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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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News :: Media |
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You Want Some Of Me?!? Electronic Frontier Foundation & Stanford Law School Sue Diebold To Stop Abusive Copyright Claims. |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sascha Meinrath
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
04 Nov 2003
Modified: 11:50:20 AM |
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As posted previously on Indymedia Websites, Diebold Systems Inc., has threatened Internet Service Providers and the Indymedia Network who publish information documenting that Diebold knew about flaws in their electronic voting system. Turning the tables on Diebold, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Standford Law Clinic are now suing Diebold to stop their abusive copyright claims. |
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PRESS CONFERENCE:
EFF invites media professionals in the San Francisco Bay
Area to attend a press conference immediately following the
ruling of the judge at the federal courthouse on the motion
for a temporary restraining order to prevent Diebold from
sending further specious cease-and-desist notices (see media
release below for more details).
Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2003 (Election Day)
Time: Approximately 12:00 PM or when judge announces
decision, so could be as early as 10:00 AM. Please call cell
phone numbers listed below or EFF Media Relations Director
Will Doherty at +1 415 425-3936 on day of press conference
only.
Location: Federal Courthouse, 450 Golden Gate Ave, San
Francisco, on the south side of building even if that
entrance is closed for renovations.
***
For Immediate Release: Monday, November 3, 2003
Contact:
Wendy Seltzer
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
wendy (at) eff.org
+1 415 436-9333 x125 (office), +1 914 374-0613 (cell)
Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy (at) eff.org
+1 415 436-9333 x108 (office), +1 415 307-2148 (cell)
David Weekly
Colocation Director
Online Policy Group
david (at) onlinepolicy.org
+1 415 336-2617 (cell)
Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law Clinic Sue
Electronic Voting Company
Student Publishers and ISP Aim to Stop Diebold's Abusive
Copyright Claims
San Francisco - A nonprofit Internet Service Provider (ISP)
and two Swarthmore College students are seeking a court
order on Election Day tomorrow to stop electronic voting
machine manufacturer Diebold Systems, Inc., from issuing
specious legal threats. The Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF) and the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw
Clinic at Stanford Law School are providing legal
representation in this important case to prevent abusive
copyright claims from silencing public debate about voting,
the very foundation of our democratic process.
Diebold has delivered dozens of cease-and-desist notices to
website publishers and ISPs demanding that they take down
corporate documents revealing flaws in the company's
electronic voting systems as well as difficulties with
certifying the systems for actual elections.
Swarthmore students Nelson Pavlosky and Luke Smith have
published an email archive of the Diebold documents, which
contain descriptions of these flaws written by the company's
own employees.
"Diebold's blanket cease-and-desist notices are a blatant
abuse of copyright law," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy
Seltzer. "Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair
use because of their importance to the public debate over
the accuracy of electronic voting machines."
Diebold threatened not only the ISPs of direct publishers of
the corporate documents, but also the ISPs of those who
merely publish links to the documents. In one such instance,
the ISP Online Policy Group (OPG) refused to comply with
Diebold's demand that it prohibit Independent Media Network
(IndyMedia) from linking to Diebold documents. Neither
IndyMedia nor any other publisher hosted by OPG has yet
published the Diebold documents directly.
"As an ISP committed to free speech, we are defending our
users' right to link to information that's critical to the
debate on the reliability of electronic voting machines,"
said OPG's Colocation Director David Weekly. "This case is
an important step in defending free speech by helping
protect small publishers and ISPs from frivolous legal
threats by large corporations."
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by
Congress in 1998, provides a "safe harbor" provision as an
incentive for ISPs to take down user-posted content when
they receive cease-and-desist letters such as the ones sent
by Diebold. By removing the content, or forcing the user to
do so, for a minimum of 10 days, an ISP can take itself out
of the middle of any copyright claim. As a result, few ISPs
have tested whether they would face liability for such user
activity in a court of law. EFF has been exposing some of
the ways that the safe harbor provision can be used to
silence legitimate online speech through the Chilling
Effects Clearinghouse.
"Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its critics, Diebold
should invest in creating electronic voting machines that
include voter-verified paper ballots and other security
protections," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.
For this release:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20031103_eff_pr.php
Online Policy Group v. Diebold case archive:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/
Cease-and-desist letter Diebold sent to OPG:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/cease_desist_letter.php
IndyMedia Web page subject to Diebold cease-and-desist
letter:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/1649419_comment.php
Security researchers discover huge flaws in e-voting system:
http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php
Link to Chilling Effects on DMCA safe harbor provisions:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/
Media coverage of Diebold threats:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60927,00.html
***
About EFF:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at
http://www.eff.org/
About Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at
Stanford Law School:
The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a public
interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law
School and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at
Stanford Law School. The CIS brings together scholars,
academics, legislators, students, programmers, security
researchers, and scientists to study the interaction of new
technologies and the law and to examine how the synergy
between the two can either promote or harm public goods like
free speech, privacy, public commons, diversity, and
scientific inquiry. The CIS Cyberlaw Clinic gives Stanford
Law School students an opportunity to work with clients on
cases and legal projects that involve questions of
technology, law and the public interest.
About OPG:
The Online Policy Group (OPG) is a nonprofit organization
dedicated to online policy research, outreach, and action on
issues such as access, privacy, the digital divide, and
digital defamation. The organization fulfills its motto of
"One Internet With Equal Access for All" through programs
such as donation-based email, email list hosting, website
hosting, domain registrations, colocation services,
technical consulting, educational training, and refurbished
computer donations. The California Community Colocation
Project (CCCP) and QueerNet are OPG projects. OPG focuses on
Internet participants' civil liberties and human rights,
like access, privacy, safety, and serving schools,
libraries, disabled, elderly, youth, women, and sexual,
gender, and ethnic minorities. Find out more at
http://www.onlinepolicy.org/
About IndyMedia:
IndyMedia is an international network working to build a
decentralized, non-commercial media infrastructure to
counter an increasingly consolidated corporate media.
IndyMedia collectives have spread rapidly since the WTO
protests in Seattle 1999, with IMC groups now working
throughout North & South America, the Middle East, Europe,
Africa, Asia and Oceania, accessible through
http://www.indymedia.org/
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