Click
Here
for more articles |
|
|
Electronic
Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law Clinic
Sue Electronic Voting Company |
by:
|
Student
Publishers and ISP Aim to Stop Diebold's
Abusive Copyright Claims
Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
San Francisco - A nonprofit Internet Service
Provider (ISP) and two Swarthmore College
students are seeking a court order on Election
Day tomorrow to stop electronic voting machine
manufacturer Diebold Systems, Inc., from
issuing specious legal threats. The Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center
for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic
at Stanford Law School are providing legal
representation in this important case to
prevent abusive copyright claims from silencing
public debate about voting, the very foundation
of our democratic process.
Diebold has delivered dozens of cease-and-desist
notices to website publishers and ISPs demanding
that they take down corporate documents
revealing flaws in the company's electronic
voting systems as well as difficulties with
certifying the systems for actual elections.
Swarthmore students Nelson Pavlosky and
Luke Smith have published an email archive
of the Diebold documents, which contain
descriptions of these flaws written by the
company's own employees.
"Diebold's blanket cease-and-desist notices
are a blatant abuse of copyright law," said
EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Publication
of the Diebold documents is clear fair use
because of their importance to the public
debate over the accuracy of electronic voting
machines."
Diebold threatened not only the ISPs of
direct publishers of the corporate documents,
but also the ISPs of those who merely publish
links to the documents. In one such instance,
the ISP Online Policy Group (OPG) refused
to comply with Diebold's demand that it
prohibit Independent Media Network (IndyMedia)
from linking to Diebold documents. Neither
IndyMedia nor any other publisher hosted
by OPG has yet published the Diebold documents
directly.
"As an ISP committed to free speech, we
are defending our users' right to link to
information that's critical to the debate
on the reliability of electronic voting
machines," said OPG's Colocation Director
David Weekly. "This case is an important
step in defending free speech by helping
protect small publishers and ISPs from frivolous
legal threats by large corporations."
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),
passed by Congress in 1998, provides a "safe
harbor" provision as an incentive for ISPs
to take down user-posted content when they
receive cease-and-desist letters such as
the ones sent by Diebold. By removing the
content, or forcing the user to do so, for
a minimum of 10 days, an ISP can take itself
out of the middle of any copyright claim.
As a result, few ISPs have tested whether
they would face liability for such user
activity in a court of law. EFF has been
exposing some of the ways that the safe
harbor provision can be used to silence
legitimate online speech through the Chilling
Effects Clearinghouse.
"Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its
critics, Diebold should invest in creating
electronic voting machines that include
voter-verified paper ballots and other security
protections," said EFF Legal Director Cindy
Cohn.
Links:
Online Policy Group v. Diebold case archive
Cease-and-desist letter Diebold sent to
OPG
IndyMedia Web page subject to Diebold cease-and-desist
letter
Security researchers discover huge flaws
in e-voting system
Link to Chilling Effects on DMCA safe harbor
provisions
Media coverage of Diebold threats
Contact:
Wendy Seltzer
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
wendy@eff.org
Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy@eff.org
David Weekly
Colocation Director
Online Policy Group
david@onlinepolicy.org
About the author:
Press Release
Circulated by Bandoni
Media
|
|
