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IP: Spam & WIPO legislation -- Afternoon Line June 18, 1998
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 22:36:08 -0400
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:21:09 -0400 From: Jonathan Gregg <jgregg () PATHFINDER COM> To: AFTERNOONLINE () LISTSERV PATHFINDER COM Subject: Afternoon Line June 18, 1998 Bills of Fare Two contentious bills with serious implications for the Internet and beyond are working their way through Congress this week. Yesterday a Senate commerce subcommittee examined an amendment that would require spammers to identify themselves in their messages and to honor recipients' requests to be removed from their lists. The hearing was something of a formality since the amendment has already passed in the Senate, where it was attached to another bill after the hearing was scheduled, but that doesn't mean everyone at the hearing was happy. The representative from the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE) denounced the amendment, saying that it legitimized spammers and left recipients too much at their mercy. CAUCE would like to see a ban on all spamming, as proposed in a bill by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) that updates the junk fax law. That bill is also supported by someone who should know what it takes: reformed spam king Sanford Wallace. The House takes up the amendment Tuesday, but before that its Commerce Committee is meeting today to consider amendments to a somewhat more far-reaching bill aimed at protecting copyrights. The bill, which has been passed in the Senate and in the House Judiciary Committee, would in its present form criminalize any effort to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms in such digital products as movies and software. That would stifle most software research and development, which frequently involve reverse engineering, and lawmakers are sure to push for a relaxing of the rules. Likewise, the definition of what constitutes fair use of copyrighted materials by libraries, schools and academics is likely to be broadened. http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,23288,00.html?st.ne.1.gif.2 http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_display/0,3440,2113407,00.html Sink or Swim Microsoft is taking its show on the road, and is testing the legal waters in the process. In Japan, it's going swimmingly. Windows 98 bundled with the IE4 browser? No problem, Gates-san, says Japan's Fair Trade Commission, which declared that the product does not conflict with the country's antimonopoly law. But things aren't going so smoothly in Korea, where Microsoft has gotten in hot water for making a deal in which the manufacturer of the country's dominant word processing program would abandon its product in exchange for a $20 million investment. Such unabashed corporate imperialism has struck a raw nerve among the Korean public and has also attracted the attention of Korea's fair trade agency, which takes a dim view of investments that involve an anticompetitive quid pro quo. Microsoft admittedly has a lot of experience in that area, but messing with a country's national pride is always a dangerous addition to the mix. http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/13041.html http://www.newslinx.com/News/cg-061898d.html Look Who's Talking The great thing about software is that when it screws up, it's a doozy. Think HAL in "2001," destroying the mission he's meant to safeguard. Or how about Panasonic's Secret Writers' Society, a program that helps kids learn how to write by reading what they've written back to them in a HAL-like voice. Sounds harmless enough: They've even got a filter with a file of obscene words and expressions that keeps kids from talking dirty -- just as long as they don't double click to submit their message for playback. And if they do? Well, let's just say Andrew Dice Clay might be given a run for his money, as the contents of the forbidden file spew out in a torrent, all delivered in a computer-generated voice. And you thought Miss Cavendish in third grade was tough. Less embarrassing but no less amusing for its quixotic temperament is Windows 98 (yes, already), which reportedly contains a virus whose sole purpose in life, cicada-like, is to come out on Saturdays and turn your screen into a mirror image of itself. http://www.nbnn.com/pubNews/98/113432.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/173611.asp
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- IP: Spam & WIPO legislation -- Afternoon Line June 18, 1998 Dave Farber (Jun 18)