US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw) [LWN.net]

Groklaw covers a proposal from the US Copyright Office. "There is a new wrinkle to the US copyright law. Hollywood usually gets whatever it wants, as you know, from Congress, but in this case, it only got most of what it wants. But the part that will interest you is this: they are asking if those making use of a new pre-registration system they are setting up will be inconvenienced if they make it usable only by Windows Internet Explorer for the time being." Comments on this proposal are due no later than August 22, 2005.

to post comments

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 16:13 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (12 responses)

The Groklaw article doesn't make clear how to send comments (or if it does it is buried in a large amount of verbiage).

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 16:28 UTC (Fri) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] (10 responses)

The link to the Federal Register's website, which has information on how to submit comments, is right there in the second line of the article. Here it is again, for your convenience:

http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.html

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 16:45 UTC (Fri) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (9 responses)

The thing is, they're only interested in comments from people who are likely to use the service and be impacted by the restriction. They ask you to state how you will use the service and in what way this restriction will prevent you from doing so.

Given that the service is only for preregistering copyrights, which is not something anyone in the FOSS community is likely to care about, it's tough to meet that criteria.

They also say that the restriction is to be temporary, as supporting more browsers will take longer. Obviously that's silly unless they're using some proprietary broken web site creation software... and I'm personally suspicious that they'll take the next step once they have a working site.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 17:01 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] (8 responses)

>Given that the service is only for preregistering copyrights, which is not something anyone in the FOSS community is likely to care about, it's tough to meet that criteria.

Tactical, tactical, tactical.
Beware precedent. I hate to sound NRA about this, but even a small beach-head a vendor-limited service where There Is A Well-Established Standard (HTTP, in this case) reeks of BAD IDEA to me.
Can't find the attribution now, but someone once said "In matters of principle, be deaf to expedience."

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 17:04 UTC (Fri) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (6 responses)

Err, OK. So what are you suggesting, that people should LIE and write letters saying they'll be impacted by this decision even when they won't be?

The ends justify the means, I suppose, right?

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 17:37 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] (5 responses)

>they'll be impacted by this decision even when they won't be?

No, I'm suggesting that the "won't be impacted" assertion may return and bite.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 18:16 UTC (Fri) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (4 responses)

Well, by all means if you think you will be impacted be sure to write; I'm not suggesting you shouldn't--I think the restriction to IE is bogus as well.

Remember that this site is only to register "pre-release copyrights"; that is, register a copyright on a work before it's been released to the public. Once it's been released, it's automatically copyright under the Berne convention. The problem is that movies, etc. are being pirated and distributed before the movie has been released and there's apparently some legal question as to whether people who do that can be charged with copyright violation. The goal of this new law is to make that more clear.

Given the FOSS model of "release early and often" it doesn't seem like too many FOSS folks will care to pre-register copyrights.

I'm not saying no one should make the effort to get this changed, not at all! I'm saying that given the restricted audience and the requirement that only people who will be directly impacted are supposed to comment, not many people will qualify.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 22:03 UTC (Fri) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link]

"Given the FOSS model of "release early and often" it doesn't seem like too many FOSS folks will care to pre-register copyrights."

Actually, I think this practice is not followed more than you would think when it comes to Free Software.

all the best,

drew

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/40737

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 22:09 UTC (Fri) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] (1 responses)

"Once it's been released, it's automatically copyright under the Berne convention."

Oops, forgot this comment in the other post.

Are you sure you have this right? Aren't things copyrighted once they are "fixed"? I didn't think publishing had anything to do with it.

all the best,

drew

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/40046

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 13, 2005 14:58 UTC (Sat) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

They're automatically copyrighted in Berne Convention jurisdictions, yes. But when you sue you're in a better position if it's been registered, nonetheless. This is to let them register before they release, to be in a better position to sue leakers.

Note also that it's written entirely for hollywood, it's restricted explicitly to films and music.

The reason it's to be IE only is because they chose a crappy CRM system, and apparently don't have anyone that understands how to make a simple form without it.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 15, 2005 13:41 UTC (Mon) by swiftone (guest, #17420) [Link]

Once it's been released, it's automatically copyright under the Berne convention

I believe the Berne convention copyrights upon _creation_, not publication. However, I'm judging from the snippet of the law quoted that you can't REGISTER a copyright (which is standard practice before going to court) until publication...until this law.

it doesn't seem like too many FOSS folks will care to pre-register copyrights.

Given that the law only allows preregistration for certain specific classes of commonly pirated material (read: movies), it doesn't seem like any FOSS will be able to pre-register copyrights.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 23:26 UTC (Fri) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]

There Is A Well-Established Standard (HTTP, in this case)

Surely you mean HTML, not HTTP?

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 21:02 UTC (Fri) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link]

It is in the article (twice!):

ADDRESSES:
If hand delivered by a private party, an original and five copies of any comment should be brought to Room LM-401 of the James Madison Memorial Building between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and the envelope should be addressed as follows: Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office, James Madison Memorial Building, Room LM-401, 101 Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20559-6000. If hand delivered by a commercial courier, an original and five copies of any comment must be delivered to the Congressional Courier Acceptance Site located at Second and D Streets, NE., Washington, DC, between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. The envelope should be addressed as follows: Copyright Office General Counsel, Room LM-403, James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC. If sent by mail, an original and five copies of any comment should be addressed to: Copyright GC/ I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Southwest Station, Washington, DC 20024-0400. Comments may not be delivered by means of overnight delivery services such as Federal Express, United Parcel Service, etc., due to delays in processing receipt of such deliveries.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 17:11 UTC (Fri) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]

This is just bizzare! Every decent website has solved this minor technical problem and supported multiple browsers, but the US government is incapable of doing it?

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 20:14 UTC (Fri) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link] (11 responses)

Remember how Adobe sunk their hooks into everybody. Now you have to use a PDF reader to even pay your taxes.

If this is allowed to be a precident. Nobody could apply for a job or get their SS or transact money at a bank.

This is a test case if they can forge the way others will follow.

On the other hand if M$ were to make IE available to Linux they might be able to make a case...

err

Posted Aug 12, 2005 20:19 UTC (Fri) by ccyoung (guest, #16340) [Link] (6 responses)

"On the other hand if M$ were to make IE available to Linux" would you use it?

err

Posted Aug 12, 2005 20:57 UTC (Fri) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link]

I've had the "joy" of "working" with Internet Explorer for HP-UX for some time... until we complained hard and long enough to get Netscape offically installed on the server. IE for Linux has to work significantly better than the HP-UX version before I consider using it.
Twelve developers on one server; only two could use IE at the same time due to a lack of semaphores (IIRC). After 15 minutes of (non-) use IE entered some error message spewing loop and became unsuitable for websurfing.

err

Posted Aug 13, 2005 1:49 UTC (Sat) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link] (1 responses)

Of course I wouldn't but that is how absurd their argument is toward using it. Unless it the browser is a cross platform browser this type of lock in should be illegal.

"cross platform" isn't the issue here

Posted Aug 13, 2005 6:20 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link]

The real issue is not support for this or that platform. For example, even if there were a GNU/Linux build of the Unix version of Internet Explorer (and assuming that it would work with this service; that Windows IE does doesn't mean that it would), what if one wanted to use *BSD or something else?

Instead, what's needed is that the network protocols and file formats used for this be both open (i.e. publically documented) and free/libre (i.e. using them does not infringe a patent).

IE in Linux

Posted Aug 15, 2005 9:06 UTC (Mon) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link] (2 responses)

I think IE works under wine.

IE in Linux

Posted Aug 15, 2005 12:49 UTC (Mon) by rkn (guest, #31837) [Link] (1 responses)

To say it works you'd have to be drinking a whole lot of wine.

IE in Linux

Posted Aug 15, 2005 14:54 UTC (Mon) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link]

I agree that I hadn't tried this for a while.

So I just followed this
http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=ie6

IE installs and seems to work OK except for the crashing which happens easily if you start stressing the browser. It may be sufficient for my needs though (check web site compatibility once in a while).

PDF is actually open

Posted Aug 12, 2005 20:27 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

That's not a fair comparison. PDF is actually an open standard. While Acrobat reader is by far the most popular reader- and many sites make it seem as though it's the only option- other software authors can and do write PDF readers that work fine. I've been quite satisfied with Evince on Linux and Preview on OSX.

PDF is actually open?

Posted Aug 13, 2005 15:50 UTC (Sat) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link]

Are there any free PDF readers that can execute embedded Javascript?

I gather that there are lots of PDF forms floating around in some jurisdictions that require JavaScript to work properly. Last time I checked, none of xpdf, evince, gpdf, kpdf, or gv would execute JavaScript annotation links.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 21:09 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

> if M$ were to make IE available to Linux they might be able to make a case

Making a web-browser like IE available on a kernel would involve practically writing an operating system, but I guess you're talking about GNU/Linux.

This is true. If M$ produced an IE for GNU/Linux, it would be very hard for us to argue.

This is because we haven't been asking for what we want. We want to use software that is free software, but we've been saying we want to use software that runs on [GNU/]Linux.

The solution is to stop saying the wrong thing and start saying the right thing.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 13, 2005 5:58 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link]

That's not quite the right thing to say either, IMO. The right thing to say is that it shouldn't require any software in particular to use it; that is, it must not be a secret how to write software that can use it, and also that it be legal to do so.

Of course, the existence of free software that can use it is a sufficient condition for at least the first of those two.

US Copyright Office Requests Comments on IE-Only Service (Groklaw)

Posted Aug 12, 2005 22:07 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

I'd like to perhaps bring up a different tangent to the discussion: The fact that the US Copyright Office is only allowing IE in Windows for the online pre-registration form smacks of endorsement. In other words, The Government (or a sub-division thereof) is only endorsing one of many Web browsers which means that users have to use that one particular browser to make use of the service being offered (The Copyright pre-registration in this case). If I read the article correctly, this restriction has to do with the Copyright Office choosing some prepackaged software from a contractor with the same browser requirement, and thus the restriction propagated to the online form.

This is analogous to me having to pay my federal income tax by using a Bank Of America Check because the IRS systems cannot interface with Wells Fargo or Citibank! (Okay, bad example, but it's the principle of the matter at stake here.)

I truly admire Norway's model system of eliminating proprietary formats in communicating information with its citizens via electronic means. Perhaps one day the US Government will choose this route so that we're not forced to use "only browser X" or "media player Y" to utilize our government's Internet resources.

Hollywood going Linux

Posted Aug 15, 2005 14:40 UTC (Mon) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]

And at the same time, Hollywoods creative people are switching to Linux in droves.

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/27/1551250

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5611327583.html

The ultimate in irony will occur when the idiots in Hollywood go to "pre-register" their creation and realize they can't because of this idiotic restriction.