Blackmoor Vituperative

A few years ago, I read a polemic that predicted that our current legal system would eventually be replaced with one sweeping law against everything, and that the purpose of the justice system would be to prosecute those who are unpopular or lack the financial resources to fight back against their oppressors.

I hate to say it, but it looks like that day is approaching faster than even I expected.

Judge Campbell has distinguished between the actual bits stored on the World of Warcraft disk (which he called the “literal elements” of the game) and the interface elements the user encounters as he’s actually playing the game (which he dubbed “non-literal elements”). In his ruling last summer, Judge Campbell ruled that Glider did not violate the DMCA with respect to the “literal elements” because Warden did not “effectively control” access to those elements: they are stored, unencrypted, on the World of Warcraft disk. But he deferred until this month’s trial the question of whether Glider violated the DMCA with respect to the “non-literal elements.”

[…]

MDY argued that these “non-literal elements” did not constitute a distinct copyrighted work, and therefore could not trigger DMCA liability. The firm offered two arguments. First, the law only grants protection to works that are fixed in a tangible medium, and MDY argued that the “non-literal elements” were too ephemeral to qualify. The judge rejected this argument, holding that it was sufficient that the “non-literal elements” could be recorded by screen-capture software, even if Glider didn’t actually do so. Second, MDY argued that the “non-literal elements” were not created solely by Blizzard, but by the interaction of Blizzard’s software with the user. Hence, if the game experience was copyrighted, it would be the joint work of Blizzard and its users. The judge tersely rejected this argument as well.

[…]

Ars talked to two legal experts at Public Knowledge, a public interest organization that filed an amicus brief in the MDY case last year. Staff attorney Sherwin Siy compared Wednesday’s decisions to past decisions that tried to use the DMCA to limit competition in the garage door opener and printer industries. He noted that the purpose of warden seemed less to control access to a copyrighted work than to a network service—quite a different thing. Siy’s colleague Jef Pearlman agreed, warning that if the courts weren’t careful, we could end up in a situation where “because anything can contain copyrighted works, any access to anything becomes a DMCA violation.”

(from Judge’s ruling that WoW bot violates DMCA is troubling, Ars Technica)

We all knew that the DMCA was an abomination, but I wonder how many of us expected it to be this bad. I certainly didn’t. I think this case illustrates both the monstrous nature of the DCMA and the absurdity of our current copyright laws.

I got a fun email today from Comcast (my ISP), saying they are blocking port 25, the port on which SMTP sends email, as a measure to fight spam. Isn’t that a kick in the pants? Of course, the only time I send email from home is when mortshire.org sends me reports. However, that is important, so I needed to find a way for mortshire to send me email with Comcast’s blessing. Thanks to Patrick Ben Koetter and Chris Fay, I have done just that.

1. In /etc/postfix/main.cf I added or changed these lines:

myhostname = annwn.mortshire.org
mydomain = mortshire.org
myorigin = $mydomain
mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, localhost, $mydomain


relayhost = [smtp.comcast.net]:587
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options=


2. I create a file /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd with the contents:

[smtp.comcast.net]:587 userid:password


where userid and password are my comcast.net username and password.

3. Next, I changed the ownership and permissions on the sasl_passwd file to protect it from unauthorized access.

sudo chown root:root /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
sudo chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd


4. Finally, I created a database file from the contents of the sasl_passwd file:

sudo postmap hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd


There we go: postfix now uses the Comcast mail gateway, and operates on port 587 rather than 25 (because spammers would never be able to do that, right? Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh…).

(Note: this is Postfix 2.5.5 under Fedora 10.)

Cox has announced a new “congestion management plan” that they are starting to install in certain test markets. On the face of it, I can’t really find much to complain about. They say it will only kick in when traffic is congested, and it doesn’t forge failure messages (like Comcast was doing) or drop “problem” packets, it simply lowers their priority.

Initially, all the traffic on the Cox network will be divided into two categories: time-sensitive and non-time-sensitive. When the network is congested, time-sensitive traffic – applications or uses that are naturally intolerant of delay (loading web pages, instant messages, voice calls, email and gaming) — continues as usual. During that period, less time-sensitive traffic – applications which are tolerant of some delay — such as file uploads, peer-to-peer and Usenet newsgroups – may be momentarily slowed, but only until the local congestion clears up.

Below is a break-down of the time-sensitivity of the various types of traffic that travel the Cox network. Any traffic that is not specifically classified will be treated as time-sensitive.

Time Sensitive

* Web (Web surfing, including web-based email and chat embedded in web pages)
* VoIP (Voice over IP, telephone calls made over the Internet)
* Email
* IM (Instant messages, including related voice and webcam traffic)
* Streaming (Web-based audio and video programs)
* Games (Online interactive games)
* Tunneling & Remote Connectivity (VPN-type services for telecommuting)
* Other (Any service not categorized into another area)

Non-Time Sensitive

* File Access (Bulk transfers of data such as FTP)
* Network Storage (Bulk transfers of data for storage)
* P2P (Peer to peer protocols)
* Software Updates (Managed updates such as operating system updates)
* Usenet (Newsgroup related)

(from Cable, High Speed Internet and Telephone services in Cox Communications, Cox Communications)

My nephew Spencer has been selected in this year’s “Who’s who in band”. He plays the cornet, “a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet”. I have been trying to find out more about “Who’s who in band”, but a Google search surprisingly turns up nothing at all about it.

Even so, it’s pretty cool. I always wished I could play an instrument, but apparently you need to do more than wish. Spencer has accomplished something I never did. That’s pretty nifty.

If one could choose a single image to represent the Internet, I think it would have to be this one:

It just makes me sad. And tired. Is it so hard to be civil? Apparently, it is. We think we are so advanced, so modern, so enlightened. Look around. We bomb the living hell out of civilians. We rack up multi-trillion-dollar debts without the faintest idea how we will pay them. We drive like maniacs, endangering everyone around us. We attack people and say hateful, spiteful, utterly reprehensible things, and for what? A minor difference of opinion over religion, or politics… or a silly show that makes fun of bad movies.

Am I better than most? I would like to think so, but who knows.

In the context of a restitution motion, in United States of America v. Dove, the RIAA’s “download equals lost sale” theory has been flatly rejected.

In a 16-page opinion, District Judge James P. Jones, sitting in the Western Disrict of Virginia, denied the RIAA’s request for restitution, holding the RIAA’s reasoning to be unsound:

It is a basic principle of economics that as price increases, demand decreases. Customers who download music and movies for free would not necessarily spend money to acquire the same product. Like the court in Hudson, I am skeptical that customers would pay $7.22 or $19 for something they got for free. Certainly 100% of the illegal downloads through Elite Torrents did not result in the loss of a sale, but both Lionsgate and RIAA estimate their losses based on this faulty assumption.

(from RIAA’s “download equals lost sale” theory rejected by federal court in Virginia; restitution motion denied in USA v. Dove, Recording Industry vs The People)

“This is very significant. It shows you how bad things are for the retail industry,” said George Whalin, president and CEO of Retail Management Consultants.

Whalin said management mistakes over the past few years combined with the recession brought down Circuit City.

“This company made massive mistakes,” he said, citing a decision to get rid of sales people and other mismanagement.

(from Circuit City seeking to liquidate, CNN Money)

This is a shame. Circuit City is been one of a handful of larger companies with their headquarters here in Richmond, VA, and has been here for years. But what Whalin says is true: they have been making huge mistakes for years: mistakes that were obvious to everyone who worked there (I used to work there, as did a good friend of mine until they outsourced his job to IBM). Mistakes that were obvious to everyone, I guess, except the upper management.

Such a shame.

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

I swear, it’s like The Onion is reading my mind. You know, I remember when it was just a hilarious little one-page web site. How time flies.

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