Today, I received an email from the Western District of Washington’s e-filing folks. They wanted to give us a heads up on RECAP and where the district stood on the use of the software.
“The court would like to make CM/ECF filers aware of certain security concerns relating to a software application or “plug-in” called RECAP, which was designed by a group from Princeton University to enable the sharing of court documents on the Internet.
Once a user loads RECAP, documents that he or she subsequently accesses via PACER are automatically sent to a public Internet repository.Other RECAP/PACER users are then able to see whether documents are availablefrom the Internet repository.RECAP captures District and Bankruptcy Court documents.
At this time, RECAP does not appear to provide users with access to restricted or sealed documents.Please be aware that RECAP is “open-source” software, which can be freely obtained by anyonewith internet access and modified for benign or malicious purposes, such as facilitating unauthorized access to restricted or sealed documents.
Accordingly, CM/ECF filers are reminded to be diligent about their computer security practices to ensure that documents are not inadvertently shared or compromised.
The court and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts will continue to analyze the implications of RECAP or related software and advise you of any ongoing or further concerns.”
Really? Free access and file sharing of court records for which I typically pay .08 per page? I immediately went to the RECAP website and read what they had to say.
Last week the Center did a round-up of leading technology-focused sites that have covered RECAP. Now, it seems that news of RECAP is spreading beyond the “tech blogosphere,” as more mainstream publications have begun writing about our software. Foreign Policy’s Evgeny Morozov covered RECAP, calling it “smart and subversive.” On Wednesday NextGov, a National Journal publication widely read within the government IT community, ran a thorough write-up of RECAP by Aliya Sternstein. It included some good background on how RECAP fits into the larger debate about judicial transparency.
Finally, Katherine Mangu-Ward has penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal about RECAP. Katherine calls RECAP “a sleek little add-on” with “a stylish and subversive touch.”
I downloaded it on the spot. After all, these are public records. You aren’t paying $0.08 a page to license a copyrighted work (or $0.80 for a copyrighted mp3), the fee is to give you access to the pacer system.
Wait then, am I violating a license to use PACER? A little research turned this up:
The PACER system provides electronic access to case information from federal courts across the United States. The information gathered from the PACER system is a matter of public record and may be reproduced without permission. However, the PACER customer assumes all responsibility for consequences that arise from use of the data.”
Unfortunately, I appear to be the only one using RECAP on cases I’m monitoring, but now others can access the information I’m collecting.
The Washington State Bar Association has gone creative in an attempt to engage Washington residents with the legal system, new media, and creating user-generated content for YouTube.
The Mission: “Create a three-minute-or-less video that captures your vision of justice for all as citizens of Washington state, and win one of two $1,000 prizes!”
The Criteria: Winners will be chosen in two categories: one winner as selected by a panel of judges, and one People’s Choice winner chosen from among all entries. Individuals, groups or classrooms may enter, and be eligible for either award. One entry may be awarded both awards.
Professor Charles Nesson, Founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society has come to the defense of Joel Tenenbaum, who was among dozens of people who appeared in court in RIAA cases without legal help.
The 24-year-old Tenenbaum is a graduate student accused by the RIAA of downloading at least seven songs and making 816 music files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004. He offered to settle the case for $500, but music companies rejected that, demanding $12,000. (See RODRIQUE NGOWI’s story on myway.com–exerpt below.)
“Professor Nesson is argueing that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group - the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA - carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court.”
According to Professor Nesson’s blog, this case is about more than standing up to a Mafia-like RIAA that is out to teach kids like Joel Tenenbaum, “that there is a real world out here. It’s a world of pain imposed on you by power. [It's] time for the recording industry to see that reality has changed, and all their lobbying power in the congress, and all their litigating power in the courts, and all their manipulation of the public mind to equate sharing music with theft, cannot stop the growth of a digital environment in which peers have ability to gather and share.”
What if you could organize your social network around your media consumption habits? How about using your network to filter video and music content? uPlayme thinks it may have found the content sweet spot with its new application that sits on your desktop, sees the content you play on applications like iTunes and websites like Pandora and YouTube, and creates a social network that lets you chat, connect and share with new friends online.
The catch is that uPlayMe will depend on you to find and share content from non-pirated sources (YouTube is a bit suspect) and from sources that have already paid the hefty licensing fees to broadcast music (Internet Radio is hanging by a thread). If it manages not to increase the flow of pirated content, uPlayMe should be able to legitimately make moneywithout paying licensing fees or getting permission from rights holders. It’s an interesting model that mixes clearly non-infringing content (iTunes) with content that almost certainly infringes (YouTube). We’ll have to see how this plays out.
In remarks published on Friday, the Swedish government said that Sweden should require Internet service providers to hand over information identifying people involved in illegal file sharing. The government plans to present a proposal on implementing this policy within the next few month.
Sweden has previously been seen as haven for file sharers, with several members of parliament going so far as to call for decriminalizing file sharing. That all changed when Swedish prosecutors filed charges against four people suspected of running Sweden-based Pirate Bay, one of the world’s most popular websites for illegal downloading of films, music and computer games.
The United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8) instructs Congress that it is “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”
But the founding fathers never thought about whether file sharing is theft or where the line should be drawn between inspiration and plagiarism in the fashion industry. In some U.S. industries (most notably motion pictures and music), congress has enacted extraordinary penalties for both people who share, copy or illegally view the copyrighted materials, and the people who pirate the content. However, in the fashion industry, Congress (unlike its counterparts in the EU) has resisted providing designers with any protection for their designs.
However, that could change if H.R. 2033 is enacted into law. Something that looks more likely this year then ever before.
Buried in the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (H.R. 4137), which passed 354 - 58 in the house last week, are some chilling and expensive provisions requiring Universities to monitor the file sharing conducted by students on campus networks, or risk loosing accreditation.
Section 488 of the bill requires institutions that receive Federal student aid funds to adopt policies and sanctions related to copyright infringement, including:
an annual statement warning students that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material (file sharing) may subject the students to civil and criminal liabilities;
a summary of the penalties for violation of Federal copyright laws;
a description of the institution’s policies for punishing student file sharing; and
a description of the institution’s efforts to prevent and detect file sharing.
Section 494 of the bill entitled “CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION” requires each Federal student aid receiving institution to–
make available to their students information related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials and
develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.
The White House released a critical statement of the bill on February 6, 2008, mainly opposing racial quotas. The new level of (expensive) oversight that universities would need to conduct in order to continue receiving Federal student aid funds received no mention.
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