The Jailbreaking Exemption and Apple Peel 520
作者:Donnie 日期:2010-07-31
As it has been known by all creatures on earth (maybe except lawyers), the U.S. Library of Congress issued a statement on Monday that legalized “jailbreaking” wireless telephone handsets.
It is no doubt a good news for jailbreakers, the unauthorized App developers, as well as iPhone buyers. Now you can strut up to the black corner of the computer arcade, looking straight inside the eyes of the guy who knows how to satisfy your desire (of anything that Jobs don't want you do, such as watching flash video), and speak laudly: "break it, please."
"Wait, wait! It's an iPod ... OK ... if you like to call it iTouch, then it is an iTouch... It's not an iPhone, I mean ... not a telephone handset."
"What?"
Let's stop the drama and go back to the law:
At least from the literal meaning of the newly annouced exemption, iTouch owners may be excluded from the benificiaries. Here is the fulltext of the exemption:
... Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) until the conclusion of the next rulemaking.
...
(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.
...
Is an iTouch a "wireless telephone handset"? I don't know. At least Apple, even before such exemption promulgated, has already said it isn't a telephone - it is a great iPod, a pocket computer and a game player, but not a telephone... because only iPhone will be a telephone. (How about iPad 3G? Too big to be a "handset"?)
Ethan Zuckerman Talks at TED
作者:Donnie 日期:2010-07-16
Please watch Berkman Fellow Ethan Zuckerman's awsome talk puncturing the information cocoon. He introduces Yeeyan (译言), a website translating English articles into Chinese, and asks a very sharp question: who is translating the Chinese daily stories into English? And an even sharper question: if such culture bridges are constructed, who and how many ppl will cross them? Furthermore, (I say it in my words and I believe it should be what Ethan want to say) how to make people being used to crossing them?
Enjoy the vedio:
Tags: Berkman cyberspace Internet En
The full-text of the ACTA agreement leaked again
作者:Donnie 日期:2010-07-15
The latest full-text of ACTA agreement leaked again on 14 July. The version is dated July 1st 2010 from the Luzern round of negotiations, including the name of the negotiating parties along with their positions.
Available here:
http://www.laquadrature.net/
It is interesting that the ACTA always leaks (at least three times in this year). Would it be an intentional strategy of "announcing" the negotiating progress? ... Just my guess...
Anyway, as a matter of fact, the leakage would more or less relieve the pressures from those countries who did not involve in the negotiation (India & China?), as well as from the stakeholders in the negotiating countries who are worrying about the privacy and other rights, and provide the public an opportunity to assess whether or not ACTA would cause "trade-distorting effects", which is the major concern at the WTO's TRIPS council.
Statutory Damages Flexible
作者:Donnie 日期:2010-07-10
After five months awaiting, Judge Nancy Gertner agreed Joel's motion of remittitur by reducing the damages Joel owes to $67,500 - one-tenth of the original one. In her ruling, she wrote:
Reducing the jury’s $675,000 award also sends another no less important message: The Due Process Clause does not merely protect large corporations, like BMW and State Farm, from grossly excessive punitive awards. It also protects ordinary people like Joel Tenenbaum.
Still, for each song, Joel has to pay $2,250 (USD), and if my memory serves, upon what is the appropriate amount of damages, "30 Dollars", Charlie said after the hearing.
Tags: Tenenbaum P2P copyright UnitedStates En
ICP License Renewed and ISP Liability Released
作者:Donnie 日期:2010-07-10
The game of “Spoting the Difference" starts again!
Google's ICP license renewed. See the captured today's Google.cn web page below (left), and compare it with the page in last week (right).
| Google.cn on 9 July 2010: |
Google.cn on 4 July 2010: |
Exactly as what I predicted, Google is trying to make Google.cn being a non-search engine website. It now places "Music", "Translation" and "Shopping" at the web page. These are what Google wishes to keep on running in China. While the search engine service of Google.cn is replaced by a link to google.com.hk. Legally speaking, Google.cn is not providing search engine service currently. It is merely a link to another website. Just like the links added in any of our own web posts.
Tags: Googlecn ICP Google ISP internetgovernance copyright China En
Choice of Forum in the Possible GoogleCN Dispute
作者:Donnie 日期:2010-07-04
As I have discussed in a previous entry, if Google’s ICP license is conditioned to provide filtered web search results, Google may not provide search engine service via Google.cn anymore. Google.cn may become a hub of Google’s services designed specifically for China’s market. Until today, the renewal of the ICP license for Google.cn is still pending, and the webpage located at Google.cn is still a simple link to Google.com.hk. In this post, I'd rather to discuss a more lawyering thing: is there any difference between shutting down Google.CN and blocking Google.COM.HK?
Yes, they are different.
If a service provided by Google China, a Chinese company, were shut down by the government, the forum of questioning such shutting down should be Chinese judicial or administrative dispute resolutions. The game players thus are Google China and specific government agency who makes the decision. If Chinese law do request ISPs filterring the search result, then Google would hardly be a winner of the that kind of dispute (even regardless the "political influences" to the cases).
If an online service provided by Google Inc. (a corporation in California), or Google.com.hk (operated by a company registered in Hong Kong) were denied to be accessed by China's government, a new forum could be chosen by Google - WTO.
Yes, a complaint at WTO's DSB should be filed by a government. But the industry would always be an initiative force of the international trade disputes. Furthermore, because Chinese court has not been empowered to review the legality of administrative regulations, reviewing them through an international institution can at leaste be one of the choices of challeging those regulations.
Now the question is: whether China is burdened to open search engine market to foreign companies?
China has made its sectoral commitments on providing market access for some "telecommunications services". Specifically, China committed to open the market for "data/online processing services", which is the class 843 of the UN Central Product Classfication (CPC). But China did not promise to open market for "database services", which is CPC 844.
In the 2009 version of the CPC, the "web search portal content" has been included in CPC 843. Although China's commitments was made based on the CPC in 2001, some WTO cases (shrimp-turtle case, and Gambling case) has supported an evolutionary approach or a dynamic approach. Both of them would be good for including search engine service in China's commitments.
The next question is: whether China's activities constitute a violation of its commitments? That would be a much longer discussion. And I would not be able to illustrate it at the current stage. Anyway, an overall strategy is of very important for both parties. Before stepping forward, both Google and China's government officials should pay attention to the differences between "blocked" and "shut down", and between domestic law and international law.
Would Google.CN be a Non-Search Engine Site?
作者:Donnie 日期:2010-07-04
As you may have known, the domain "Google.cn" had been automatically redirected to "Google.com.hk" since this March. And last week, Google stopped such automatic redirection, and launched a web page at Google.cn. By clicking anywhere of the page, a visitor will be linked to Google’s Hong Kong site. (please try http://www.google.cn )
Google’s SVP David Drummond announced the official reason of such change (underlines added).
“...it’s clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable—and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it’s up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China … instead of automatically redirecting all our users, we have started taking a small percentage of them to a landing page on Google.cn that links to Google.com.hk — users can conduct web search or continue to use Google.cn services like music and text translate, which we can provide locally without filtering. This approach ensures we stay true to our commitment not to censor our results on Google.cn and gives users access to all of our services from one page… As a company we aspire to make information available to users everywhere … We are therefore hopeful that our license will be renewed on this basis so we can continue to offer our Chinese users services via Google.cn.”
