IP: Ed Felten at Stanford...

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>From: "Gillmor, Dan" <DGillmor@sjmercury.com>
>To: "'farber@cis.upenn.edu'" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>
>http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/dgillmor/dg051801.htm

Professor's battle exposes abysmal copyright law
BY DAN GILLMOR
Mercury News
Edward W. Felten didn't plan on becoming a poster child for academic 
freedom and free speech. And his mild demeanor only hints at his important 
work which, in the end, could help bring down a bad law.
But the arrogance of the music industry has thrust Felten, a computer 
science professor at Princeton University, squarely into the middle of a 
fight that will help draw some crucial boundaries in the digital age.
Felten and research colleagues, under what they considered blatant legal 
threats, withdrew a paper about flaws in a digital anti-copying technology 
that they were scheduled to publish and discuss at a recent academic 
conference.
A court fight over the matter appears likely. And as Felten indicated 
Thursday at Stanford University, the stakes are enormous.
The law at issue is the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Felten was 
one of many researchers who took up a music industry challenge last year to 
look closely at a technology the record companies are considering to 
prevent unauthorized copying of digitally recorded music.



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/