SPA sues C2, other ISPs and users

According to a 10/10/96 press release, the Software Publishers Association
has files copyright infringement suits against three ISP's and two
individual users. The three ISP's were Community Connexion of Oakland,
GeoCities of Beverly Hills, and Tripod of Williamstown, Mass. The two users
sued were apparently customers of other ISP's who turned over their names &
contact information to the SPA.

The press release, located at
<http://www.spa.org/piracy/releases/netpir.htm>, indicates:

"Piracy has taken many forms on the Internet. These include making
unauthorized copies of software available for download, the posting of
serial numbers, cracker and hacker utilities and links to pirate FTP sites.
Although many believe piracy is limited to "warez" or illegal copies of
software, it extends beyond that narrow definition. Under the law, anyone
who knows -- or should have known -- of the infringement and who
assists, encourages or induces the infringement is liable for indirect
infringement. In each of the actions SPA filed, at least two of the above
infringements were present. "

The SPA has apparently adopted two relatively aggressive litigation
strategies - putting ISP's in the position of disclosing otherwise
confidential customer information or being sued themselves, and treating
peripheral data about copyrighted works like copyrighted works themselves
(e.g., serial numbers). Particularly interesting is that they seem to be
claiming that a *link* to a pirate FTP site is itself infringing
(potentially contributory infringement).

(My comments above are made solely from reading the press release.)

It's inappropriate to expect Sameer or any other C2
employee/agent/representative to discuss the suit before they've had a
chance to find and meet with an attorney; in some circumstances it might
never be prudent for them to make a public statement about the suit. But it
certainly couldn't hurt for people who've thought about signing up with C2
to do so now as a show of support, nor for existing users to renew their
service early.

--
Greg Broiles                |  "We pretend to be their friends,
gbroiles@netbox.com         |   but they fuck with our heads."
http://www.io.com/~gbroiles |
                            |

I prefer to offer shows of support in the forms of a donation to a
legal defense fund.  That way, I'm clearly supporting the
organization, not becoming a customer.

Sameer, if this gets pricey, please establish such a fund, and let us
all know about it.

Adam


Greg Broiles wrote:

| According to a 10/10/96 press release, the Software Publishers Association
| has files copyright infringement suits against three ISP's and two
| individual users. The three ISP's were Community Connexion of Oakland,

| It's inappropriate to expect Sameer or any other C2
| employee/agent/representative to discuss the suit before they've had a
| chance to find and meet with an attorney; in some circumstances it might
| never be prudent for them to make a public statement about the suit. But it
| certainly couldn't hurt for people who've thought about signing up with C2
| to do so now as a show of support, nor for existing users to renew their
| service early.

-- 
"Every year the Republicans campaign like Libertarians, and then go to
Wasthington and spend like Democrats."

Vote Harry Browne for President.  http://www.harrybrowne96.org

> 
> I prefer to offer shows of support in the forms of a donation to a
> legal defense fund.  That way, I'm clearly supporting the
> organization, not becoming a customer.
> 
> Sameer, if this gets pricey, please establish such a fund, and let us
> all know about it.

	Such things are in the queue. We'll be doing a press release
for monday.

-- 
Sameer Parekh					Voice:   510-986-8770
C2Net						FAX:     510-986-8777
The Internet Privacy Provider
http://www.c2.net/				sameer@c2.net

>>>>> "Greg" == Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com> writes:

Greg> Particularly interesting is that they seem to be claiming that a
Greg> *link* to a pirate FTP site is itself infringing (potentially
Greg> contributory infringement).

Yes, at first reading it also seems to forbid things like
``warez.diamond-lane.net''.

I hate being threatened, even if the suggested course of action is one
I do anyway.  I also see the piracy ``problem'' as one of economics.
If their software was really worth what they were trying to charge,
there wouldn't be so much theft of it.

Both sides are scum and it's sad to see people like Sameer caught in
the middle.
-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be billed at $250/message.
What are the last two letters of "doesn't" and "can't"?
Coincidence?  I think not.

gbroiles@netbox.com (Greg Broiles) wrote:

> The SPA has apparently adopted two relatively aggressive litigation
> strategies - putting ISP's in the position of disclosing otherwise
> confidential customer information or being sued themselves, and treating
> peripheral data about copyrighted works like copyrighted works themselves
> (e.g., serial numbers). Particularly interesting is that they seem to be
> claiming that a *link* to a pirate FTP site is itself infringing
> (potentially contributory infringement).

Claiming that a link to a pirate FTP site is illegal, is a fairly difficult
position to defend.  It's not illegal to say "someone is selling stolen
property on the corner of First Street downtown".  It's just a statement of
fact.  They could try to argue that there was some intent to commit a
crime... but they'd have to have some real proof of that.

Their claim that "peripheral data" is illegal is a rather novel idea, and
not supported (to my knowledge) by precedent.  I don't think anyone could
argue that a serial number or password is by itself worthy of copyright
protection, since it lacks any creative expression, so they are claiming
it is "indirect infringement".  There is an interesting case which dealt
with this issue awhile back:  A company, Central Point Software, began
marketing a product in the early 1980's called Copy II Plus.  This was a
fairly standard disk-copying program, but its key selling feature was its
"parameter list".  This parameter list was a list of specific commands and
modifications necessary to copy protected software, and in most cases, to
remove the copy protection entirely.  They sold, by subscription, quarterly
updates to this list, which grew to contain deprotection information for
about 10,000 programs.  Obviously, others in the software industry were not
happy with this, and filed suit against Central Point.  I don't remember
the details of the case - but Central Point Software won, and continued
publishing updated lists.  (Anyone here have a reference for this case?)
Interestingly, by the early 90's, few software companies were using
disk-format-based copy protection, and as such the market for Copy II Plus
(and its successors Copy II Mac and Copy II PC) dwindled.  Central Point
Software folded and (I think) was bought out by Symantec.

A few months ago I saw Sameer grumbling about people "not paying for
Apache-SSL".  Now SPA claims he's operating an ISP to promote piracy.  So
first he's a software publisher and now he's a software pirate.  Uh, yeah,
whatever.  Obviously SPA is on a PR campaign here which defies all
conventional logic.

On Sat, 12 Oct 1996, Matthew Ghio wrote:

> A few months ago I saw Sameer grumbling about people "not paying for
> Apache-SSL".  Now SPA claims he's operating an ISP to promote piracy.  So
> first he's a software publisher and now he's a software pirate.  Uh, yeah,
> whatever.  Obviously SPA is on a PR campaign here which defies all
> conventional logic.

    More likely is that he wouldn't pay them $10,000 to "protect" his own 
software interests and they decided to make him an example..

                       ________________________________
                      [ Bruce M. - Feist Systems, Inc. ]
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      "We don't want to get our butts kicked by a bunch of long-haired 
        26-year-olds with earrings." -- General John Sheehan on their 
                       reasons for InfoWar involvement

In <199610130045.UAA03900@myriad>, on 10/12/96 at 08:45 PM,
   Matthew Ghio <ghio@myriad.alias.net> said:

>A few months ago I saw Sameer grumbling about people "not paying for
>Apache-SSL".  Now SPA claims he's operating an ISP to promote piracy.  So first he's
>a software publisher and now he's a software pirate.  Uh, yeah, whatever.  Obviously
>SPA is on a PR campaign here which defies all
>conventional logic.

There is an old rule of thumb: Follow the money.

SPA is backed by big money corperations including: IBM, MicroSoft, NetScape, & Novell.

All of these corporations are in direct compition with Sameer and Apache-SSL. I beleive that Sameer has a comercial web server also but the name illudes me at this time. All of these corporations have strong intrest in damaging Sameer's reputation and also hurting him finacialy.


When in doubt always follow the money!

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