Web Filtering Lawsuit Challenges U.S. Copyright Law


Recommended Posts

A 22-year-old law student filed a lawsuit on Thursday asking a federal court in Boston to let him crack the digital lock on software that filters Internet Web sites so that he and others can view blocked sites, some of which he says are useful to the public.

The suit, filed by the New York-based American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Ben Edelman, challenges the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. The law prohibits creation or distribution of tools that can be used to unlock digital copyright protections.

Edelman, who will enter Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall and is a technology analyst at The Berkman Center for Internet & Society there, claims the filtering software is flawed and blocks legitimate Web sites rather than just the pornographic sites it purports to target.

"The core reason filtering software is of concern at the moment is because it is being forced upon a substantial number of Americans as they attempt to use the Internet in their local public libraries, public schools, businesses and even in their homes," Edelman told Reuters.

For example, a product from Seattle-based N2H2 Inc., named as the defendant in the lawsuit, blocks breast cancer Web sites and others with vital public health information, such as the Asian Community Aids Services organization, Edelman said.

The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which took effect in 2001, requires that public libraries and schools receiving federal funds use filtering software on their Internet-connected computers.

The ACLU challenged the library provision of that law in a lawsuit filed in March 2001. A Pennsylvania federal judge overturned the law in May 2002 and the case is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Edelman wants to publish the list of blocked sites and distribute software that would enable others to see the Web sites. The lawsuit argues that it is within his "fair use" rights under the U.S. Constitution to do research on the software.

CENSORSHIP TOOL

Filtering software is also being used by governments in other countries to censor and restrict access to the Internet for politically motivated reasons, including China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia, Edelman said.

He said his research found that Saudi Arabia had restricted access to Web pages including the "woman" entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica," and the Amnesty International site.

N2H2 is one of the companies vying for a contract to supply Saudi Arabia with blocking software, the ACLU said.

Part of the lawsuit challenges N2H2's software license agreement, which prohibits customers from decrypting or otherwise reverse engineering the software.

The lawsuit claims the license agreement is unenforceable because by installing the product the customer is forced to automatically consent to the terms of the agreement and cannot negotiate, Ann Beeson, ACLU lead counsel on the case, told Reuters.

N2H2 spokesman David Burt told Reuters, "We believe our software licenses are valid and we do intend to defend them and our intellectual property."

Other DMCA challenges have not held up.

An appellate judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Princeton professor who feared recording companies would sue him over research into digital music copyright protections. And movie studios successfully sued Eric Corley after he published software to decrypt DVDs on his hacker Web site, 2600.

In another case, trial is set to begin Aug. 26 for Moscow-based ElcomSoft Co. Ltd., which was sued for selling software to unlock copyright protections on digital books.

http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type...StoryID=1253560

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.