The CIS Cyberlaw Clinic and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have teamed up to create DirecTVDefense.org, a site providing "resources for smart card users targeted by DirecTV's cease-and-desist letters and nearly 9,000 smart-card-related lawsuits."Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Contact:
Jason Schultz
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
jason@eff.org
+1 415 436-9333 x112
Jennifer Granick
Executive Director
Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
jennifer@law.stanford.edu
+1 650 724-0014
Fred von Lohmann
Senior Intellectual Property Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
fred@eff.org
+1 415 436-9333 x123 (office), +1 415 215-6087 (cell)
DirecTV Defense Website Aids Users Caught in Legal Dragnet
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Stanford Law Clinic Sponsors
San Francisco and Palo Alto, CA - A digital rights organization and a Stanford Law School clinic today launched a website providing resources for smart card users targeted by DirecTV's cease-and-desist letters and nearly 9,000 smart-card-related lawsuits.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society (CIS) Cyberlaw Clinic published the DirecTV Defense website that provides scientists, researchers, innovators, and their lawyers, with the information necessary to protect their right to own and use multi-purpose technology for legal applications.
Over the past few years, satellite transmission giant DirecTV has launched a nationwide campaign that threatens to bankrupt thousands of Americans and destroy an entire branch of emerging technology. The company has sent hundreds of thousands of demand letters and filed nearly 9,000 federal lawsuits in response to the purchase of smart card readers, emulators, unloopers, reprogrammers, bootloaders, and blockers.
Smart card readers and their various derivatives have many legitimate uses, including computer security and scientific research. However, DirecTV has made no effort to distinguish between these legal uses and illegal cable theft. As a result, DirecTV has threatened innocent researchers and hobbyists who have never intercepted the satellite giant's signal with legal action unless they pay up.
"DirecTV has threatened a smart card programmer trying to secure his art installation, as well as network administrators and engineers, all of whom are using smart cards for legitimate purposes like security or access control," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. "The DirecTV Defense website provides resources to help technology purchasers who aren't doing anything wrong stand up to DirecTV's intimidation tactics because simply using smart card technology is not a crime."
"Developments in smart card technology provide exciting opportunities within a new branch of computer science," said CIS Director Jennifer Granick. "DirecTV should not scare legitimate innovators away from promising new technologies
with baseless lawsuits."
For this release: http://www.eff.org/directvdefense/20030812_eff_pr.php
DirecTV Defense website: http://www.directvdefense.org/
About EFF:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
About Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society:
The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School and a part of the School's Law, Science & Technology Program. The CIS brings together scholars, academics, legislators, students, hackers, and scientists to study the interaction of new technologies and the law and to examine how the synergy between the two can either promote or harm public goods like free speech, privacy, public commons, diversity, and scientific inquiry. The CIS strives as well to improve both technology and law, encouraging decision makers to design both as a means to further democratic values. The Cyberlaw Clinic gives students the opportunity to gain legal skills by working on cases that involve the public interest and computer technology. The Center's website is at http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/ and the Law, Science & Technology Program website is at http://lawtech.stanford.edu
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