[luau] News - Red Hat fights the DMCA

[Warren Togami]

http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/10/16/1546251.shtml?tid=4
By John Lettice -
-The Register -
Red Hat has struck a small blow against the DMCA, by publishing a security
patch which can only be explained fully to people who are not within U.S.
jurisdiction. The company's position here seems to be not altogether
voluntary -- according to a spokesman "it is bizarre, and unfortunately
something Red Hat cannot easily do much about," but like it or not Red Hat
has been recruited to the campaign to make the DMCA look ridiculous.


The patch itself is on the Red Hat site, on this page, and the oddity here
can be seen if you go down to the bottom. Under the heading "references"
there is a link to http://www.thefreeworld.net/non-US/. At this point, those
of you reading this while within U.S. jurisdiction should have a care. We
will endeavour to unfold the tale to you without exposing ourselves to
action under the DMCA, but we stress now that we are not encouraging you to
do so, nor is it our intention to provide you with the tools to do so.

Thefreeworld.net is not as yet an especially widely-known site, but its
purpose is explained here. Briefly, it notes that the United States has
shown a readiness to bust individuals who perfectly legally publish
information and software outside of the United States, on the basis that
this is published to people within U.S. jurisdiction, among others. In order
to publish this information without getting busted, Thefreeworld.net uses a
licensing agreement which specifically rules out people within U.S.
jurisdiction. You can see the licence here, and again we stress that people
within U.S. jurisdiction should not accept this licence.