overt.org

Here is a PDF of the court order I was sent that scared me enough
to take down my mirror of cp4break. I’m currently working with student judicial services here at UT
to get the mirror back up. I may have to get my own lawyer in order to be able to ask the questions
I need to ask, and since I can’t afford one, the big corporations win again. Sigh.

As you may have noticed, overt.org’s DeCSS mirror has folded along with the cp4break mirror.
This removal is because of action taken to contact my school (ISP) by the MPAA via email. After
they were contacted, my site was and account were disabled until I spoke with a site administrators
here on campus, who reinstated my account on order that I not post DeCSS. I might say to UT’s credit
that while some within the school would support me ideologically, they cannot compete with the legal
barrage fired by the MPAA against the program. I’m breathlessly awaiting a final ruling expected this
summer regarding the legality of DeCSS and its distribution.

You can read more about this and other advocacy issues on the advocacy page.

Australia is notorious for their censorship policies against the public, but even I had trouble beliving this one:

“As a result of blatant abuse of political power, the editors of a student newspaper called Rabelais were prosecuted for publishing this article. It is republished here as an act of civil disobedience and an illustration of the appalling reach of Australia’s censorship system.

To the best of my knowledge this page violates no NSW law, nor is it in violation of Sydney University’s Code of Conduct for content providers. The Rabelais issue was classified before the “uniform national scheme” for publications came into effect, and it was classified ‘Restricted Category 1’ in NSW and ‘Refused Classifiction’ in other states. (If this page were classified ‘Refused Classifcation’ in NSW, then it would be in breach of Sydney University’s Code but would still not be in breach of NSW censorship law, which simply doesn’t cover web sites for most materials – Crime Stopper vigilantes please take note!)

This is just luck, however. Even viewing this page is probably an offence in some states of Australia (e.g. Western Australia) and its publication would be an offence in others (e.g. Victoria). And any new legislation is likely to make it illegal here, too. This article is therefore an important test case online as well as for print publications. I am encouraging mirroring of this page, to display the futility of attempting to ban information which is perfectly legal in other countries.”

You can read more about the article here.

Overt’s mirror is here.

Well, “they” cracked Cyber Patrol 4. Its nice to see another blow land against censorware. As usual, this issue has
been framed by wiser than I, so I point you to some /. articles concerning the case.

The Breaking of Cyber Patrol 4

Mattel Dislikes Being Embarrassed

Mattel/Cyber Patrol Censors Critics Again

Overt was one of the lucky sites to actually get an email from Mattel’s lawyer, just scare tactics, really. Scared me.
The text and attachments of the email are available here.

I’ve begun work on an advocacy page, which will eventually contain information regarding all of the things I whine idealistically about.