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[Nettime-bold] McCullagh: Mattel warns cphack mirrors of contempt |
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 17:42:01 -0100 From: nettime's_roving_reporter <nettime@bbs.thing.net> To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Subject: McCullagh: Mattel warns cphack mirrors of contempt under TM <http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35216,00.html> Mattel Stays on the Offensive by Declan McCullagh 12:45 p.m. Mar. 27, 2000 PST BOSTON -- Upping the stakes in a battle over a utility that reveals Cyberpatrol's list of off-limits websites, Mattel threatened mirror sites with contempt charges during a court hearing Monday afternoon. A subsidiary of Mattel, which sells Cyberpatrol, said the toy giant had acquired the copyright to "cphack" from two cryptoanalysts who published it on their website earlier this month. Mattel attorney Irwin Schwartz advised against anyone thinking of distributing cphack from now on. "They should be afraid of being hauled into court on contempt proceedings," Schwartz said. Just hours before the hearing in federal court was scheduled to begin, Mattel said it was ready to abandon its lawsuit over cphack, which allows owners of Cyberpatrol to view the program's secret encrypted blacklist. Mattel said it had settled the case with the authors of cphack, but wanted a permanent court order that applied to mirror sites. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing three mirror sites, said it did not object to the lawsuit's dismissal -- but it wanted to make sure its clients would not be at risk. ACLU attorney Chris Hansen asked U.S. District Judge Edward Harrington to exempt mirror sites from his order, saying Mattel could simply file another suit if it suspected copyright violations. "My clients do not want to be put to the test of contempt," Hansen said. At the end of the hearing, which lasted one hour, Harrington said he would consider Hansen's request and decide by Wednesday. Harrington said he would continue his earlier temporary restraining order until then. But he indicated he was a little worried about an order that would apply to people who aren't defendants, saying "they have not been heard." Copyright © 2000 Wired Digital Inc., a Lycos Network site. All rights reserved. _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold