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Explanation of the SCDC

At this point I should try to tell you what the SCDC is.  The club is
difficult to explain quickly, because many of the issues we deal with
seem to slip under the media radar and out of the public eye.  Imagine
trying to explain an anti-war group if nobody knew that we had a
military.  Allow me to seriously oversimplify, while running the risk
of sounding paranoid.  Believe me, we have extensive documentation and
numerous specific cases to back up all of our claims.

In the last several years there has been a radical expansion in
intellectual property law, to the point where it trumps free speech,
threatens our privacy and our civil liberties, and stifles the
creative artists that it was originally intended to protect.
Simultaneously, there has been a movement among certain large,
unscrupulous companies to develop technologies to control consumer
software and hardware, in order to make it impossible to engage in any
activity not approved by the corporations.  Similar threats have
appeared before in the history of our country and the world, but never
before have the stakes been so high.  We are at a turning point
between a open, participatory culture, modeled on the structure of the
internet, where anyone can speak to the world at an acceptably low
price, where users are anonymous and essentially unrestricted, where
ideas collide and expand into exciting new realms... and a closed,
top-down, passive culture, where consumers do not really own the
products they buy, but only license certain uses of them for short
periods of time, where speech is only granted to those with industry
connections, and privacy and consumer rights are non-existent, for
users are guilty until proven innocent.

Does that sound radical?  That's because it is.... and there is an
eerie media hole where these issues ought to be.  One of the big
projects that SCDC has is educating the populace about a truly
frightening project involving Microsoft and other corporations,
originally code-named "Palladium" but now better known as the "Trusted
Computing" initiative.  The basic idea is that new computer hardware
packaged with the next version of Windows (Longhorn) will be under the
control of Microsoft, not the user.  Among other "features", Longhorn
is currently supposed to include something called "remote
attestation", which will allow Microsoft to know what software is on
your computer and exactly what state it is in.  This will allow them
to, say, bar you from the Microsoft website if you've installed a
program on your computer that Microsoft doesn't like.  The
implications are simply mindboggling, but you don't have to think
about all of them to know that this is probably not something you want
on your computer.

Earlier hints of projects like this failed miserably.  Does anybody
remember the Pentium III chips with serial numbers on them, which
eliminated consumer privacy?  The media pounced on them, civil
liberties groups went bonkers, and Intel backed off in a hurry,
although some of the chips did ship.  So why the weird silence
surrounding Palladium and Trusted Computing?  Why has nobody heard of
it?  The problem with the newer threats may be that they are too big
and too complicated to fit into a sound byte.  At least, any possible
such sound byte, such as "big corporations are conspiring against
you", makes you sound like a raving lunatic.

So what is an activist to do?  We must do our best to get people to
listen to our lengthy explanations, because it's really the only way
to get people to understand the truth that they've been missing.  Our
case isn't hopeless.  Our cause is really unique and new, and many
people are curious to learn more about us once they discover this
whole field of issues that they are unfamiliar with.  If we can avoid
annoying preachy proselytizing, and simply put our message out there
with sufficient creativity and enthusiasm, maybe people will come to
see what all the noise is about, and join us in building a Digital
Commons.

DMCA Facts sheet

DID YOU KNOW...

*It is illegal to copy a DVD, even if you own the data and it is for
your own personal use.  It is also illegal to tell someone else how to
copy a DVD.

*There is a number, roughly around 10^250, that can be decompressed
into the source code for a program to help copy DVDs.  It is illegal
to distribute this number under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of
1999.

*Cryptography experts have already begun to refuse to attend
 conferences in the United States for fear of running afoul of the
 DMCA.

*Industry lobbying groups managed to silently push through even more
 oppressive state laws known as "Super-DMCA's" in six states before
 anyone noticed.  A grad student at the University of Michigan
 discovered that most of his academic career had become illegal under
 Michigan's "Super-DMCA", which makes it a felony to possess software
 capable of concealing the existence or source of any electronic
 communication.  Niels Provos's dissertation was on steganography and
 honeypots, techniques used for concealing messages and detecting
 hackers, and his research could earn him jail time.  He was forced to
 move all his papers and software to a website in the Netherlands to
 reduce his risk of prosecution.

*The DMCA also gives anyone the power to shut down any website for
10-14 days, by claiming that the website is infringing on their
copyright.  All they need to do is send a "takedown notice" to the
website's Online Service Provider, and the OSP has to either shut down
the website or assume liability for the allegedly copyright-infringing
material.  Contrast this with phone companies, who are not liable for
the activities of their customers.  Diebold, Inc. recently used this
strategy to shut down websites throughout the United States that
published Diebold's internal company e-mails that documented flaws in
their electronic voting machines.  At no point in this process is
there any judicial review, and the "copyright holder" never has to
present any evidence that they in fact hold copyright over the
material.

*To extend their control over technology as well as legislation,
Microsoft and other industry groups are already shipping a chip that,
when activated, will allow the next version of Windows to tell
Microsoft exactly what is on your computer.  Disabling this "feature"
will become impractical if Microsoft is able to use its monopoly power
to force people to use it if they want to participate in e-commerce
and other activities.  A bill pushed by Senator Fritz Hollings of
South Carolina would make these chips mandatory in any device
connected to the internet.

Do you find these facts alarming?  So do we.  Another world is
possible.  We are the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons,
and we need your help to preserve our civil liberties and save the
internet.  If you like freedom of speech. and you care about
controlling your own data on your own machine, join us and take action
today!

http://scdc.sccs.swarthmore.edu | lsmith1 | npavlos1

For an extensive list of the negative effects of the DMCA, check out the EFF's report on 5 years under the DMCA.

SCDC Printed Materials

This is where you can get all of our print from the past, and when we're really on the ball, the flyers for the next meeting. But first, here's a quick key to how to open the different file formats that we provide:

So go grab the posters!

The SCDC's Manifesto

	Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons
		    Manifesto 0.1

The mission of the SCDC is to reclaim our culture from corporate
control. Our goal is to defend free and open cultural space and
protect public intellectual capital from privatization and
exploitation.

We refuse to accept a future of digital feudalism, where we do not
actually own the products we buy, but we are merely granted limited
uses of them as long as we pay the rent. We must halt and reverse the
recent radical expansion of intellectual property rights, which has
reached the point where they trump any and all other rights of the
consumer and society.

We believe that culture is a two-way affair, about participation, not
merely consumption. We will not sit at the end of a one-way media tube
and buy things until we look like the people on Friends; with the
internet and other advances, the technology exists for a new paradigm
of creation, one where anyone can be an artist, and anyone can
succeed, based not on their industry connections, but on their merit.

We will fight to make everyone understand the value of our common
wealth, evangelizing for Linux and the open-source model. We will
resist repressive legislation like the Digital Millenium Copyright
Act, which threatens our civil liberties and stifles innovation. We
will organize to prevent Microsoft and others from pushing through
hardware-level monitoring devices that will prevent users from having
control of their own machines and their own data.

We won't allow the RIAA and the MPAA to cling to obsolete modes of
distribution through bad legislation and market dominance. We will be
active participants in a free culture of connectivity and production,
made possible for a brief instant by the technology of the Internet,
before it is locked down by corporate and legislative control. If we
allow the bottom-up, participatory structure of the Internet to be
twisted into a top-down, corporate intranet -- if we allow the old
paradigm of creation and distribution to reassert itself -- then that
window of opportunity will have been closed, and we will have lost
something beautiful, revolutionary, and irretrievable.

The future is in our hands; we must build a technological and cultural
movement to defend the digital commons.

    Nelson Pavlosky (npavlos1@swarthmore.edu)
    Luke Smith (lsmith1@swarthmore.edu)

Music Piracy?

Let me make one thing clear: I'm not a fan of music piracy. However,
most bands that are not on Clearchannel's top 40 can only benefit from
P2P filesharing: most people haven't heard of them, and nobody will
buy CD's from bands that they've never heard or heard of. Therefore,
there are only a handful of super-popular artists who may stand to
lose from P2P technology: they have huge record companies promoting
them, and an oligopoly on the radio, perhaps they don't need the word
of mouth from P2P.  However, there are in fact many top 40 artists who
seem to think that P2P is still in their best interests despite their
popularity.  Maybe that's because they see that it has the potential
to free them from the control of their labels.

P2P is a disruptive technology in the industry, because it is possible
for an artist to spread their music across the nation without being
signed to a major label, or without even having high bandwidth bills
on their website. You don't need to have a huge record company
promoting your music and pushing your songs onto the radio. You just
need to have GOOD MUSIC, because then people will recommend you to
their friends, who will then download the songs and pass them on. Many
bands both large and small understand this truth, and release mp3s for
free on their websites, with the tacit understanding that this mp3 is
freely distributable for promotion purposes: this is the poor man's
alternative to a radio single.

The RIAA wants to shut down P2P because it makes their business model
obsolete. They are only necessary as long as they have a monopoly on
the listening public. If this more efficient distribution model wins
out, the RIAA can just fade away without anyone noticing or
caring. And good riddance, I would say.

We need to support artists and labels that don't treat their customers
like criminals: I have only bought CDs from local bands and indie
labels in the past year and a half. If we can boycott the RIAA, and
make it clear to them why their sales are disappearing, we will be
clearing the way for a future in which anyone can become a popular
artist, based not on their industry connections, but on their
merit. If we can save the P2P networks from destruction, and keep the
internet free, we will have done a noble thing for both the artists
and the audience.

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