Sony and Robots...shows how crazy the "anti-hacking" regime has become
Saw this interesting application of the new hardware copyright/anti-tampering/anti-reverse-engineering regime in place" http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011107/tc/sony_robot_hack_1.html excerpt: "Wednesday November 7 2:20 PM ET Pet Robot Owners Mad at Sony By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) - Many owners of the world's most sophisticated robot pet, the cuddly Aibo, are growling at Sony Corp (news - web sites). over its demand that a Web site stop distributing free software that teaches the machine new tricks. ``It was a very stiff legal position Sony took without regard to how it will affect the Aibo community,'' said Richard Walkus, a publishing house employee from Madison, N.J., who owns two Aibo robots but is now putting any new Aibo orders on hold. ``Sony is to some degree undermining its own success.'' In a letter last month, Sony told the owner of the AiboHack site that he was violating its copyright and altering its product without a license. It demanded a long list of Aibo software - including code that taught the machine disco steps and new words - be pulled off the site. --end excerpt-- This shows how crazy the laws have gotten. These robots are essentially computers, and the "hacks" are just new computer programs. Imagine: "Dell has announced they are are suing anyone who makes available software for their machines that Dell did not authorize." "Ford plans to protect its intellectual property by blocking after-market sales of trailer hitches, bed liners, light bulbs, and even motor oil not sold by authorized Ford dealers. "By examining our products and determining how to make things like trailer hitches, these pirates are in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright," said Ford spokesman Jason Natter." If robots cannot be reprogrammed, then neither can all sorts of other electronic gear that people routinely reprogram, improve, take apart, etc. Adding a programmable search function to a shortwave radio, for example, would fall under the same nonsensical terms as the Sony case. ObCypherpunks: I despise the DMCA, but my faith is not in having such laws overturned. In fact, the explosion of new laws is likely unstoppable. However, using technology to thwart traceability (*) is a means of monkeywrenching such laws. (* I wonder if anonymous remailers will someday be classed as "circumvention devices"? We debated this years ago, wondering whether the laws against unauthorized (!) possession of lock-picking tools and "burglar tools" could be used to de facto illegalize remailers.) --Tim May "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -- Nietzsche
This is very old news... On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Tim May wrote:
Saw this interesting application of the new hardware copyright/anti-tampering/anti-reverse-engineering regime in place"
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011107/tc/sony_robot_hack_1.html
excerpt:
"Wednesday November 7 2:20 PM ET
Pet Robot Owners Mad at Sony
By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer
TOKYO (AP) - Many owners of the world's most sophisticated robot pet, the cuddly Aibo, are growling at Sony Corp (news - web sites). over its demand that a Web site stop distributing free software that teaches the machine new tricks.
``It was a very stiff legal position Sony took without regard to how it will affect the Aibo community,'' said Richard Walkus, a publishing house employee from Madison, N.J., who owns two Aibo robots but is now putting any new Aibo orders on hold. ``Sony is to some degree undermining its own success.''
In a letter last month, Sony told the owner of the AiboHack site that he was violating its copyright and altering its product without a license. It demanded a long list of Aibo software - including code that taught the machine disco steps and new words - be pulled off the site.
--end excerpt--
This shows how crazy the laws have gotten. These robots are essentially computers, and the "hacks" are just new computer programs.
Imagine:
"Dell has announced they are are suing anyone who makes available software for their machines that Dell did not authorize."
"Ford plans to protect its intellectual property by blocking after-market sales of trailer hitches, bed liners, light bulbs, and even motor oil not sold by authorized Ford dealers. "By examining our products and determining how to make things like trailer hitches, these pirates are in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright," said Ford spokesman Jason Natter."
If robots cannot be reprogrammed, then neither can all sorts of other electronic gear that people routinely reprogram, improve, take apart, etc. Adding a programmable search function to a shortwave radio, for example, would fall under the same nonsensical terms as the Sony case.
ObCypherpunks: I despise the DMCA, but my faith is not in having such laws overturned. In fact, the explosion of new laws is likely unstoppable. However, using technology to thwart traceability (*) is a means of monkeywrenching such laws.
(* I wonder if anonymous remailers will someday be classed as "circumvention devices"? We debated this years ago, wondering whether the laws against unauthorized (!) possession of lock-picking tools and "burglar tools" could be used to de facto illegalize remailers.)
--Tim May "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -- Nietzsche
On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 12:08:44PM -0800, Tim May wrote:
(* I wonder if anonymous remailers will someday be classed as "circumvention devices"? We debated this years ago, wondering whether the laws against unauthorized (!) possession of lock-picking tools and "burglar tools" could be used to de facto illegalize remailers.)
Well, it would be trivial for a 'critter to write such a bill (less trivial, though hardly impossible) to get Congress to enact it. It could ban "electronic or computing devices that have as one of their primary purposes the facilitation of circumvention of copyright." Following that is a list of exceptions for general purpose PCs, etc. Anonymous remailers would not, of course, make the list. This is akin to the approach of Hollings' SSSCA. Or just enact a flat ban on remailers without identity escrow. I hosted a talk Monday with Ian Clarke, a very cypherpunkly type of fellow. We had a telecom lawyer show up and went through a brief how-to-shut-down Freenet thought experience. Especially after passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, it's sorta scary, at least for nodes hosted in, shall we say, hostile territory. -Declan
participants (3)
-
Declan McCullagh -
Jim Choate -
Tim May