[12283] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Software piracy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Hughes)
Fri May 13 22:24:31 1994
From: dave@oldcolo.com (Dave Hughes)
To: ped@panix.com (Philip Elmer-DeWitt)
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 08:44:39 -0600 (MDT)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com (compriv)
In-Reply-To: <199405122229.AA04489@panix.com> from "Philip Elmer-DeWitt" at May 12, 94 06:29:10 pm
>
> My 10-minute report on the David Lamacchia case is scheduled to air tonight
> on the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Philip Elmer-DeWitt ped@well.com
> TIME Magazine philiped@aol.com
> Read TIME on America Online, where we get paid to take abuse.
>
Yes, I saw the piece. Good job laying out the novel issues
involved, and how far government has to reach to figure out
what 'crime' has been committed ('wire fraud' instead of
copyright violation). Of course I immediatedly wondered if
defense attorneys could find that some 'link' in the network
was wireless and cast doub on even that.
What struck me was how the government spokesmen, with a dead
pan beliing their knowledge this is *not* as simple as they
tried to make it seem, spoke as if this is nothing new,
legally. The fact that Lamacchia, as Sysop, by giving people
*access* to copywritten programs, never having, or apparently
intending, to take any for use by himself, should be treated
as if he had stolen the software himself.
But the chilling thing about it all, was a clear sign that
government, in the form of law enforcement, STILL want to
'solve' the problem of theft of software, by holding
Internet/BBS/Service *Providers* criminally responsible
for the acts of their users. The same theory by local
law enforcement here in Colorado Springs we had to beat
back (using electronic democracy techniques, natch) when
the city tried to pass an ordinance that would hold sysops
criminally responsible for any acts of 'sexual harrassment'
that occured between users of their systems.
It seems that that approach, force system providers, to
be 'polcemen' is repeatedly the way governments (and
companies?) want to 'solve' computer crime problems.
Geez. Don't any lawmakers or their staffs have any
*imagination* when it comes to making laws appropriate
to the new media, to solve problems of crime?
