================================================================= COMPUTER LAWYER E-NEWS Issue #004 April 2, 1996 News and views on new media, telecommunications and computer law for legal practitioners. ================================================================== E-MAIL ADVERTISER SUES AMERICA ONLINE Cyber Promotions Inc., an electronic advertising company in Philadelphia has sued America Online Inc. Cyber Promotions is in the business of sending (unsolicited) advertisements by e-mail to thousands of Internet users. The lawsuit alleges that AOL collected all the undeliverable e-mail messages sent by the company to AOL subscribers, altered the return address and then sent the messages back to two of Cyber Promotion's Internet Service Providers, UUNET and Voicenet. This allegedly resulted in a crash of computer systems at both ISPs. The contract between Cyber Promotions was subsequently terminated by these ISPs. ANOTHER DOMAIN NAME LAWSUIT On March 26, 1996 a lawsuit was filed by Roadrunner Computer Systems, Inc. against Network Solutions, Inc. in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Among other things, the lawsuit seeks an Order enjoining NSI preliminarily from placing the roadrunner.com domain on hold as a result of enforcement of the Present NSI Policy. A copy of the Complaint and a Memorandum of Law supporting the Plaintiff's position can be viewed at: http://www.patents.com/nsi.sht HEARINGS COMMENCED ON CDA CHALLENGE Hearings for the lawsuit challenging the Communications Decency Act commenced March 21, 1996 in Philadelphia. A T1 communications line was installed in the courtroom in order to provide live access to the Internet. The first day included a demonstration SurfWatch, a program that can be installed by parents on their home computers to restrict access to adult material on the Web. The second day of hearings took place on March 22. The hearings are expected to run another four days (April 1, 12, 14 and 26). For more information and late breaking updates see: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ SENATE HEARINGS ON S.1284 The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently conducting hearings on Bill S.1284 which contains amendments to the US Copyright Act that would clarify that a "transmission" can be a distribution of a copy of a work. In addition, prohibited importations can include works imported into the US by transmission. CFP'96: CRIMINALIZATION OF ENCRYPTION On Thursday, March 28, 1996, the Sixth Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, in co-sponsorship with the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section, presented a moot Court to consider the question of whether the US Government could criminalized unauthorized encryption. The format was that of a Supreme Court argument. The issue was whether an individual, who had successfully used outlawed encryption to hide his conversations while the target of a criminal investigation, can be prosecuted and convicted for use of unauthorized encryption under a hypothetical "Cryptography Control Act of 1995". Although the case and the "Cryptography Control Act of 1995" are fictitious, the Constitutional arguments are very real. The hypothetical background materials, and the briefs, set forth the central Constitutional arguments for upholding, or overturning, the prohibition of unauthorized encryption. This material is available at: http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~switz/cfp96/plenary-court.html For further information about CFP96, see the Web site at http://web.mit.edu/cfp96 Information about this program was posted to Cyberia-l on behalf of Hal Abelson, CFP96's General Chair. PROFITING FROM THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT Not everyone is against the CDA. Some companies have actually found a way to profit. At least three "age validation services" have recently been launched. These firms certify that a particular Internet user is an adult and provide them with credentials to enter participating adult-only sites on the Web. To register, a user must sent a $5 or $10 registration fee along with a copy of their driver's license. Alternatively, some of these services will accept an online registration using a credit card. The logic is that a person needs to be 18 years old before being able to acquire a Visa or MasterCard credit card. One of the busier services, Validate (www.zynet.com/validate/) signed up more than 10,000 customers at $5 each in less than a month. CORRECTION: WEB BROWSERS AND PRIVACY In the last issue (#003), the URL in the article on Web Browsers and Privacy should have read: http://www.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/info My thanks to John Hanna for pointing this out to me. ----------------------------------- Upcoming Conferences ----------------------------------- Law and the Internet: Pornography: Free Speech or Censorship in Cyberspace A Symposium at Boston University School of Law April 25, 1996, from 3:00-5:00 p.m. at Boston University School of Law. This symposium will focus on the growing concern about uncontrolled access to pornography on the Internet. Panellists will discuss proposed protections and whether they would compromise fee speech or the Internet itself. To register for the symposium, call 617/248-7852 or e-mail cariati@tht.com. For more information call 617/248-7268. THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN COPYRIGHT: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE Saturday, May 4, 1996 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Krutch Theater, The Clark Kerr Campus, University of California, Berkeley To register please call: (510) 642-4111 EDP 183020 $50.00 in advance: $65.00 at the door - Lunch is included http://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/copyright.html Computer Law - Internet and Other Technologies May 13 & 14, 1996 (Plaza Hotel, New York City) Law Journal Seminars - Press (800) 888-8300 ext. 6111 or (212) 545-6111 New and Emerging Legal Issues on the Internet May 14, 1996 - Toronto The Canadian Institute - (416) 927-7936 ------------------- Administrivia ------------------- (c) 1996 by Alan Gahtan (http://www.io.org/~agahtan). Copyright and responsibility for content in individual submissions remain with the author. The information contained in this publication does not constitute legal advice. Information contained may not be applicable to all jurisdictions. 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