Month: March 2022

Die Gasversorgung für den nächsten Winter ist noch nicht gesichert. Verband fordert, dass Bürger darauf vorbereitet werden, ihre Heizungen abzudrehen

Westlicher Nachbarstaat will Laufzeit für zwei Reaktoren um eine Dekade auf 50 Betriebsjahre strecken. Das sorgt für Irritation und Kritik

In 2019, a U.S. District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release.

Hansmeier was a key player at the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent.

While suing alleged pirates is not illegal, Prenda Law went much further. Over the years the firm faced negative court rulings over identity theft, misrepresentation, and even deception.

Most controversial were the shocking revelations that Prenda itself produced adult videos and uploaded its own torrents to The Pirate Bay. In doing so, the company created a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirate downloads.

The Prenda Honeypot Reboot

Despite his guilty plea and conviction, Hansmeier continues to appeal his sentence to this day. To make a point, the lawyer even restarted his honeypot scheme from prison, targeting people who pirate adult content.

Representing himself from prison, Hansmeier filed several lawsuits. These didn’t just target infringers but also companies that allegedly violated the ADA, as well as the prosecutors of his criminal case and US attorneys.

Without going too deeply into the legal arguments, Hansmeier appeared to be using the lawsuit and honeypot schemes to help his appeal. He basically wanted to show that the honeypot scheme they ran earlier wasn’t all that bad.

Among other things, he sought declaratory and injunctive relief on the theory that the federal mail fraud, wire fraud, and extortion statutes – based on which he was convicted – are unconstitutional.

Federal Defendants Ask Court to Stop Hansmeier

The lawsuits came as a surprise to the companies and persons who were targeted. This is also true for the federal defendants, which include current and former US Attorneys David MacLaughlin, W. Anders Folk , and Benjamin Langner.

The federal defendants were not happy with the dozens of cases that were filed. They argued that Hansmeier was merely trying to take revenge, noting that the complaints are insufficient to pursue a legitimate claim against any of the individual or company defendants.

Many of the lawsuits were consolidated into one docket and the federal defendants requested these to be dismissed. In addition, they asked the Minnesota federal court to issue restrictive measures, so Hansmeier would not simply file dozens of new lawsuits.

“The requested restriction is sought here because of the proliferation of dozens of duplicative and vexatious lawsuits Hansmeier is now pursuing,” they argued.

“The repetitive nature of his filings and their rapidly increasing number suggest that Hansmeier intends to be vexatious. Second, it appears clear that Hansmeier’s lawsuits are little more than an attempt to harass his former federal criminal prosecutors.”

Specifically, Hansmeier should be stopped from filing new copyright lawsuits, ADA complaints, or cases against the federal defendants without explicit approval from the Chief Judge of the District of Minnesota.

Court Grants Restrictions and Dismissals

A few days ago, US District Judge John Turnheim granted the restriction request. According to the court, the lawsuits are ultimately about a determination of the constitutionality of the challenged statutes. This is an issue that has already been decided previously.

“Hansmeier’s insistence on filing numerous lawsuits on identical issues in the hopes of reaching a different outcome can only be described as frivolous and duplicative if not, arguably, harassing and abusive,” Judge Turnheim writes.

“To regulate this district’s docket, promote judicial efficiency, and deter frivolous filings by Hansmeier, the Court will place appropriately tailored filing restrictions on him,” he adds.

As a result of the ruling, Hansmeier is no longer allowed to file new copyright cases, ADA lawsuits, or complaints against the federal defendants in the District of Minnesota. In addition, all of the pending cases were dismissed.

Based on our interpretation of the ruling, this means that Hansmeier’s pirate honeypot scheme is effectively shut down in Minnesota.

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A copy of US District Judge John Turnheim’s order granting the restrictions and the dismissals is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Vodafone will seine Towers jedoch lieber mit denen der Deutschen Telekom oder Orange zusammenlegen. (Telekommunikation, Vodafone)

Das Seekabel Equiano ist in Togo gelandet, noch in diesem Jahr geht der Bau weiter. Google finanziert das Projekt. (Seekabel, Google)

Mit dem Krieg in der Ukraine ist eine Konfrontation zwischen den Nuklearmächten Russland und Nato denkbar geworden. Zehn Fragen und Antworten zu den möglichen Folgen

Since 2017, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the supervising body and publisher for the Jehovah’s Witness religious group, has filed more than 70 DMCA subpoena applications in the United States.

When taken at face value, they all tell a straightforward story. Someone on the internet has breached Watch Tower’s copyrights and, as a result, their true names and addresses should be handed over so that the group can seek remedy for infringement.

Most (if not all) of these cases are targeted at the religion’s critics but not once has Watch Tower followed up with a copyright claim after obtaining the identity of an alleged offender. That raises the question of whether the DMCA is being used for copyright enforcement or simply as a tool to crack down on anonymous speech by so-called ‘apostates’.

Silencing an Apostate

One such critic is ‘Kevin McFree’, the creator of a series of Lego animations that criticize the religious group. In 2018, Watch Tower sought to silence that speech by filing a DMCA subpoena application to obtain his personal details.

McFree fought back against the request and despite limited means to defend himself, came out victorious. After reviewing McFree’s videos, last month a New York judge denied the Watch Tower application declaring that McFree’s use of Watch Tower clips was permitted under fair use.

However, Watch Tower is still pursuing a parallel copyright infringement lawsuit against McFree in another court. It covers exactly the same content and is supported by exactly the same arguments. Watch Tower doesn’t care. Instead it is doubling down and trying to de-anonymize McFree in this action, regardless of the earlier ‘fair use’ determination and in the knowledge that McFree doesn’t have the means to defend himself.

Until now, that is.

Public Citizen Litigation Group Steps In

Public Citizen Litigation Group is a public interest law firm in the United States that specializes in First Amendment rights, which includes the Supreme Court-endorsed right to anonymous free speech. The nonprofit group has now stepped in to defend not only fair use but McFree’s right to remain anonymous. The latter comes with a fairly delicious twist.

In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a Stratton, Ohio, ordinance that made it a misdemeanor to canvass or solicit door-to-door without a permit. The Court found that the ordinance violated First Amendment protections for anonymous free speech, a clear and important win for the plaintiff…..Watch Tower.

One of the Watch Tower attorneys supporting anonymous speech in that case was Paul D. Polidoro. Yet now, two decades later, Polidoro is also the Watch Tower attorney doing everything in his power to de-anonymize McFree. The content created by McFree was deleted years ago and has been recently cleared by a judge as protected under fair use but Watch Tower refuses to back off.

“Watch Tower is Trying its Luck”

In a recent letter to Judge Cathy Seibel at a New York district court, Public Citizen attorney Paul Levy begins with an overview of Watch Tower’s DMCA subpoena application (filed at another court) that tried and failed to remove McFree’s anonymity. Levy notes that the judge in that matter determined that there was no infringement since McFree’s critical parodies were protected under fair use.

“Watch Tower has not appealed; instead, it is trying its luck before a different district judge,” Levy informs Judge Seibel.

“Parties that litigate subpoenas to identify anonymous Internet users, and lose because they cannot establish a prima facie claim on the merits (here, a claim of copyright infringement), cannot bring a second proceeding based on the same claim. Rulings on motions to quash are entitled to full res judicata effect over subsequent subpoenas seeking substantially the same information concerning the same parties.”

Watch Tower previously suggested the DMCA subpoena decision wasn’t relevant since Watch Tower was denied the opportunity to conduct discovery and was denied “a fair and full opportunity to litigate.” However, in that matter the judge said that discovery wasn’t needed for him to determine that McFree was protected under fair use.

Shining a Light on Watch Tower’s ‘Copyright Abuse’

“[I]f the merits of this case have to be litigated, McFree will rely on res judicata, fair use, and the First Amendment, as well as the defense of copyright misuse,” Levy informs the court.

“We expect to address Watch Tower’s history of pursuing similarly abusive copyright claims against dissatisfied members – ‘apostates,’ in Watch Tower’s terms – who use its copyrighted works solely for the purpose of criticism…using the threat of ‘shunning’ to suppress open dissent.”

As demonstrated in an RIAA music piracy case ruling back in 2010, alleged copyright infringers cannot simply claim First Amendment anonymity rights to avoid liability. If the presented evidence persuades the court that there is a case to answer, the right to anonymity can be overridden. However, the judge in the DMCA subpoena matter previously addressed the RIAA ruling and found no evidence that McFree infringed copyright.

Levy also addresses an attempt by Watch Tower to conduct discovery against the currently anonymous McFree by serving him via email. The religious group cited a case where that was allowed against a group of counterfeiters selling infringing goods but Levy says that the McFree case bears no resemblance to that one.

“[M]cFree is not evading court process: he has faithfully engaged with court process, retaining counsel in both the DMCA subpoena case as well as this one. Moreover, McFree lives in England, where the law forbids service via email except by express permission,” the attorney writes.

Reign of Terror Against Fair Use

A key feature of similar Watch Tower cases against supposed infringers is the religious group’s ability to wield its power against much weaker opponents. In a separate blog post, Levy describes the complaint against McFree as “indiscriminate bullying” and calls for the formation of a broader project to stop Watch Tower from abusing copyright law.

“We need to find a way to stop Watch Tower’s reign of terror against bloggers who engage in fair use,” Levy says.

“We at Public Citizen can only take so many such cases. I’d be glad to hear from other lawyers, especially those able to practice in the Southern District of New York where Watch Tower has consistently filed its DMCA subpoenas, who are ready to provide pro bono representation (even as local counsel for others) to oppose DMCA subpoenas seeking to identify those who make use of Watch Tower materials for the purpose of commentary.”

Public Citizen’s letter to the court can be found here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Im Metaverse gibt's was zu trinken. Heineken hat das virtuelle Bier in einer virtuellen Brauerei in Decentraland vorgestellt. (Meta, Mark Zuckerberg)

Apple’s Macs with M1 series processors offer the best performance-per-watt of any laptop or desktop computers available at the moment. But the transition from using Intel chips to custom-made ARM processors limits your options for running software other than macOS.

You can no longer dual boot Windows on a Mac (although you can run it in a virtual machine using software like Parallels). And most Linux distributions that were compatible with older Macs won’t work on new models with Apple Silicon. But the folks at the Asahi Project have been working on bringing Linux to Apple Silicon, and now they’ve released the first public Alpha of Asahai Linux for Macs with M1 chips.

At this point, the software is still aimed at developers and power users who can help file bug reports. Things are still pretty rough around the edges: There’s no support for Bluetooth, cameras, or sleep mode yet. DisplayPort and Thunderbolt ports aren’t working yet, nor are the HDMI ports on MacBooks. And GPU and video codec acceleration are unsupported. Fortunately, the Asahi team says that the M1 CPU is so fast that software rendering works very well for video and graphics.

Speakers and controls for display brightness and other settings aren’t working yet either, but they should be soon. The headphone jack should work for audio if you’re using a model with an M1 chip, but Macs with M1 Pro or Max processors use a different audio codec, so that’s still a work in progress.

But most other basic features are working including WiFi , Ethernet, USB, storage, keyboards, touchpads, and CPU frequency switching. So you should be able to use a Mac running Asahi Linux for basic computing functionality, but you’d probably still want to switch back to macOS if you need to take full advantage of the computer’s capabilities… for now. Fortunately, the Asahi Linux installer is designed to set up a dual boot system that allows you to choose between macOS and Asahi at startup.

Anyone who wants to give it a try just needs a Mac with an Apple M1, M1 Pro, or M1 Max processor, at least 53GB of free disk space, an internet connection, and macOS 12.3 or later. Note that the recently released Mac Studio isn’t yet supported.

Asahi Linux is based on Arch Linux, and a full install also includes the Plasma desktop environment, but there’s also an option for a minimal environment that will let you customize your experience. You can also use the Asahi installer just to install a UEFI boot environment that allows you to load other supported software.

Right now there aren’t really any other supported operating systems that I’m aware of. But the Asahi team says there are plans to work with other developers to port existing Linux distributions to Apple Silicon.

You can find more details in the Asahi Linux Alpha Release announcement.

The post Asahi Linux Alpha lets you run Linux on Apple Silicon appeared first on Liliputing.