrator Choice: This bill would require a fundamental change in how much software operates. Users, especially system administrators, make informed choices about the applications that will meet their needs -- especially those that "just run" without user interaction. In many cases, how an application installs, launches, and operates behind the scenes is part of their decision, and this bill would interfere with how they run their systems.

This bill is bad news, and it's yet another attempt by the entertainment industry to get Congress to start slapping specific restrictions on any software it doesn't like.

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Oregon: You Have To Pay Us To Explain The Laws To You

from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

While all federal documents in the US are under the public domain, state governments don't always follow that rule, and the state of Oregon has a history of trying to lock up its documents. Last year, there was some attention generated when some people uploaded copies of certain Oregon laws. Yes, it seems positively ridiculous that the state might claim copyright over the laws people are expected to follow. The state claimed that it was just complaining about the fact that the laws were scanned from its own book, with its own notes and page numbers -- and that it wouldn't complain if people had just copied the law. But that's a weak excuse, and the state backed down later.

However, Oregon is back in the news on a similar issue, as Slashdot points us to the news that a professor is challenging the state's attorney general to sue him after he scanned and posted a state-produced guide to using public-records laws. You would think, again, that the state would want such a document spread as widely as possible, as it would better help Oregonians understand the law. But the state claims it needs to sell the book for $25 to cover production costs. That doesn't seem like much of an excuse. The fact that the state needs to produce a guide to understand its own laws seems troubling enough. Then locking them down with a copyright claim just makes it that much worse.

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The Worst Proposed Internet Legislation In America

from the iAwful dept

NetChoice has put together "iAwful," a site tracking the worst proposed internet legislation, ranked by the seriousness of the threat (both the amount of damage the laws can do, and the liklihood of them passing). Some of the proposed laws on the list you'll recognize, as we've discussed them here. Overall, though, this looks to be a great source if you're worried about politicians passing innovation-destroying laws:

Knee-jerk, overly prescriptive laws can destroy whole business models or stifle innovative new forms of communication before they have a chance to emerge. Too many laws are proposed without considering unintended harm they may cause to thousands of Internet companies and millions of Internet users.

NetChoice is dedicated to fighting these attacks on core Internet principles. Through this site, the Internet Advocates' Watchlist For Ugly Laws (iAWFUL) will track dangerous legislation and mobilize citizens to defeat bills and proposals that threaten the future of ecommerce and online communication. The list will be continually updated to reflect the most immediate dangers, based on regulatory severity and likelihood of passage.

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Boston Trolley Accident Sadly Shows, Again, That Cell Phone Bans Alone Don't Really Work

from the accountability? dept

The driver of a Boston trolley that caused a crash that injured about 50 people was apparently sending text messages at the time of the accident, despite a transit authority ban on such activity. This latest incident comes after the horrible crash in California last year that killed scores of people, in which the train conductor was said to be texting, and highlights how bans like this, whether covering the drivers of trains or cars, really aren't effective. A reasonably intelligent person driving a trolley or other mass-transit vehicle doesn't need a ban to tell them that texting while driving isn't such a good idea. If they aren't smart enough to figure that out, they're probably just going to ignore the ban anyway, like this driver in Boston, undermining the point of the rule. Again, it goes back to personal responsibility, something that politicians and rulemakers won't be able to conjure up out of legislation, try as they might. This isn't to say that people like trolley drivers should be allowed to text while working -- far from it. But to think that putting a ban into place will, in itself, simply and easily eliminate the problem and make everybody safer is misguided.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Unintended Consequences: P2P 'Warning' Law Could Impact Browsers, FTP

from the politicians-who-don't-understand-technology dept

We discussed recently how entertainment industry lobbyists have been pushing this story about how P2P software needs to be regulated to prevent gov't data from leaking, incorrectly blaming the software for user error. So, of course, it's no surprise that legislation has been introduced that tries to force any P2P software used for transferring files from one computer to another to include a big warning and require the user to give "informed consent" when installing the software and every time it's used. Yes, every time it's used. This is a bad idea for a variety of reasons. Has it occurred to anyone crafting such a bill that when you pop up such a notice and require "consent" every single time software is used, most people will just ignore it? But, more importantly, as Declan McCullagh points out, the wording of the bill suggests that this "notice and consent" solution would apply to lots and lots of products, including browsers, FTP clients and backup software. Tons of software these days involves transferring files between two computers. This is, of course, symptomatic of legislation being written and introduced by people who don't understand the technology. They think that software to transfer files is limited to things like LimeWire or BitTorrent, not recognizing that it's a core part of the internet itself.

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Swedish Antipiracy Law Goes Into Effect... Internet Traffic Drops

from the coincidence? dept

A new antipiracy law went into effect in Sweden on Wednesday, allowing copyright holders to demand the IP addresses from ISPs if a court finds that there's evidence of illegal activity -- and, as News.com notes, internet traffic took a major dip in Sweden, though it's not entirely clear if the two things are connected (though, it notes a similar dip occurred, back when The Pirate Bay was taken offline a few years ago). Not surprisingly, some audio book publishers wasted no time in trying to use the law, filing lawsuits to get information on certain file sharers. Sweden, as many of you know, has had very consumer-friendly copyright laws for quite some time. The departure from this (and the introduction of other new laws that are being pushed) has come from massive international pressure, usually starting with the American entertainment industry. It will be worth watching how the country reacts to increased and more draconian copyright rules.

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Why Is The Government Asking Companies To Both Retain And Destroy Data?

from the something's-not-working dept

With Congress' latest attempt to force data retention on anyone who operates a network (including home users), some are realizing that other parts of the government have been equally adamant about getting these same folks to destroy the very same information for the sake of keeping people's data private. It does seem like we're on a crash course between privacy on the one hand, and the demands of law enforcement, the entertainment industry and a few others who want all data to be kept for as long as possible. A few years back, when stories of how the government was misusing data that it got access to were revealed, we had hoped that it would lead politicians to recognize the downsides of data retention. But, of course, that's not quite how Washington DC works.

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It's The Law: AT&T Has To Give You A Phonebook

from the thanks,-government dept

AT&T has been testing a plan to distribute residential phone books on CD, rather than on paper. That sounds like a great idea that marries environmental benefits with cost savings, and could probably be taken a step further by only distributing the white pages in any format on request. Yellow-pages publishers are struggling as the web steals away their audience, and it's hard to imagine the white pages gets much use any more, either. But there's at least one obstacle standing in the way of the elimination of the white pages: laws in some states that require the company to publish and deliver a residential directory to every one of its customers. I'm hard pressed to remember the last time I used the white pages, and given that they don't list cell phone numbers, they're growing more and more irrelevant to many people. Burdening the phone companies with their production and distribution seems pretty pointless these days, not to mention the environmental impact of millions of the books, the vast majority of which are never used, and only a small portion of which are recycled.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Judge Says Poker Is A Game Of Skill, Not Chance -- Could Impact Legality Of Online Poker

from the skill-vs.-chance dept

While there's an effort underway to repeal the federal government's ban on online gambling, a recent legal ruling could help out a bit as well. A judge in South Carolina found that poker should be considered a game of skill, rather than a game of chance. Of course, in dealing with the state law at issue in that case, the result didn't matter -- as the law didn't distinguish between skill and chance. However, the rather murky set of federal laws that have been used to fight online gambling may not cover "games of skill." The problem is... well... no one's quite sure what it really covers. Basically, there's no real anti-gambling law. There are certain laws, like the Wire Act, that have been used against online gambling -- and the more recent law (oddly included as part of a harbor protection bill) was more focused on stopping financial institutions from accepting money used for gambling. But, with the judge's ruling, some are pointing out that this means online poker shouldn't be considered gambling -- and the other federal laws shouldn't apply (state laws are a different matter, however).

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Do We Really Need Laws Banning Texting While Walking?

from the there-oughta-be-a-law dept

Over at CNET, a blogger is decrying the latest epidemic to hit New York City: people walking while texting on their phone. One imagines this has been happening in the city (and plenty of other places) for some time and people have been managing to survive, but this blogger apparently just arrived there on a business trip and noticed. It's the typical "man-these-people-are-annoying" type of thing, but his final suggestion is that "some fine district attorneys might find it in themselves to create a little misdemeanor out of this peculiar habit." Sure, it's annoying to get run into by somebody walking down the street and paying more attention to their phone than the sidewalk, but it's not too much more annoying than getting run into by somebody lost in a newspaper, or daydreaming. Perhaps we should codify laws making that stuff a crime, too, if we're looking for suggestions on how to waste police time. As has been pointed out before, this phenomenon really isn't anything new, but rather the latest iteration of the intersection of pedestrians and technology. Jaywalking laws haven't stopped people from jaywalking; pointless bans on doing certain activities while walking aren't likely to stamp out that behavior, either.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Intellectual Property Laws... Rewritten As Poetry

from the did-you-copyright-that dept

Damn. Techdirt reader Yehuda Berlinger alerts us to the fact that he recently completed rewriting UK Copyright Law, in verse. Yes, he's reimagined the law as a poem. Here's just a clip:

3
You copyright books
And programs, all sized
Written or recorded
Even unauthorized

3A

Databases, too,
By which they mean lists
Of things, are also
In this here gist

4

Art includes maps
And casts of all sorts
Buildings and sketches
So on and so forth

And it's not just UK Copyright Law. He's actually done US Copyright Law, Canadian Copyright Law, US Patent Law and US Trademark Law. It's impressive, to say the least. Berlinger is the first to admit that the poetry isn't particularly good, but says "that's part of the point." He says he does it "because I want to read the actual copyright codes, but can't do it unless I'm entertaining myself in the process. Also, writing summations of each section helps me to remember." Check them all out...

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Group Wants A National Ban On Yakking While Driving

from the no,-there's-nothing-else-going-on dept

As the nation gears up for the inauguration of a new President and Congress and state and local governments laying out their legislative priorities for the coming year, one group says that in addition to pressing issues like the economy, legislators should take up a nationwide ban on cell phone use while driving. They've trotted out the usual rhetoric, equating yakking while driving to drunk driving in an attempt to evoke an emotional response, but ignoring some salient facts. First, while it's hard to argue that driving while talking is completely safe, it may not be as big a risk as some of these groups would lead us to believe. Second, the laws are very hard to enforce and don't automatically decrease the number of accidents. Instead of adding another law narrowly focused on one particular behavior, why not more stringently enforce existing traffic laws dealing with dangerous driving? Laws already exist covering all manner of unsafe driving; perhaps a good way to make the roads safer would be to increase enforcement of them and work to clamp down on all types of unsafe driving, rather than single out particular ones.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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'The Video Game Made Me Kill My Parents' Defense Rejected

from the phew dept

All too often these days, we've seen murderers try to pass off the blame for their crimes by blaming video games. This comes after years of techno panic around weak and often misinterpreted studies concerning links between video games and violence. Despite the fact that there's been no actual evidence that video games lead to increased violence (and the fact that youth violence has continually dropped as video games became more popular should be quite telling), it makes for a great news story -- and, thus, a great excuse for murderers. Luckily, no one's buying it.

In the latest such case, where teen-aged Daniel Petric shot both his parents, killing his mother and wounding his father, after they took away his copy of Halo 3, a judge has rejected Petric's claim that it was his video game addiction that inspired the murder (and subsequent attempt to frame his father). It probably didn't help the teen's case at all that there was evidence he had planned the murder for weeks, rather than spontaneously acting following the video game confiscation. The judge still does, unfortunately, suggest that the video game warped Petric's mind, despite little proof that was true. However, the judge notes that even if he was under the influence of the video game, that's no defense for what he did.

In the meantime, of course, politicians are still overreacting to the still unproven idea that video games lead to violence -- to the point that Rep. Joe Baca has introduced a law that would require health warnings on video games, similar to cigarette warnings, saying that: "WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior."

So, it certainly looks like politicians and the media will continue overreacting when it comes to video games and violence.

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Missouri Prosecutors Going Overboard In Bringing Cyberbullying Cases

from the shiny-new-tool dept

While Lori Drew was eventually convicted under computer hacking laws, originally prosecutors in Missouri refused to charge her, noting that it was pretty clear she had not broken any laws in Missouri. Not surprisingly, the emotionally-tinged case meant that politicians had to rush into the void, hastily passing a law to make it illegal to be a jerk online. Of course, prosecutors couldn't go back and retroactively charge Drew, but they apparently haven't wasted much time in making use of the new law, charging at least seven people under the new law for a variety of "cyber" harassment attacks, mostly involving annoying someone with text messages. Of course, as some are noting this is a waste of taxpayer money, burdening the court system with annoyances that should be settled informally among people. Have we really reached a point in society that people have to run to court every time someone acts like a jerk towards them?

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France Requires Online Publication Of Certain Laws To Be Valid

from the seems-like-a-good-thing dept

Laurent GUERBY writes in to point us to some news of a new decree from the French government, supposedly saying that all laws must be published on the prime minister's website to be valid (link in French, Google translation to English). Guerby's reading is that this means if the government does not publish all laws on the prime minister's website by May of next year, any unpublished law is no longer valid. Not knowing much French, it's not clear to me if that's actually the case, but I would love for anyone else to chime in on this. If true, though, it certainly makes sense, and makes you wonder why France hasn't been publishing laws online for years.

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Net Neutrality Legislation Expected In January

from the wasting-no-time-at-all dept

This probably won't come as a big surprise to most folks, but Sen. Byron Dorgan, has made it clear that he intends to reintroduce net neutrality legislation early next year. While the issue of net neutrality used to not be a partisan issue, somehow it became one a few years ago, with many Democrats lining up in favor of net neutrality regulations, and many Republicans against them. President-elect Obama's platform included network neutrality legislation, and with more Democrats being elected to both the House and Senate, it's no surprise that such a bill would quickly find its way to being introduced.

While we're strong supporters of keeping the internet's end-to-end principles intact, that doesn't necessarily mean legislation is the best way to do it. Once again, we'd urge anyone supporting the legislation to at least carefully read Tim Lee's paper on the subject. Yes, it's important to keep the internet working under these principles, and yes many internet providers would like to start double charging some providers for traffic, but this particular piece of legislation may not be the best answer -- and could, in fact, create more problems.

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The Paper On Network Neutrality That Any Policy Maker Needs To Read

from the read-it-now dept

As regular Techdirt readers are surely aware, Tim Lee has been writing a series of posts here about issues having to do with network neutrality. The five part series, was based on research he was doing for a position paper for the Cato Institute on network neutrality. If you haven't read the series of posts, you can find them here:

• Censoring The 'Net Is Hard
• Ownership Doesn't Always Mean Control
• Changing The Internet's Architecture Isn't So Easy
• Revolving Door Undermines FCC's Watchdog Role
• A History Lesson For Those Advocating Network Neutrality Laws

Whether or not you've read those posts, you should absolutely read the finished product, which has now been released by Cato. While the document is long, it should be required reading for anyone interested in the issues surrounding network neutrality. It's well-researched, well-written and quite thought-provoking -- challenging many of the claims made by supporters of "both sides" of the debate, highlighting the fact that reducing network neutrality to "two sides" has always been a mistake.

Specifically, Lee, rips apart the arguments made by those who believe that various service providers need to violate network neutrality "end-to-end" principles, pointing out how it's based on faulty logic. He also dismantles faulty arguments from those who claim that the internet is not or never was "neutral." He also details why the concept of neutrality has been quite important to the growth and success of the internet, and he cites much of the innovation that came about because of it.

However, rather than supporting the efforts of "network neutrality supporters" (which is common in the tech world), he points out why we probably do not need regulations to enforce network neutrality -- highlighting non-regulatory methods that have, and will continue to, keep network providers honest. Yes, there may be encroachments at the margins -- but, for the most part they turn out to be unsustainable both due to the backlash of users and the fact that they often end up making very little business sense.

Finally, he points out the risks of unintended consequences from any network neutrality legislation, pointing to similar situations in the past in other industries, that resulted in "regulatory capture," where the industries being regulated were able to abuse the regulatory process to their own benefit. He also takes a look at the most likely proposed legislation, highlighting just a few of the more obvious problems that would crop up if it were turned into law.

Anyone who is making policy or supporting a particular policy around network neutrality is doing themselves a tremendous disservice if they do not take the time to read this paper. Whether you're advocating for network neutrality laws, or claiming that service providers have to violate network neutrality to stay alive, you need to take the time to read this paper, and either come up with the evidence to refute Tim's points, or perhaps recognize that the way this issue has been painted in the press does not give the complete picture.

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