Electronic Frontier Foundation ACTION ALERT
ALERT: Oppose SSSCA; Support Intel's Bravery
A Bad Law and a Sneaky Process
(Issued: Friday, March 8, 2002 / Updated: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 /
Expires: Friday, March 22, 2002.)
Introduction:
When Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) held his hearings last week, he
thought he'd be setting the stage for slipping the Security Systems
Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) back onto the
legislative fast track. The SSSCA was the bill that would have given
Hollywood a veto on the design of new technologies in order to "secure"
copyrighted material. The far-reaching bill would have crippled the
American technology industry in response to hysterical entertainment
execs, flushing away consumer rights and dumping innovation down the
same drain.
Senator Hollings' idea was to bring a bunch of Hollywood executives
together with technology industry execs to show that all the players
agreed with Hollings' plan to implement a mini-SSSCA that gives Congress
control over the specifications for all digital video technologies.
What he got instead was a gutsy speech from Intel co-founder Leslie
Vadasz, who told Congress that his industry shouldn't be treated like a
munition. Vadasz was the sole voice of reason in those hearings, saying
things that were patently obvious to anyone with a smidge of tech
know-how, but his words provoked a torrent of vitriol from Hollings and
his crew of studio heads, who hung Vadasz out for the press as a thief
who represents some shadowy technologists' conspiracy to steal business
out from underneath the entertainment industry.
Vadasz was the only technology industry representative with the
intelligence and integrity to speak up on behalf of the public interest
and consumer and business freedom. Civil liberties organizations and the
general public were definitely not welcome at Senator Hollings'
rights-management jamboree.
With Congress greatly influenced by Hollywood's financial clout, our
only hope of seeing justice served and our interests represented is
through brave technology industry execs like Leslie Vadasz. We're
writing to him on behalf of the EFF to let him know that he's not alone
in this fight, but he needs to hear it from Intel customers, too.
What YOU Can Do Now:
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Contact your legislators and ask them to oppose the SSSCA and other
similar legislation.
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Send Intel Executive Vice-President Leslie Vadasz a letter letting him know
that you're glad that *someone* finally stood up to the entertainment
industry. Let him know that you're behind him all the way, tell him how many
Intel-powered products you've bought in the past couple years (not just
chips -- Intel's also behind Xircom networking gear, consumer electronics,
and educational toys), and what your plans are for the future.
-
If you're still fired up, save that letter as a template and make tailored
versions of it for the CEOs of your other favorite hardware, electronics and
software vendors. Tell them that you're a happy customer who wants to stay
that way. Tell them that your wallet only opens for the pure of heart, that
you're only buying products from companies that represent your interests in
Congress and in back-room meetings with the entertainment industry.
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Contact your legislators about this issue - urge them to oppose the SSSCA
and similar legislation. For information on how to
contact your legislators and other government officials, see EFF's
"Contacting Congress and Other Policymakers" guide at:
http://www.eff.org/congress.html
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Join EFF! For membership information see:
http://www.eff.org/support/
Contact Your Legislators:
Let your Senators and Representatives in Congress know that you oppose
the SSSCA and similar legislation, regardless of medium, and that they
should do likewise. For information on how to identify and contact your
legislators, see EFF's "Contacting Congress" factsheet at:
http://www.eff.org/congress.html
Sample Letter:
Here's the template that you can use as to send your thank-you notes to
Intel. Feel free to crib from it, or to improvise.
Dear Mr. Vadasz,
I am writing today to applaud your bravery at the hearings before the
Senate Commerce Committee last week in DC. It is heartening to see an
innovative technology company standing up for its customers in the face
the over-reaching demands of the entertainment industry. Thank you for
fighting the entertainment industry's attempts to undermine our fair use
rights and harm our economy by hobbling your industry with burdensome,
nonsensical regulations that protect their bottom line at the expense of
your own.
[Insert your own history with Intel here, for example:
I'm not a big corporate customer with a million Intel chips in my data
center, but I am a loyal consumer whose laptop and desktop are both Intel
Inside, whose last six computers have been powered by your chips. My 802.11
card comes from Xircom, another Intel company, and I imagine that as the
years go by and you folks keep on speeding up your processors that I'll keep
on buying newer, fancier machines that grant me access to an ever-more
bountiful harvest of new software, services, communities and information.]
Please keep up the good work -- don't let Hollywood take away your right to
innovate and my right to use my equipment as I see fit.
Sincerely,
[Your name;
include full address for maximum effectiveness]
Who to Contact:
Leslie Vadasz
Executive Vice-President
Intel Corp.
2200 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara CA 95052
c/o tom.marchok@intel.com
Activists Around the World
This alert is primarily for U.S. residents. However, this issue is of
importance globally, so keep an eye
out in your own jurisdiction for related matters you can act on. Many
jurisdictions around the world are considering legislation similar to the
U.S. DMCA and SSSCA.
Background:
Saving the Entertainment Industry from Itself -- Again
Technologists have always saved the entertainment industry from itself. From
Marconi's telegrapher-reviled radio to Jack Valenti's campaign against the
VCR, the entertainment industry has always fought to keep new technologies
out of the marketplace. Again and again, new technologies have generated
fresh millions for the labels and studios and publishers, and again and
again, they've come back to bite the byte that feeds them, blustering in
front of lawmakers for the right to control what technologists can build in
the privacy of their own garages.
But this time, they've gone too far. The movie studios have cooked up a
Congressional fire-drill whose objective is nothing less than total control
over the computer and electronics industry. Senator Hollings' stalled
one-law-to-rule-them all, the reviled SSSCA, is still lurking in the wings.
In the meantime, the entertainment industry is intent on sneaking the SSSCA
past Congress with a series of technology-specific "mini-SSSCAs."
Their opening salvo is a seemingly innocuous pitch to "protect" digital TV
signals (coming to every TV near you by 2006, if the FCC gets its way) by
legislating the specifications for TVs, VCRs, PVRs and other devices that
sit between your antenna/cable and your eyeballs.
These specifications will allow studios to control the way you use content,
on the equipment you've bought and paid for. Studios are seeking
the power to specify whether you can record their programs, how long those
recordings will be viewable and whether you can make a copy of the
recordings. In order for this plan to work, "non-compliant" technology,
whether software, hardware, or otherwise, will have to be swept off the
market. SSSCA redux.
Never mind that such a scheme will advantage foreign manufacturers -- who
will remain free to build "noncompliant" products that do more and cost less
-- in a down economy where U.S. electronics, software and computer companies
are fighting for their lives. Never mind that this will inevitably slow the
pace of innovation and increase costs for consumers. Never mind that such
measures are unduly restrictive and defeat fair uses, limiting your ability
to invent new uses for your electronics. (Who'd have imagined the fantastic
capacity for grandmothers to use VCRs to create family histories of
appearances on broadcast news programs?)
Intel Steps Forward
Leslie Vadasz, one of the founders of Intel, had the chips to show up at
Senator Fritz Holling's hearings last week and let Congress know that Intel,
an Amercian company that pours $13.5 billion dollars into the U.S. economy
every year, wants the freedom to independently negotiate the specifications
for its equipment with the studios, without Congressional intervention.
This attitude is something we need to encourage! Senator Hollings conducted
his hearings as a private discussion between the studios and the gadget
companies, without any representation from consumers or even civil liberties
organizations (ahem). The closest thing we have to an advocate in these
critical proceedings are the electronics, computer and software companies.
EFF has the credibility to catch the ear of some of the key players in
the technology world, and we're making sure that they know that we're behind
them on this.
But we can't do it alone: You're their customers, and it's time you let them
know that we don't want your rights managed out of existence by the MPAA,
RIAA and other Hollywood lobbies, with their army of attack-lawyers.
Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression:
This drive to contact Intel about their position on SSSCA is part
of a larger campaign to highlight intellectual property industry assaults against the
public's fair use rights,
and what you can do about it.
Check the EFF Campaign for Audivisual Free Expression (CAFE) website regularly for additional
alerts and news:
http://www.eff.org/cafe/
Links:
Followup letter from Vadasz to Hollings:
http://www.eff.org/IP/SSSCA/20020228_intel_hollings_letter.html
EFF Media Advisory: Senate Hearings on Dramatic New Digital Media Regulations (Feb.
27, 2002)
http://www.eff.org/IP/SSSCA/20020227_eff_pr.html
EFF Letter to the Senate Commerce Committee on the proposed SSSCA (Nov. 5,
2001)
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20011105_eff_sssca_letter.html
EFF Action Alert on SSSCA (Sep. 21, 2001)
http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010921_eff_sssca_alert.html
EFF "Intellectual Property - Video - HDTV/Digital Cable" Archive
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/
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, privacy, and openness in the information
society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the
most linked-to Web sites in the world:
http://www.eff.org
Contacts:
Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney
fred@eff.org
+1 415-436-9333 x123
Cory Doctorow, EFF Outreach Coordinator
cory@eff.org
+1 415-726-5209
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