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ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE

U.S. Office of Public Policy of the Association for Computing Machinery

 

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March 22, 2000 Volume 4.2

 

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CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION

 

POLICY BRIEFS:

BXA: Bernstein Allowed To Post Snuffle

DeCSS Case First Lawsuit Under DMCA

ACM Submits Comments on DMCA

UCITA Gains Momentum in State Legislatures

ICANN Holds Public Meetings in Cairo

 

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INTRODUCTION

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The Association for Computing Machinery is an international professional

society whose 80,000 members (60,000 in the U.S.) represent a critical

mass of computer scientists in education, industry, and government. The

USACM provides a means for promoting dialogue on technology policy

issues with United States policy makers and the general public. The

WASHINGTON UPDATE reports on activities in Washington, which may be of

interest to those in the computing and information policy communities

and will highlight USACM's involvement in many of these issues.

 

To subscribe to the ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE send an e-mail to

listserv@acm.org with "subscribe WASHINGTON-UPDATE" (no quotes) in the

body of the message. Back issues are available at:

http://www.acm.org/usacm

 

For information about joining the Association for Computing Machinery,

see: http://www.acm.org/membership/join.html

 

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POLICY BRIEFS

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BXA: BERNSTEIN ALLOWED TO POST SNUFFLE

 

On February 22nd, the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) sent an

official advisory opinion to Cindy Cohn, counsel for Daniel Bernstein,

who was party to Bernstein v. Department of Justice, et al. and author

of the encryption program Snuffle. The BXA letter was a response to an

inquiry from Ms. Cohn about the ramifications of continuing application

of encryption export controls on the posting of Snuffle on the Internet.

The advisory opinion asserts that export review is not required when the

source code is publicly available (that is free of any licensing that

involves a monetary payment), that knowlege that nationals of prohibited

nations might download a copy of encryption source code from the

Internet, using FTP or a web site, does not establish knowlege of export

to those countries, and that printed publications are completely

excluded from export control. The BXA continues to require notification

of the posting of encryption source code on the web.

 

Ms. Cohn's letter to the BXA is available at:

http://cryptome.org/bernstein-bxa.htm

 

The BXA's response to Ms. Cohn's letter is available at:

http://cryptome.org/bxa-bernstein.htm

 

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DECSS CASE FIRST LAWSUIT UNDER DMCA

 

Two lawsuits filed constituted the first application of the Digital

Millenium Copyright Act. The lawsuits have obtained injunctions against

the distribution of the DeCSS program or its source code. DeCSS decrypts

the regional encryption (the Copyright Control System, or CCS) on

digital video discs and allows playback in Windows and Linux operating

systems. The lawsuits were filed in Connecticut and New York. On January

14th, Universal City Studios (and seven other studios, the constituency

of the Motion Picture Association of America) sued Jeraimee Hughes, the

operator of the Connecticut 2600 web site on January 14th in the federal

district court of Connecticut. The same group of plaintiffs sued Shawn

Reimerdes, Eric Corley and Roman Kazan in the southern federal district

court of New York. The defendants operated websites that distributed

DeCSS at www.dvd-copy.com, www.2600.com and www.krackdown.com,

respectively. (In a related news, the DVD Copyright Control Association,

the trade association that licenses CCS sued twenty named individuals

and the unnamed of seventy two websites distributing DeCSS in California

State Court on December 28, 1999 for trade secret misappropriation.)

 

Copies of the complaints are available at:

http://cryptome.org/dvd-mpaa-v-4.htm

 

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ACM SUBMITS COMMENTS ON DMCA

 

ACM president Barbara Simons has submitted comments to the U.S.

Copyright Office on section 1201(a)(1) of the Digital Millennium

Copyright Act, which permits the exemption of certain classes of works

from the prohibition against circumventing a technological measure that

controls access to a copyrighted work. The DMCA is a 1998 law that

forbids the distribution of products that can circumvent copy protection

schemes.

 

Simons wrote that the legislation must be revised to ensure the freedom

of scientists to bypass copy protection schemes for fair use purposes.

Scientists, she explained, must be legally permitted to circumvent

access technologies in order to recognize shortcomings in computer and

network security systems. She said that prohibitions on legitimate

research would undermine efforts to create a robust system that can

endure rigorous scrutiny.

 

Simon's letter is available at:

http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/dmca.exemption.htm

 

A copy of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Public Law No. 105-304)

is available at:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:HR02281:|TOM:/bss/d105query.html

 

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UCITA GAINS MOMENTUM IN STATE LEGISLATURES

 

The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) is gaining

momentum in state legislatures throughout the country. UCITA is a

350-page proposed law that will govern all contracts for the

development, sale, licensing, maintenance, and support of computer

software, as well as most contracts for information in digital form. The

law allows mass market software producers to protect themselves from

liability for product defects. Moreover, UCITA will legalize

shrink-wrap licenses that prohibit reverse engineering and the

publication of benchmarking articles that compare the quality of

commercially available software products. The National Conference of

Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) adopted UCITA as a proposed

uniform law in July 1999.

 

Virginia's state legislators passed UCITA in February, although the law

will not become effective until July 1, 2001. The bill requires the

Joint Commission on Technology and Science to report to Virginia's

governor and General Assembly with a study of UCITA by December 31,

2000. The Maryland legislature is currently considering UCITA. UCITA

has also been introduced in Illinois and Oklahoma, although the

legislation was tabled in Illinois due to its controversy. ACM

president Barbara Simons and USACM chair Eugene Spafford have written a

letter to state legislators expressing ACM's concerns with UCITA.

 

A draft of UCITA is available at:

http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/ucita/citam99.htm

 

The ACM letter to state legislators is available at:

http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/ucita.states.htm

 

More information about UCITA is available at:

http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/

 

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ICANN HOLDS PUBLIC MEETINGS IN CAIRO

 

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) held

public meetings in Cairo March 7-10. ICANN is a private, non-profit

corporation that was appointed by the U.S. government in 1998 to assume

responsibility for IP address space allocation, protocol parameter

assignment, domain name system management, and root server system

management.

 

After soliciting comments from ICANN participants in public forums and

meetings, the Board of Directors passed resolutions the final day of the

conference. The Board decided to institute direct elections for the

At-Large Membership and to request the conclusion of deliberations on

the introduction of new generic Top Level Domains and famous mark

protection.

 

The ACM Internet Governance Committee took a lead role in creating

ICANN's Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders' Constituency, which

represents public and non-commercial interests in ICANN's Domain Name

Supporting Organization. The non-commercial constituency advocated fair

and representative at-large elections by direct ballot, the rapid

introduction of new gTLDs, and the protection of non-commercial domain

names in cyberspace. All ACM members can join the At-Large Membership by

registering at ICANN's Web site, http://www.icann.org. Membership is

free and enables individuals to vote for the new Board members of ICANN.

 

Additional information about the Cairo meetings is available at:

http://www.icann.org/cairo2000/cairo-details.htm

 

The ACM's Web page on ICANN and Internet governance is located at:

http://www.acm.org/serving/IG.html

 

Information about the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders' Constituency

is available at: http://www.dnso.org/constituency/ncdnh/ncdnh.html

 

Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society provides a

multimedia archive of the Cairo meetings at:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/cairo/

 

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Washington Update is a biweekly publication of the U.S. Public Policy

Office of the Association for Computing. http://www.acm.org/usacm 666

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