Two main things to talk about here. Firstly, after months of court battles, Verizon lost it's appeal to prevent having to release the name of subscribers subpoenaed by the RIAA. The initial request had come in January, and Verizon appealed at the time. In the various courts since, Verizon has been handed nothing but defeats, with the exception of injunctions that prevented then from having to reveal the names, pending appeals to higher courts. This makes sense, since if Verizon had to release the names, then it would be a serious blow to any case they tried to use on an appeal, since the point would be moot. But the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Verizon's request for an injunction; as a result, Verizon now has to turn over the names to the RIAA. Despite this, Verizon plans to continue the appeals process, even if the names are revealed. The case will be heard by the court sometime in September, and could have a serious impact for either side. If the court upholds the subpoenas, then the RIAA will likely ramp up it's requests for the names of users who are suspected (with no need to show any evidence, mind you) of copyright infringement. If the court were to rule in Verizon's favor, it would be a major victory for the legal process, not to mention ISPs and their users.

The written decision of the court is not yet available, but when it is, I'll add it to the files section.

The second major thing is very closely related to the Verizon case. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas is working on legislation that would fix some of the problems the DMCA has created. The bill would require the approval of a judge before a copyright holder could subpoena the name of an Internet subscriber, require plain notification of the use of anti-copy technologies, and ensure that people would be able to resell copy-protected material. The FTC would be given the authority to ban the use of any DRM technology that is determined to limit a consumer's ability to resell a copy-protected product, and would require the FTC to create a standard identification for DRM-protected works, if the industry does not independently create a reasonable system of their own.

Following up on Lessig & Eldred's petition to reclaim the public domain (I mentioned this last time), the petition now has (as of this writing) 9400 signatures. I encourage everyone who has any support for the cause of restoring a balance in copyright term to sign the petition, and pass word of it along to anyone who might remotely be interest.

Lastly, I've added a couple of things to the files section, like an MP3 recording of the oral arguments in the Aimster case. I also added a couple of sections, and moved some files around, so that the files section isn't a large, unwieldy list.

Well, the FCC vote is in, and as expected, it was 3-2 in favor of the changes. This result isn't a shock to most people, though it definitely wasn't what people were hoping for. The outcry from this decision is far and wide, just like the opposition to it was before the vote.

All is not lost, though. Senator Hollings is working on legislation that will prevent many of the approved changes from actually taking effect, and also would also codify certain restrictions, like the 35% ownership cap, so that certain restrictions would no longer be under the FCC's control. I've written to Senator Hollings, Senator Corzine, Senator Lautenberg, and Representative Menendez about the vote, and about any legislation that may be brought about as a result. The letters are available in the files section for your reading convenience.

FCC commissioner Jonathon Adelstein also had something to say about the changes, which he voted against. In his statement, he talks about how the arguments put forth for the changes were invalid, and why these changes didn't and don't need to happen. He also talks about the massive public response to the vote, and how he only received one piece of correspondence supporting the changes out of 750,000. I definitely recommend reading this statement, though it can be infuriating at times when he points out something that runs completely contrary to the stated reasons or justifications for these changes.

But, as always, the FCC isn't the only thing in the news. Larry Lessig has started a petition to garner support for a law which would slightly change the rules of copyright. The idea is that, after 50 years under copyright, a copyright holder would have to pay a small fee ($1 is the number tossed around most frequently) to keep the work under copyright; if the fee is not paid within a 6 month period at the end of 50 years, then the work would pass into the public domain. Response to the proposal is mixed, with some people opposed to it because it seems to condone the current copyright term length, and other supporting it for a number of reasons, chiefly that any change is progress, and needed to cause larger change. As of this writing, the petition has nearly 6000 names, quite a significant number, considering that it was just started earlier this morning.

My feelings on this are also mixed. On the one hand, this does seem to accept the legitimacy of the current copyright term, and doesn't get to the root of the problem. I also think that it doesn't go far enough in it's changes to make a significant difference, but on the other hand, it's unlikely that a complete reversal of legislative copyright policy is going to be reversed in the blink of an eye. If this were to pass, it's progress toward returning copyright term lengths to a reasonable level. One concern I see here is that if this were to pass, and then down the line, a bill to shrink the copyright term was floated, the major corporations with copyrights at stake would point to this and say that there's already a measure of control over the length of copyright, and lowering the term would be unnecessary.

Also in the copyright news of late is the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Dastar vs. 20th Century Fox. The case was over Dastar's use of public domain material originally created by 20th Century Fox, without crediting Fox as the original creators. The Supreme Court ruled in Dastar's favor, that it was not necessary for Dastar to indicate the original creator, since the work was in the public domain.

Lastly, in site news, look for a redesign sometime this week or coming weekend, followed by a new feature.

Apologies for the complete lack of site updates lately, things have been a little weird, but I'm (hopefully) going to be keeping everything up-to-date from here on.

Most notable of the events since my last update has been the public outcry over the FCC's vote over lessening the rules for media ownership. If approved, these changes would allow media companies to own both TV stations and newspapers in the same areas and increase the maximum exposure for TV networks by 10%, from 35% to 45% of US households. There may very well be other changes, but no one outside the FCC knows what they would be, since they're keeping the proposed changes secret. We only know of these because information about them was leaked a few weeks back.

News of the changes has elicited responses from all kinds of people, most of whom are opposed to them, some who want more time for the FCC to consider public input, and few who favor them. Nearly every independent news or media group I know if is opposed to the changes (like GNN, IndyMedia, and Democracy Now!). It's also gotten responses from Congress. Senator McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has asked FCC Chairman Powell to delay the vote so that there's more time to study their impact and listen to the public opinion. Legislation is already under consideration in Congress to delay the changes, if they pass.

Given the 3-2 Republican/Democrat split in the FCC, it's likely that the changes will pass, by that margin, tomorrow. Powell has said "There is no doubt, there will be a vote tomorrow," which indicates that no amount of requests for postponing the vote, no matter who they're from, will be ignored. Not that the FCC seems to care about popular opinion anyway, or else they wouldn't be rushing a vote on a measure that only benefits media companies, under a near information blackout, when Powell himself has admitted that similar changes in radio have created problems. This isn't unexpected though, with the news that the media companies have paid for a quarter million dollars worth of trips for the FCC members, and they also stand to benefit from approving these changes. Yet another example of a legal form of bribery.

But the FCC isn't the only thing making news. The California Supreme Court is hearing the case of DVD CCA vs. Bunner, a trade secret case, in which the DVD CCA won an injunction against Andrew Bunner for posting DeCSS on his site. An appeals court overturned the injunction, and the DVD CCA appealed the case to the CA Supreme Court. There's some good coverage of this over at Copyfight.

The US 7th Circuit Court Of Appeals is set to hear the Aimster case this week. The EFF has some background on the case, and they've also filed an amicus brief in the case. The case is the recording studios against Madster (formerly Aimster), in their crusade to shut down each and every file-sharing application in existence. Coming off the heels of the Universal vs. Grokster case, there's some precedent for clearing the software maker in this case, though there's also precedent for the opposite.

Any, that's all for now, look for a significantly larger post, a feature titled Copyright's Unnatural Evolution, sometime this week.

An update will be coming, I haven't forgotten about this. Sorry about the lack of links too.

As the movie studios begin unleashing a record number of sequels this year, advertisers take advantage of the popularity of these movies and unleash what seems to be a record number of movie tie-ins. Heineken has a commercial featuring someone looking like Trinity (from The Matrix) serving drinks, and employing the 'stop time' technique to jump over a crowd of people. Powerade has a commercial featuring someone playing Agent Smith talking about how we should drink more Powerade to provide more power to the matrix (see Penny Arcade's mocking of said ad). Baskin Robbins is featuring a new sundae named 'Wolverine's Revenge', with a commercial showing a hand with claws 'creating' a sundae. And these are just a few examples.

And looking past the movie tie-in advertising, it appears that the quality of advertising on television is sharply declining. Arby's new commercials feature a very poorly digitized talking oven mitt in a number of situations, like having a personal trainer helping it get in shape because there's a new sandwich coming. Then there's the mitt talking to one of the employees: "Remember that day we took 50 roasts out of the oven?", and is then high-fived by everyone on the Arby's team because of the introduction of their new sandwich.

Reebok (or Rbk, as you see in the commercial) has a commercial showing a guy owning a closet full of the same kind of show. When he's eating a jelly donut, some of the jelly falls out and land on his shoe, prompting a cry of "Nooo!" and a trip to the store to buy another pair. What's the message that Reebok is trying to send? That their shoes can't tolerate a single drop of jelly, and that if you ever get them dirty you need to replace them? Or that their shoes are for spoiled rich people who can afford to buy a new pair of (overpriced) sneakers every time they get the slightest bit dirty?

And who could forget the commercials for Extra gum? They had a commercial for their commercial, featuring a gumball flying around a gumball machine, with the text, "Why is this gumball so angry? Find out Wednesday." (this aid first aired on a Monday). That was the entire commercial, with no idea what product or service was being advertised, just telling people to tune in for a commercial. When the real commercial finally aired, we were treated to a gumball flying around the screen, singing about how Extra gum is ruining it, complete with lyrics showing at the bottom of the ad. It's not even like the song was any good, there was no rhyme, no rhythm, just a bunch of words put into something other than plain English.

Moving away from ads for a bit, I mentioned that the movie studios are releasing a record number of sequels this year. 25 in total this year, with 16 of these coming during the summer movie season, according to this report. The movies run the gamut of genres, with nearly every successful movie over the past few years coming out with a sequel. Some were expected, like Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King, but some just make no sense to have a sequel, like the upcoming Legally Blond 2: Red, White, and Blond, Dumb and Dumberer, 2 Fast 2 Furious, or Charlie's Angels 2.

It makes me wonder who thought that all these sequels would be a good idea, especially when some of them lack the stars that made the movies what they were (for example, Dumb And Dumberer won't have either Jim Carrey or Jeff Daniels, and 2 Fast 2 Furious won't have Vin Diesel). I also wonder what happened to the concept of coming up with new ideas, instead of just rehashing old ones. Apparently, this a lost art to the folks out in Hollywood, who are reluctant to try something new with this economy, but think that making a sequel to a successful movie will somehow bring in more money for less risk. Though this isn't true, and historically, sequels have performed poorly compared to the original movie, in some cases (Analyze That is one example cited) don't even make enough in box-office sales to cover the cost of marketing the film, let alone it's production.

This demonstrates one of the other things I feel Hollywood is doing wrong nowadays. Instead of focusing on making a decent plot, with good characters, and an intelligent, coherent story, the studios are throwing more and more money into special effects, hoping to make up for all the movie's shortcomings with eye candy. The newest Star Wars movies are a prime example. The movies in and of themselves lack meaning, or coherence, or thus far, any real connections to the original three movies. But these movies feature more CG than nearly any other (live-action) movie in history.

But enough about movies and advertising. There are far more important things going on in the world worthy of mention here. Like the RIAA's abuse of section 512 of the DMCA, the takedown provisions. This section lays out the procedure that a copyright holder should take when a server is found to be illegally hosting copyrighted work, and what the service provider should do to avoid liability. This section provides penalties for wrongful notices only if the accuser 'knowingly materially misrepresents under this section', which exempts automated programs like those used by the RIAA from this part. And we saw examples of just how this exemption makes the whole part worthless, when at least a dozen takedown notices were sent by the RIAA to service providers of people not hosting any infringing material, like Prof. Usher of Penn State's Astronomy and Astrophysics department. The reason for the notice? Prof. Usher's last name, in combination with an MP3 of an a capella song about the Swift gamma ray satellite, which generated a notice to the university's IT department alleging that music from the artist Usher was being illegally shared on one of their servers.

Another case is that of the host of Amigascne.org, a Commodore Amiga site. They received a letter saying that the site "offers approximately 0 sound files for download. Many of these files contain recordings owned by our member companies, including songs by such artists as Creed." This was enough to get the ISP concerned, with a representative saying "If the current complaint does not have any scan results, this would mean that at one point it did--otherwise, they would not have sent out an e-mail in the first place--and they are making a formal notification about it," with no consideration given to the possibility that they were just plain wrong.

The lack of any sort of liability on the part of the RIAA is deeply disturbing. It's a definite possibility that an erroneous takedown notice could be sent, and a site taken down based on it, when the site was completely free of any illegal material. So long as the notice was automated, however, the sender would not be "knowingly materially misrepresenting" and thus would not be exposed to legal action, based on section 512.

More to follow on these subjects when I have more time and desire to write about them.

On Friday, May 2, I attended a hearing before 5 members of the Library of Congress, supporting an exemption to the DMCA's section 1201(a)(1)(A) prohibition on circumvention. I was arguing for an exemption to be made for allowing decryption of CSS encryption (the encryption used on nearly all DVDs) for playback on computer operating systems for which DVD CCA-licensed playback software does not exist. The hearing, while scheduled to include several areas of circumvention involving DVDs, primarily focused on two areas: DVD backups and region coding.
The other attendees of this hearing were Ruben Safir (NY Fair Use), Robert Moore (President, 321 Studios Inc.), Michael Einhorn, Bruce Turnbull (DVD CCA), Fritz Attaway (MPAA), Shira Perlmutter (AOL Time Warner), and Steven Mitchell (IDSA). Myself, Mr. Safir, and Mr. Moore were in favor of exemptions (for varying classes of works), while Mr. Turbull, Mr. Attaway, Ms. Perlmutter, and Mr. Mitchell opposed exemptions, with Mr. Einhorn trying not to take sides.

Ruben Safir's argument was a bit broad, in that he sought to have any protected work exempted on the basis that DRM is theft. I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think that a hearing on something as specific as 1201(a)(1)(A) was the place to try and get this done. He did say that getting the message out to the press was important, and in that, it's quite possible that he was only doing this as a way of generating publicity for his cause. His argument went all over the place, lacking a specific focus on anything in particular.

Second to speak was myself. I had a very brief talk about how nearly all commercially available DVDs are encrypted with CSS, yet all players are available for Windows or MacOS. All in all, it was a rather unremarkable argument, which didn't generate very much reply from anyone.

Following me was Mr. Moore. 321 Studios is currently in a lawsuit in California over their software DVD Copy-X, which allows people to make backup copies of DVDs. He had a very nice presentation, detailing exactly how the software worked and what measures it employed to prevent it from being used to make illegal copies of movies. He cited a number of submitted testimonials to DVDs which had become damaged and were no longer playable, and then relayed how his software is often able to gain access to data on the disc that normal DVD players can't read. His other main point was the ease with which a DVD could be rendered unplayable, beit to scratching, warping, or delamination.

Mr. Einhorn followed, talking about how he wasn't in support of or in opposition to exemptions, but that he was there only to address concerns from both sides on an economic level (he has a Ph.D in economics). He primarily address region coding, and didn't have much beyond that.

Which brings us to the opponents of exemptions. These nearly all addressed the same points, with the primary focus being on region coding, something that received little more than passing mention in the talks of the previous speakers. Only Mr. Turbull of the DVD CCA has anything to say about the 'Linux issue', saying that the CSS license is 'OS-blind', and that they had licensed it to at least 2 companies making Linux DVD players. Of those, he said one was still pursuing this, though his fatal admission (which I hope to address in post-hearing written comments) is that the company's DVD player is OEM-only, meaning to use it you have to buy a drive from a company bundling that software.

All in all, the talks were rather dull, but the question & answer period certainly brought new life into the hearing. This was the chance for the 5 member panel from the LOC to ask questions of the participants. These questions nearly all concerned region coding at the outset, a topic which was admitted by Mr. Attaway of the MPAA to be purely a marketing tool, designed as an intentional replacement to the NTSC/PAL/CCOM standards for VHS that exist. The studios claim that region coding is needed to ensure a film is only marketed where desired, even calling it (in there own words, this is a direct quote) "price discrimination". It was asked why the studios couldn't just NOT market a film (or certain versions) of a film to certain areas, and why they felt they needed to prevent people in those areas from even being able to watch these films. They didn't have any appropriate comeback to that, I felt.

The questions were mostly hypothetical, but the MPAA and AOL TW were playing semantics with them. For example, concerning the Indian movie industry, it was asked that if an Indian filmmaker released a movie on DVD with the Indian region code, why shouldn't someone in the US be able to circumvent that region code to watch the movie? The reply from AOL TW was that Indian films were not under US copyright and therefore didn't matter to these proceedings, ignoring the fact that while the situation was hypothetical for the question, it's entirely feasible for a similar thing to happen which DOES fall under US copyright law.

What eventually came up was the scope of the LOC to create exemptions. This authority is granted under 1201(a)(1)(C) and 1201(a)(1)(D), the latter reading "The Librarian shall publish any class of copyrighted works for which the Librarian has determined, pursuant to the rulemaking conducted under subparagraph (C), that noninfringing uses by persons who are users of a copyrighted work are, or are likely to be, adversely affected, and the prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to such users with respect to such class of works for the ensuing 3-year period." The opponents of exemptions argued if an exemption were to be granted for a non-infringing use, it would 'legalize' infringing uses that employed the same technological mean, and that any exemption would be 'overbroad'. I thought this was the most ridiculous thing they could possibly have said, and made the point that if the LOC doesn't grant an exemption simply because there is some infringing use that someone may conceive to be legal, then that entire section is worthless, because no exemption would ever be granted just on that basis. I also noted that any infringing use would still be illegal and covered under other sections of the copyright code.

At the end of the day, the panel's favor seemed to be with the opponents, though one can always hope I'm wrong in that observation. I hope to be allowed to submit written comments and clarifications following the hearings, since a number of point were mentioned in passing that I'd like to be able to expand on. A transcript from the hearing should be available within a few days, and when it is, I'll certainly link to it from here.

A lot's happened since my last update. Linus Torvalds shocked a lot of people by saying that he's not opposed to DRM on Linux, Larry Lessig and Rep. Zoe Logren are backing the REDUCE Spam bill (yes, that is it's name, and yes, the REDUCE does stand for something), Verizon lost it's bid to avoid having to release the name of an accused file-sharing subscriber to the RIAA, Streamcast won in court against the RIAA, Volvo filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against a small-town car museum and the MPAA vs. 321 Studios case was postponed, among other things. Some wins and some losses, which is unusual since mostly when a lot of stuff happens, it's all losses.

On Wednesday, Linus Torvalds, the man behind the Linux kernel for those who don't know, posted this thread to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, titled 'Flame Linus to a Crisp'. The gist of the email was his explanation of this quote: "I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!" Linus says that he's not playing politics with the kernel, and that he wants people to be able to do whatever they want with it, even if it's something he doesn't personally like, though he does explain why he feels that DRM (in the context of signing binaries and refusing to load unsigned ones) is a good thing. One of the biggest problems I see with DRM in this sense is that there's the potential for the operating system to totally prevent access to data or applications if the app is untrusted. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with this if it was ensured from day one that there would always be a way to get raw access to data, or to be able to run untrusted apps. And this doesn't even get into the issue of DRM in other context, like restricted data, that has limitations for accessing it.

For signing apps and such, I don't think that DRM is required, and I get the idea that Linus missed the point of just what DRM is. DRM is, to it's fullest extent, a way of managing access to protected works so that the copyright holder's rights aren't infringed by an unauthorized use of the device. There are a number of smaller parts to that, and one of the key ones is signing apps, and trusted apps, so that access to that data can be restricted to a whitelist of applications that can access that data (presumably since they would honor any and all of the usage restrictions on it). Simply signing apps, so that a person can verify that an application is really exactly what it should be, is perfectly acceptable, and strongly encouraged, in the wake of compromises of servers in which legitimate applications were replaced by trojaned versions. But this can be accomplished much more effectively, and without nearly as much controversy, by simply automating an MD5 or PGP/GPG key check before installing an application, and letting the user know if an app deviates from what it should be.

I agree with at least part of Linus' point, that signing apps is definitely a good idea, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's almost required, especially with proposed ideas like Palladium, in which an application has to be trusted and allowed to get access to data. There is no reason to completely inhibit a person from accessing their own data or data which they have a right to access. That's why I feel there definitely needs to be a way to get around the restrictions, so that there is always a way to access the data, even if something goes wrong with the 'registry' of trusted apps and access controls (think Wndows registry corruption, but without a way to restore, and you have an idea of just how easily it could happen).

In a move towards satifying part A of Larry Lessig's spam-fighting wager (if a federal anti-spam law passes, and doesn't work, he would resign from his job), California Rep. Zoe Lofgren plans to introduce the "Restrict and Eliminate Delivery of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Spam" (REDUCE Spam) bill into the House of Representatives. The bill would require the subject lines of e-mail advertisements to be prefixed with [ADV;], and also provides a 'bounty' system for reporting violators. The way the bounty works is, if an email is received that's an advertisement without the required prefix, then the first person to track down and report the sender would receive a percentage of the fine levied against the offender. The bill would also require valid return addresses, obeying and respecting choices to opt-out, and give the FTC power to collect fines against violators.

Personally, I don't think legislation is going to be able to do a whole lot against spam, most of which is sent by exploiting incompetent admins (usually in other countries) and trying to prevent it from being traced back in the first place. The use of open relays, frequently in Pacific countries like China and Taiwan, means that spammers will still have the means from which to send, and the SMTP protocol allows them to provide very little real information about the origin of the message. The bounty part will certainly compel technologically talented people to seek out the identities of spammers, but I'm curious about just how much claims are investigated. It's unlikely that the people who levy the fines are going to do the full research into it (it's almost a fact of government that the people who can do a job never get to do it), and so a clever person could simply provide fabricated evidence against an innocent party in order to claim the monetary reward. And even if the people investigating are talented enough to do it well, the sheer volume of complaints they would likely receive (some real, some not) would almost certainly keep them too busy to do the best job on any of the claims. While I don't like spam, and I have no respect for those who send it anonymously and without a way to opt-out, the potential abuses of a law like this against innocent people are too great, in my opinion. It seems likely that someone accused here would be labeled 'guilty until proven innocent', which is no way for a government to treat its citizens.

The RIAA won against Verizon in a case of copyright vs. privacy. The RIAA subpoenaed Verizon to reveal the name of one of its subscribers who they believed to be sharing files, as provided for in the DMCA. Verizon sought an injunction to prevent having to release the name, saying that the RIAA should have filed suit against John Doe, and then Verizon would have revealed the name as required under such a suit.

To me, cases like this really provide a look at why the DMCA is both redundant and bad. The RIAA, without the DMCA, has a perfectly accepted way to get the name of this person, subject to a judge allowing them, but they chose to take the route which obtained the same result, without the judicial review. I don't think it's all right to put the copyright holders in charge of enforcing copyright, especially in the case of large organizations against smaller ones or individuals who don't have the power to fight it. When that's the case, it doesn't really matter whether the copyright holder was right or wrong, because they just use their financial muscle to ensure compliance with whatever they want, with no regard to whether or not they actually have that right. When the RIAA decided they wanted the name of this person, they should have done exactly what Verizon says they should have done, filed suit against John Doe and then sought a judge's approval to compel Verizon to reveal the name. That way, they would have to present evidence of why they need to get the name, and if their case was without merit, or a blatant false accusation, it would have stopped there, without reaching the person at the end. And if they had a case, they would have gotten the name and then would have proceeded as normal. Giving the RIAA (or any private entity, for that matter) the power to do what would otherwise have required a judge, amounts to nothing more than allowing that entity to be vigilante, since they can accuse anyone of near anything, and not be subject to judicial review or any sort of reprimand for abuse of the power.

Though to put at least a dent in the RIAA's quest to eradicate any sort of file-sharing (beit legal or not), their case against Streamcast (makers of Grokster & Morpheus) was decided on Friday, with the victory going to Streamcast. The judge's decision likened the networks to VCRs or copy machines, which can infringe copyright but also have substantial noninfringing uses. The decision seems to be completely contrary to the Universal v. Reimardes case (Universal v. 2600), which said that 2600 Magazine couldn't link to the DVD decryption library DeCSS (though the cases were decided in different courts). It's a definite victory, and hopefully will go a long way toward reversing the modern trend toward assuming anything that can infringe copyright is only used for that role.

This seems like a good opportunity for me to explain exactly what my position is on file-sharing and copyright. A lot of people are under the impression that since I'm opposed to the DMCA and support rulings like this, that I support people downloading copyrighted material or blatantly infringing on copyrights. I think that copyright protection, and intellectual property law in general, is a very important part of new things being created. I believe that the creators of a work are entitled to their limited period of protection, and that this protection is critical to lots of areas of society. I think that if someone is downloading copies of copyrighted works that they would have no legitimate claim to (like downloading an MP3 of a song you own the CD of), then that's illegal and should be prosecuted. I don't think that people sharing files (so long as they have some legitimate claim to possessing them in the first place, like I just mentioned) are doing anything inherently illegal for the most part. If they're making an effort to encourage people to copy things (with a legit claim, blah blah blah) then they are most definitely facilitating copyright infringement, but I don't see a problem with someone ripping a CD and then sharing the digital copies for other people who own the album to download. The same goes for DVDs, and all sorts of other things.

I'm also opposed to the current length of a copyright term. The Constitution says that creators should be given a period of limited protection, because such protection is needed for progress in science and the arts. In other words, a creator's works are given protections so that the author can reap rewards from them, to create more works. And since I think it's designed to benefit the creator of a work, I don't see any reason why a copyright term should be any longer than the life of the author/creator. Once a person is dead, they can no longer benefit from sales or licensing of the work. The Constitution doesn't say that the son of a deceased creator should be able to make money off a work, it says that the creator is entitled to the protection so that they have incentive to create more. With current copyright terms, it's very possible for a third generation descendant to be in possession of the copyright of a years old work, and not do anything more than seek to make money from the work of someone they never knew. This isn't promoting science or the arts, it's promoting greed, at the expense of the public domain, the resources of which are often the basis for new scientific and artistic works.

Now that that's been said (and I will be more than happy to clarify any part of that), we have another example of IP abuse, in Volvo's filing of a WIPO complaint against the Volo Auto Museum alleging trademark infringement. The Volo Auto Museum is an antique and classic car museum in a town of around 200 residents, and Volvo is a worldwide auto manufacturer. Part of trademark infringement is that the accuser should have to show why they feel the other party is causing/cause harm to the finances or reputation of the accusing party. This should mean more than just being in a very general area (cars in this case) and having a similar name (Volvo/Volo); there should be (needs to be?) a very clear potential for confusing the two, and I highly doubt that a small town classic car museum is going to be mistaken for Volvo, or that any harm to Volvo's finances or reputation would result. And, since Volo is such a small group, they don't have the same means to be able to fight Volvo on this. I have a serious problem with companies who try and go after virtually defenseless groups or people, when groups or people more capable of fighting are guilty of the same behavior which is getting the small group in trouble (this is without regard to whether or not something is actually being done wrong).

And with this is more waiting for a case I've been watching with significant interest, the MPAA's suit against 321 Studios over their DVD-Copy product. The MPAA alleges that since the program allows a person to copy a DVD, it facilitates piracy and that 321 should be punished for selling it. 321 says the product is in no way designed for piracy or copyright infringement, and that it was designed for a DVD owner to be able to make a backup copy. The case was originally scheduled to be heard last Friday, but it was postponed.

This case seems like the embodiment of a point I made earlier, that groups like the MPAA feel that just because something can be used for piracy or copyright infringement, that it is only used for that, despite legitimate uses for the technology, like making a backup copy in case something should happen to the original (lost, scratched, etc.). It's ridiculous to think that a DVD or CD would last forever (though Jack Valenti has said that since a DVD is digital it should never need to be replaced), and equally ridiculous to require that if anything happens to the original, the only way to be able to listen to/watch it is to buy it again. From a profit standpoint, it's better for the RIAA/MPAA to make you buy everything multiple times, but very few people I know (and I assume in general, but I could be wrong) are not willing to buy the same thing several times. Especially following the actions and words of the RIAA/MPAA where their general idea is that you don't own the DVD or CD, but are instead buying a license to listen to the music or watch the movie that's on the physical media. Though if that were the case, they should have no problem replacing lost, stolen, or damaged media for not more than the cost of media, since we would already have purchased a license for the content, right?

And to finish things off, the final schedule for the remaining DMCA hearings is available. I will be at the 9:30 hearing on May 2, as I've said, and if anyone is interested in turning out in support or just to observe, there may be room for you to come along, if you let me know enough in advance.

The first widely used graphical web browser, Mosaic was released exactly 10 years ago today, ushering in the era of graphical web browsers, along with the Flash, Java, etc. that are (ab)used today. It's noteworthy, and provides a good segue to my next point, that today (April 22)is my birthday.

The Copyright Office has announced a period for public comments about rules for governing SoundExchange, the RIAA division charged with collecting royalty payments from webcasters. It's something to look into writing about, once my testimony about DMCA exemptions is completed.

On that same note, I've been moved to the morning session of the May 2 hearings after some email communication with Rob Kasunic of the LOC. The only thing that's changed is the time, my argument remains the same and will most likely be more relevant to the subject-at-hand at the time.

Tomorrow at 6:30 is day 2 of Adam Kosmin's small claims case against Toshiba. For those who have no idea what this about, I recommend reading my first mention of the case, my summary of day one, or Adam's site. The case will be heard at the Queens County Courthouse, same as last time, and anyone interesting in coming out to show support is encouraged to do so.

Earlier this morning, a suspicious white powder was found at a mail distribution center in Washington (state, not DC). Preliminary testing indicated it contained plague and botulism, and everyone was whipped up into a frenzy. And then, reality. And then, more powder, this time at an airport in Florida.

The Guardian has an article about the Iraqi leadership, and how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Members of the Ba'at party, who were supporters of Saddam during his reign, still hold most of the government positions and jobs in Iraq. Even if these people had no real loyalty to Saddam, and just played along, they're going to have their previous experience to work against, making it a lot harder to change things. It will be interesting to see how easily these people can work against their experiences of years past.

On Sunday, the NY Times ran an article about a former Iraqi scientist who is verifying all the US allegations of Iraqi WMD and allegedly helping point US forces to their locations. The article, however, reads like nothing more than government propoganda. The reporter was not allowed to interview the scientist, had to wait 3 days before publishing the article, and then subjected it to military officials, who reviewed it and made some suggested edits. These changes were incorporated, and any detail the article may have had is gone now. Now it says, there's a scientist who confirms all the allegations the US made for war (but hasn't substantiated), but we can't talk to him, or even mention where or what kind of weapons he knows about. This article has been widely criticized for failing to provide any evidence to back up these claims, or even show them to possibly be credible.

And since there's more to the world than just the US and Iraq, Maoist rebels in Nepal will be holding talks with the government of Nepal. A cease fire of three months ago ended a seven-year insurgency by the Maoists, and the Nepalese government has conceded it has no choice but to talk with the rebels, who have become a powerful force within Nepal.

Record labels Universal Music and EMI are suing one of Napster's investors. Hummer Winblad Venture Partners is being sued for a presently unknown amount. The labels allege that Hummer Winblad's investment in Napster contributed to copyright infringement, and are seeking punitive damages.

Since I've been making mention lately of testifying before the Library of Congress for an exemption to the DMCA, and I haven't really explained exactly what it is I'm going to be supporting, or even why I'm going, I'll take this time to explain what it is I'm testifying for, and why I'm doing so.

The crux of my argument is DRM, and it's impact on users of alternative operating systems such as Linux. Increasingly, software capable of playing protected media is being made only available on the Windows operating system. This applies to the CSS encryption of DVDs, as well as protected CDs and formats such as WMA. These protections prevent access to the media on a computer, except through these proprietary players or formats, which may be bundled with the media. Under §1201(a)(1) of the DMCA , circumvention of an access control mechanism is prohibited, leaving users of non-Windows operating systems without a way to access the media which they legitimately purchased. Circumvention for this purpose does not infringe on any copyright, and as such, there is no reason for such a circumvention to be prohibited.

The most obvious case of this is with DVDs. Most DVDs that you can buy are encrypted with something called CSS (Content Scrambling System). This is a patented technology, and to use it, one must license it from the DVD CCA. Since the CSS technology controls access to the work, it is illegal under §1201(a)(1) of the DMCA to decrypt this without a license. While the DVD CCA has claimed it had licensed the technology for Linux players as far back as 2000, there are still no licensed players for Linux. Presently, the only way to watch a DVD movie under Linux is to use a library such as libdecss or libdvdnav, both of which circumvent the encryption and as such are illegal to distribute or use in the US.

Circumventing the encryption used by CSS is not necessary to make copies of the DVD, though, as it is only an encryption technology and not a copy protection measure. Making a copy of the DVD would result in a playable copy, since the encrypted data can be copied without restriction. This means that a copied DVD would still play on any licensed DVD player as though it were an original. The circumvention here only prevents the movie from being played in an unlicensed player, not from copies being made.

Another example is audio CDs that are being distributed with a data track in addition to the audio tracks. This data track contains compressed digital media files of the tracks of the CD, in the WMA (Windows Media Audio) format. This format is proprietary to Windows, and usage of a decoder would require a license from Microsoft. Since MS is reluctant or unwilling to license it's proprietary format (and therefore a Windows selling point), there will not be a WMA decoder for Linux any time soon. For Linux users, this means that they will be unable to play CDs protected in this manner on their computer, rendering the CD practically useless if their only CD player is their computer, which is not uncommon.

These uses clearly do not infringe on a copyright, yet they are granted legal protections above and beyond that of basic copyright. Since these uses are non-infringing, and the techniques required to allow them do not ease illicit access or use of the works (any more than is already the case), there's no reason that these should be subject to an overly harsh restriction on the tools needed to enable them.

Why am I going? The DMCA has a provision to allow the Library of Congress to create exemptions to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Beginning late last year, the LOC began accepting comments supporting exemptions, followed by reply comments supporting or opposing exemptions. The next step is this one, hearings before the LOC on classes of work for which exemptions are sought. And this is where my saga begins.

If you're interested in knowing more, or more detail, let me know and I can explain it more.

In other news, Adam Kosmin's second day in NY Small Claims court against Toshiba is coming up on April 23. As is customary for first-time cases in Small Claims, the hearing was postponed from March 6 to April 23. As with the first scheduled hearing, I will be attending in support of Adam as he attempts to get his due refund from Toshiba for an unused & unwanted copy of Windows that came bundled with a refurbished laptop he purchased.

As I'm writing this, I just received the schedule for the remaining DMCA hearings:

May 1
1:30 p.m.

1. Exemption for eBooks:
Janina Sajika, American Federation of the Blind
Jonathan Band, ALA/ARL..
Robert Bolick, AAP
Alan Adler, AAP

May 2

1. DVD tethering/alternative platforms:
DVD backups/noninfringing uses
Region Coding
Michael Einhorn, PhD, Economist
Robert Moore, 321 Studios
Rubin Safir, New Yorkers for Fair Use
Bruce Turnbull, DVD CCA
Shira Perlmutter, Time Warner
Fritz Attaway, MPAA
Stevan Mitchell, IDSA


2. Damaged, obsolete, malfunction
Noninfringing uses
Joe Montoro, Spectrum Software
Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive
Shawn Hernan, CERT
Jonathan Band, ALA/ARL...
Jay Sultzberger, NYers for Fair Use
Phil Gengler
Chris Mohr, Reed Elsevier
Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA
Emery Simon, BSA
May 9
9:30 a.m.
1. Lexmark/Static Control:
Seth Greenstein, Static Control
Representative for Lexmark

2. Broadcast Flag
Todd Murphy, Pro Sherman, IABM
Susan Fox, Disney

In site news, the previous 'links' section has been renamed 'persona', and a new section added, 'linkage'. This section will feature daily links (hopefully), as well as general links, with archives and search to be added shortly (by the end of this weekend, if all goes well). If you have a link you feel is worthy of a daily link, send it to me.

As I mentioned yesterday, some Republicans in the Senate are seeking to have some of the temporary powers of the USA PATRIOT Act made permanent.

The powers in question here are only related to surveillence, and not the other broad powers of the act. Specifically, Title II of the act (with the exceptions of sections 203(a), 203(b), 205, 208, 210, 211, 213, 216, 219, 221, and 222) would expire in 2005. Not that much of a gain, as the exceptions cover nearly half of that single title (the whole act consists of 10 titles, but it's a small step nonetheless.

This change is slated to be added to a bill by Senators Jon Kyl (R, AZ) and Charles Schumer (D, NY) that would increase leniancy in investigations of 'lone wolf' terrorist groups. Senate Democrats may propose an amendment to that bill which would increase restrictions on obtaining secret warrants, and as a counter, Republicans have threatened to propose this as an amendment.

The Justice Department is defending the proposal, stating that is has "allowed the FBI to move faster and more flexibly to disrupt terrorists before they strike"¹ and they "don't want that to expire," despite that fact that the law specifically says these provisions will 'sunset' in 2005. Of course, seeing the government disregarding it's own laws wouldn't come as a surprise to me, since the USA PATRIOT Act itself clearly violates several Constitutional requirements of law enforcement.

Librarians are beginning to show their distaste for the act, by shredding records so the FBI cannot gain access to them. Along with posting warnings about the possibilities, librarians are finally taking a stand against the act. Hopefully, this will stir up more public awareness of just what the act is, and why it's a bad thing.

The USA PATRIOT Act isn't the major law in the news lately, as the DMCA has once again reared it's ugly head. The case of Edelman v N2H2 was recently heard and decided on. N2H2 is a company that writes, sells and maintains a piece of Internet filtering software. The list of filtered sites is encrypted, and Ben Edelman wanted to be able to break the encryption to view the sites on that list. This practice violates the DMCA, as it circumvents an access control technology. The lawsuit here was brought by Mr. Edelman, seeking immunity from a lawsuit by N2H2. The case was heard on Mar. 31, and on April 7, N2H2's motion to dismiss was granted. Judge Sterns wrote that "[t]here is no plausibly protected constitutional interest that ... outweighs N2H2's right to protect its copyrighted property from an invasive and destructive trespass." This decision is a disappointment, though no entirely unexpected, given that the judge was almost hostile to Edelman's side (argued by the ACLU).

In random site news, the new pictures/images section is open, though so far it only contains my photos from 2001-09-11.

SFGate, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/09/MN257910.DTL

I just got off the phone with Rob Kasunic of the Copyright Office, and it appears that I will indeed be taking a trip to Washington, DC, for an afternoon hearing on May 2nd. It seems that in the wake of organizing this Friday's hearing, and reorganizing the other dates, those who have had their requests accepted are just being notified now.

Since no update is complete at just a single paragraph, the NY Times brings news that Republicans want to make some anti-terrorism powers permanent. Certain provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act are set to 'expire' in 2005, a move that was important to get support for the bill in the first place. It's rumored that the changes will be attached to another anti-terrorism bill due for a vote before the full Senate late this month.

Do Ashcroft's actions of late seem to parallel the McCarthyism of the early 1950s? I'm not the only one who thinks so. If I had any artistic talent, I would draw a political cartoon of this: the left half, captioned '1953', would have Sen. McCarthy holding a newspaper and shouting 'Communists!', while the right half, titled '2003' would have A.G. Ashcroft in the same setting, except he would be shouting 'Terrorists!'.

The President of MTU doesn't seem too happy about the RIAA's recent move against one of MTU's students. The basis of the response is that MTU should have been consulted in some way before this action was taken, so that the MTU administration could have dealt with the situation beforehand. Some of the disappointment expressed by MTU President Curtis Tompkins stems from the prior cooperation between MTU and the RIAA. At some point, the RIAA will have to realize that it can't just go around and piss off everyone it has dealings with, like they've been doing for the past few years.

David Rocci, a retailer of mod chips for the Xbox, has been sentanced to 5 months in prison, 5 months of home detention, 3 years probation, and a $28,500 fine. For what? For selling mod chips, which allegedly are circumvention devices under the DMCA. The government's claim was that the mod chip allowed pirated software to be played on the Xbox. Despite the fact that mod chips have perfectly legitimate uses, like playing imported games, they are frequently presented by some as having only one purpose: pirating games. Of course, the DMCA's 'criminalize everything' technique, or at least, the application of that technique in the name of the DMCA is getting ridiculous.

Nope, still nothing regarding my request to testify, I assume this means I won't be going.

On Friday, Democracy Now! did an interview with CNN's Aaron Brown. The interview starts off with Steve Rendall of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) asking about the (lack of) coverage of the anti-war movement, and CNN's pro-war bias. This topic becomes a rather heated argument between Brown and Rendall, and eventually changes to the question, should we be asked questions about the war? It's Aaron Brown's position that no, we shouldn't be asked people like military generals about the legality of the war. Concluding the interview is probing about the possibility that all CNN scripts have to be approved and/or edited before they can be aired. If this is true, which I don't have a hard time believing, than it practically invalidates all of CNN's claims about being unbiased and objective about reporting the war. This subject is brought up several times throughout the interview, which can be streamed as a RealAudio stream.

PBS is running an overview of proposed changes to the FCC regulations regarding ownership of media outlets. The changes would ease the restrictions on owning multiple media sources, and has the potential to create a virtual monopoly in all telecommunications, much like already exists in the radio world as a result of FCC deregulation.

An interesting discussion over at GNN mentions a CNN poll reporting that 68% of Americans surveyed support war even if no weapons of mass destruction are ever found. As I'm sure you're all aware, I'm wary to trust CNN data, but at the same time I have a hard time they could or would make something like this up, or skew something they already had to this effect. Unless the questions were loaded to seek this sort of response, which is not something I would put past CNN to do.

Larry Lessig has a new new blog entry about the Pennsylvania censorship blacklists. The quick background is that, a PA court ruled that all ISPs serving residents of PA would be given a list of sites (ostensibly containing child pornography, the subject matter of the case) that they would have to prevent access to. The problem is that the list is kept a secret, and with the exception of a few government officials and the necessary employees of the ISP, no one has access to the list. Meaning it's significantly harder to determine when a site is being blocked without cause. The Attorney General of PA stands behind the idea, saying that allowing public access to the list would be a dissemination of child pornography, which is illegal. The fact that the list is secret, and not subject to judicial review, means that there's virtually no accountability for any inaccuracy of the list. Site owners who feel they've been blocked unfairly have to start by proving that they're being blocked, and once they get past that, they're assumed to be hosting child porn. This clearly isn't 'innocent until proven guilty', it's quite the opposite, a phenomenon that's been manifesting itself more and more in today's society.

Speaking of 'guilty until proven innocent', the NY Times has a story about the detention of Maher Hawash, a 38-year old Intel engineer. He has been held for nearly 3 weeks in solitary confinement, without being charged with anything. The government has said nothing except that he is a 'material witness' in an ongoing investigation. This case sounds quite similar to that of Jose Padilla, another American citizen who was held for months without being given access to an attorney, which is a Constitutional guarantee.

Yahoo News is running what amounts to a major correction to a an earlier story. The first story reported that US troops had found the 'smoking gun' in the form of a weapons plant containing sarin gas. As it turns out, the plant was producing pesticides, not chemical weapons. In a somewhat related story, appended to the first Yahoo story, some US troops have been ordered to discard their chemical protection suits, since it's believed they won't be needed.

The title for this update, to give credit, is paraphrased from the lyrics of the song Rattlesnake by Live.

Well, April 4 has come and gone, and I haven't heard anything from the LOC about testimony regarding DMCA exemptions. Hopefully, I'll receive some word from them on Monday about this.

Friday's Washington Post carried an article about Alan Greenspan's remarks about restoring balance to copyright law.

"Are the protections sufficiently broad to encourage innovation but not so broad as to shut down follow-on innovation?" was one of the questions he posed in his presentation.

Since Alan Greenspan represents "the voice of God", as I've heard it put, to those in the financial and investment businesses, this should most definitely spur some thinking, and possibly some change, from these sectors.

The RIAA is suing 4 college students, 2 from RPI, 1 from Princeton, and 1 from Michigan Tech, for up to an estimated $97.8 billion dollars each for running programs which indexed public Windows shares. Not for having the files on their computer, or even knowing what kind of files were being shared through information gleaned from the programs, but for merely running a program to index open Windows shares. In this case, those that the RIAA should be going after are the ones with the open shares of music, not the ones who wrote a program to index those, and also any other shares. The lawsuit comes without any warning, as network admins for the school's did not receive any notification from the RIAA, which the admins say they would have acted on.
$97.8 billion dollars, the amount sought from the MTU student, is close to 9 times the total revenue of all the RIAA members, according to their own figures. And that's just what they're seeking from ONE of the students.

Look for a larger update on lots of things tomorrow.

I just received confirmation of receipt of my Request To Testify, on Friday I will know whether or not I'll be taking a trip to DC.

Dear Mr. Gengler,

This message is a confirmation of timely receipt of your request to
testify. Your request will be considered and you will receive an agenda
of the hearing schedule when it is finalized.

Regards,

Rob Kasunic


_________________________
Rob Kasunic, Senior Attorney and Advisor
U.S. Copyright Office
PO Box 70400
Washington, DC 20024-0400
(202) 707-0229
rkas@loc.gov

In other news since my last update, PayPal is being charged under the USA PATRIOT Act, for allowing illegal gambling transactions, and for the fact that they don't operate under the same regulations as wire services.

Chicago mayor Richard Daley exemplified the ridiculous of some of the 'precautions' being taken to prevent terrorism, when he ordered the destruction of Meigs field, a small Chicago airstrip.

"The mayor acknowledged there were no specific security threats to Meigs, but insisted that closing the airport could someday help prevent a tragedy in which a terrorist aboard a small plane might slam into a high rise or big crowd downtown."

Reuters is running an article titled "No Sign Yet of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction", which details the lack of any WMD found by anyone in Iraq. A war to disarm is quickly looking more and more like the imperialistic attacks some other nations are claiming this 'war' to be.

MSNBC fired Peter Arnett for giving an interview to Iraqi TV, in which he said that "he American-led war effort initially failed because of Iraq's resistance." He apologized for the statement, but added "I said over the weekend what we all know about this war." Now we have reporters being fired for telling the truth, and the major news outlets expect us to believe they're being honest and unbiased.

In another example of a network censoring 'unfavorable' comments, CBS is refusing to air a Gateway ad in which Gateway features several products designed to facilitate copying digital music files. The website shown, ripburnrespect.com, is claimed to feature "information about legal and illegal forms of digital music recording. For instance, it tells consumers they have a right to make copies of their own CDs for personal use, but they aren't entitled to make copies to pass out to friends." This wouldn't be so bad, except is is perfectly legal to make copies solely for personal use, and Gateway is right in saying that distributing the copies is illegal. CBS, an avid proponent of a law to require anti-copying technologies, disagrees with the law, apparently.

Fred von Lohmann, attorney for the EFF, has this to say about CBS's decision: "I think it's ironic that when the industry tries to educate the consumer about copyright law, CBS can't be bothered to run the ad."

Following is my Request To Testify before the Library of Congress regarding exceptions to the DMCA's prohibitions on circumvention (and also an explanation of what I mean).

As per the Notice of Public Hearings of March 20, 2003, I am requesting
the opportunity to testify before the LOC regarding exceptions to
circumvention restrictions.

NAME: Philip Gengler
ORGANIZATION: None (representing myself)
CONTACT INFORMATION:
EMAIL: pgengler@stevens-tech.edu
DAYTIME PHONE: (212) 948-2670
EVENING PHONE: (201) 659-9763
MAILING ADDRESS:
903 Castle Point Terrace
Hoboken, NJ 07030
PERMANENT ADDRESS:
3 Catawba Drive
Hamilton, NJ 08690
CLASSES OF WORKS: The playback and/or use of protected red-book audio CDs,
media files, and DVDs on non-mainstream computer operating systems and
platforms.
SUMMARY: Increasingly, copyrighted works distributed on CD or DVD, or as a
digital download, require to a special player or viewer to access. In
almost all cases, this player or viewer is only made available for the
Microsoft Windows operating system, with Apple's MacOS being supported
to a lesser extent. These are not the only operating systems, however,
and alternatives such as Linux are gaining popularity. Users of these
alternative systems are without a legal way to access a work they have
obtained legally. An exemption should be added to allow these users
access to works of this class.
A/V MATERIAL: None
DESIRED LOCATION: Washington, DC
PREFERRED DATE: Any

Thank you,
Philip Gengler

Ok, now for some explanation of what this means and why I'm doing it.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), among other things, prohibits circumvention of an access control technology protecting any work. It also provides for the Library Of Congress to consider and implement any exceptions to this prohibition.

Beginning last November, the LOC allowed submission of written comments in favor of or opposed to exceptions. Following was a period of accepting reply comments, ending last month. Finally, on March 20, the LOC began accepting requests to provide testimony on the subject.

The particular class of work I wish to address is playback of copy-protected CDs, DVDs, and media files (like MP3s) on operating systems that an authorized player is not provided for (Linux being my example). I feel that an exception should be added to allow Linux users (and users of other OSs) to gain access to a work they paid for and obtained legally. Currently, gaining access requires prohibited tools, like DeCSS, which cannot legally be distributed in the US.

The hearings are being held in Washington, DC on April 11, April 15, April 30, and May 2. I will update when I have received a response (by April 4).