Padilla Ordered Released

Jose Padilla was ordered released by a federal court of appeals last Thursday. They ruled 2-1 that the government did not have the right to treat him as an enemy combatant and ordered him transferred to civilian custody within 30 days or released.

This is great news. I, and many others have been extremely concerned with the erosion of our civil liberties since the 9/11. That attack has been used to justify a host of measures, implemented by John Ashcroft (aka Satan) in a manner that worries the left and right equally. That’s why some strange alliances have been formed in recent months, including diverse organizations like Moveon.org, the ACLU, the Eagle Forum, Gun Owners of America and the American Conservative Union. Let’s hope they’re successful.

Good News for File-Sharers

Two rulings recently handed down help to keep file-sharing alive. The first is that a Dutch court threw out a lawsuit against Kazaa. The second, and mor important one, is that a federal appeals court ruled that record labels can’t force ISPs to identify users sharing content online.

The Kazaa case is of only marginal importance, but the second ruling is huge. This gives everyone in the US an added blanket of privacy and prevents us from being falsely accused, as the RIAA has done quite a few times before.

More from the Wires

A 7-year-old boy was scolded and forced to write “I will never use the word `gay’ in school again” after he told a classmate about his lesbian mother, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged Monday.

The ACLU is great, for demanding an apology from the school. Go to their site, write your congressional leaders with a few clicks, become a member and support them. Without them, the US could become a scary place.

The Legality of Links

An Austrailian man responsible for the creation of the site mp3s4free.net was recently charged with copyright infringement and now his ISP has been named as a defendant as well. The site that got him in hot water simply linked to mp3 music files hosted on other people’s sites.

I see two potentially disasterous legal precedents that coud be set by this case, and they are both found in this quote from the first article:

“The Federal Court action seeks declarations that both Mr Cooper and his ISP have infringed the copyrights of the music labels by making and/or distributing copies of copyrighted music, and seeks permanent injunctions and damages against them both.”

It’s going be be impossible to prove that he made copies of the music, because he didn’t. They’re relying on nailing him on distribution charges. So the key element in this case is the definition that the court adopts for “distribution”. In my opinion, distribution is the act of actually hosting or transmitting the file.

However, if the creation of a link is acknowledged as being considered distribution (and thus copyright infringement), the results for search engines like Google could be disasterous.

The other major point is that they’re trying to hold ISP’s responsible for the actions of people they host. This, also, could have far-reaching ramifications for the internet community. And I can’t say that I like them

How Not To Get Sued by the RIAA for File-sharing

How Not To Get Sued by the RIAA for File-sharing

Brought to you by the friendly folks at the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)