Chin Wong gave me a penguin!

Well, at least a personalized drawing of a one on the penguin collection graphic on his website (www.chinwong.com). You can see my penguin (notice the beard) in the blown-up version on the right . The original is a cool, high-resollution affair, and you can get your own penguin on it simply by asking Chin. His site has a form just for that.

Chin was the Editor-in-Chief of Computerworld Philippines, a position he ably held for many, many years. He is also a happy convert to Linux, having made the switch in 2006. In his blog article, “Secret Weapon“, he says this of the tale:

Two years ago this month, I erased Windows XP from my home PC and installed Ubuntu on it and have not looked back since. Today, the Linux-based system I have is more secure, more efficient in its use of resources—and more fun to use— than any Windows-based installation on comparable hardware. It certainly blows Windows Vista out of the water. Remarkably, it’s also 100 percent legal and 100 percent free, which is something you could never say about Windows, whether you used a licensed version or a pirated knock-off.

Now how’s that for a ringing endorsement? it’s these success stories — and helpful users like Chin — that win new converts to Linux.

I first began using Linux in 1999, when I installed Red Hat 5.0 on my 180MHz clone. Just like Chin, I had my ups and downs. Linux was certainly not as easy to install then, and the Red Hat graphical desktop was usable but had some pretty rough edges. I’m now running CentOS, a free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

If you have a Linux success story to tell, let Chin know about it and get yourself a penguin. You’ll be in good company.

Although Microsoft managed to get its OOXML ratified as a “standard” via a spectacularly flawed fast-track process, that travesty has caused quite a ruckus in the ISO itself, and may have mortally wounded the credibility of the standards approval process. It’s not all over yet, however, as reported in the ZDNet story, “Venezuela and India appeal OOXML ratification“:

“After the two-month appeal period, we now have four appeals — Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela,” Jonathan Buck, the director of communications for IEC, told ZDNet.co.uk on Monday. “The appeals are now with our CEOs, IEC General Secretary Ronnie Amit, and ISO Secretary General Alan Bryden, who have a 30-day period to make sure appeals conform to directives.”

Since groups in at least four other countries have had the courage and integrity to question how their representatives could have voted “yes” to such a mockery of standards and the approval process, perhaps it’s about time Filipinos do the same. When will an investigation of the Philippine vote take place? After all, the Philippines voted to approve a “standard” whose final form had not really fully discussed, and which cannot even be implemented by it’s creators (Microsoft). How can the interests of the Philippines be represented by such silliness?

Those in the Philippines who voted to approve the OOXML non-standard should not be allowed to get away scot-free with such a disservice. It’s about time someone send a letter of protest — not just to ISO but to the Commission on ICT as well!

Resources

Groklaw has done a great job keeping track of “ISO-Gate”, which is quite an appropriate name for this fiasco. Some resources include:

• An Open Letter on OOXML Happenings in India
• A Reminder: ISO’s Code of Ethics & What Happens Next - Update: Venezuela Appeals Also
• Now an OOXML Protest from Denmark’s OSL - Updated 3Xs: Official English Translation

A group of concerned citizens called the Advocacy for Open Systems in Elections is offering a free, open source solution for automating the counting of election results. Ito Gruet, a member of the group, was interviewed by Erwin Oliva of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the video of the interview is available on the Inquirer website as “Pushing open source solutions for elections“.

Gruet revealed that the group advocating the use of open standards and open source software for the automated election system, which would help ensure the transparency of the electoral process. Gruet explained:

Basically it’s to ensure that we are able to track and trace back to a source document and audit the results of the elections. And what we are proposing is the we make this process tranasparent to the public… to all the voters. Transparent in terms of the technology to be used, so we should be using open standards. We believe that the software should be open source so that people in the know can look at it, can review, and see if it’s really a working system. Transparent in terms of the data itself, which means that results should be easily verifiable by the public, and anybody can do their own tabulation.

In another interview by Oliva, “Open source ‘required’ for poll automation systems“, Dr. Pablo Manalastas, associate professor of computer science at the Ateneo de Manila University, noted the difficulties involved in maintaining the integrity of the count if the solutions used proprietary software.

In contrast to the free solution offered by the group, the COMELEC confirmed that it will sign a contract with Avanti to automate the elections in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The Inquirer, in “Comelec, Avanti to sign contract for automated ARMM polls” reported:

Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo said the poll body will sign the final contract with technology supplier Avanti after the company passed testing requirements Tuesday.

“The Avanti testing was finished and we’re going to sign the contract tomorrow (Thursday),” Melo told INQUIRER.net.

He made this revelation just after the Comelec officially kicked off the start of automating the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections scheduled August 11.

It may be too late to get the open system into the ARMM elections in August, but uere’s hoping the group’s free solution will be taken up by the goverrnment in 2010, instead of the costly solution that will be deployed for the ARMM polls. After all, why buy when you can get it free? Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

But will our government do the right thing? Ah… that is such an interesting question!

I thought that I had heard the worst ravings and silliest nonsense from some of SCO’s people concerning their claims about Unix and Linux. SCO, after all, claimed that some of their code was in Linux, but never managed to prove it.

(Image on the right is from the film “Reefer Madness.”)

After over six years, it seemed that the case was winding down: Judge Dale Kimball ruled that Novell, not SCO, still owned the copyright to Unix; and SCO filed for bankruptcy. Despite some news that SCO might be bought out and get enough money to continue the case, to me it pretty much boiled down to when — not if — SCO would just plain lose once and for all. Now, like some bad gas emanating from a crypt, we hear this latest whopper from SCO CEO Darl McBride, as reported by Ars Technica in “Deluded SCO CEO on witness stand: ‘Linux is a copy of UNIX’“:

McBride said that SCO holds the rights to UNIX and that “many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers.” Specifically, he said, “We have evidence System V is in Linux,”—directly contradicting what Sontag had previously testified. Due to the witness exclusion rule invoked by both parties, McBride was not present during Sontag’s testimony and wasn’t aware of what had been said. McBride’s claims also directly contradict internal SCO memos from 2002, which reveal that the company’s own extensive source code audits had uncovered no UNIX code in Linux. McBride attempted to reinforce his argument with analogy. “When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there’s books on ‘How to Program UNIX’ but when you go to the Linux section and look for ‘How to Program Linux’ you’re not gonna find it, because it doesn’t exist.” Then came the real humdinger, and my jaw dropped when I heard the following come out of his mouth: “Linux is a copy of UNIX, there is no difference [between them].”

Here’s Groklaw’s take on McBride’s “bookshelf” argument, found in “Day 2, April 30, Novell v. SCO Trial Transcript - as text, no line #s“:

By the way, he mentions that if you go into a bookstore you will find how to program in Unix and Linux books in the same section. That is because Linux is not a programming language. Neither is UNIX. They are both written in C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, and Ada95. Etc. You know. In programming languages. And both are POSIX-compliant, POSIX being a standard. Duh. What he says is like saying that if you go into a US bookstore and head for the cookbooks section, you’ll find a lot of books written in English. That is true. You will. Not only that, but they all use cups as a measurement and Tablespoons and such. That doesn’t mean they copied from one another, or that all the recipes will produce the identical result, just that they were written in the same language and use standard measurements for US cooks. He is such a riot. And I have only scratched the surface.

The word “deluded”, used in the Ars Technica story, isn’t a nice way to describe someone; yet it seems so appropriate. The only other ways to describe McBride’s performance are far nastier.

I’ll be nice to McBride this time and keep my peace, even though he doesn’t deserve it.

Looks like the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project may abandon one of its most important features: free, unfettered software.

(The photo on the right is by Mike Mcgregor licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.)

Computerworld, in “Report: OLPC may eventually switch from Linux to Windows XP” noted that:

One day after the resignation of the One Laptop Per Child project’s president was publicly revealed, the OLPC’s founder and chairman said that the group’s XO laptop may evolve to use only Windows XP as its operating system, with open-source educational applications such as the homegrown Sugar software running on top.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte also told The Associated Press on Tuesday that an insistence upon using only free, open-source software had hampered the XO’s usability and scared away potential adopters.

This turnaround — and it’s clearly compromising justification — drew immediate comment from Michael Tiemann, President of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). In his post “Damn disheartening news from OLPC“, Tiemann said:

I believe that without open source, the fundamental purpose of OLPC will fail, because it will create another generation of slaves to proprietary technologies and corporate largesse. In other words, it will perpetuate the status quo, rather than rearrange it.

He ended his post in this manner:

But if OLPC abandons its open source roots, then I do not see the project accomplishing any of its goals. And while I can afford to throw away the three XO laptops I bought, the world cannot afford to throw away the goal of ending poverty in favor of preserving monopoly control of technology.

Tiemann is spot-on right. Part of the idea of OLC was not just to get technology into the hands of the poor. It was also about empowering them, to make them realize that there are alternatives that they can make their own. Free/open source software makes that possible. With a Window-only OLPC laptop, howevers, the project only abandons that ideal. Worse, it also helps lock in another market that will benefit narrow corporate interests.

Sure, OLPC may get to sell more laptops by switching to Windows, but it will also end up pushing vendor lock-in on a new generation of even poorer users. And don’t forget the thousands of computer viruses that come with Windows!

If OLPC was a purely for-proift venture no one would be surprised. But it’s not; it’s an education project!

In which case perhaps Negroponte should also think about educating adopters about the advantages of open sourcer software as well as the dangers of proprietary software. That’s if he’s really serious about fighting poverty using technology anyways.

Too bad for OLPC. This may be the nail that seals its coffin. The project had its doubters. If Negroponte puhes through with this move, it will have more — and maybe it should.

Hmm… there’s still the EeePC. And you can now run Puppee Linux on it too. From a USB drive!

Now that I’ve been using the Sony Ericsson K320i for around a month, I feel I can write fair pocket review of this product. My verdict: it works well, but could sure stand some useability improvements.

This device comes with the bells and whistles that you would expect from a low-end phone with a camera. At best, the camera takes only VGA-quality (640×480) images so don’t expect much. The video and sound recording features are extra. The phone also boasts an Entertainment suite with sound and image editor, as well as a decent media player. Too bad the speaker isn’t all that great. There’s also an organizer with notes, calendar, calculator, stopwatch, file manager and to-do list. Pretty standard stuff.

One useful touch is the 1000-entry contact list with multiple fields for different information. I also like the fact that it uses a USB cable and is seen by my PC as a simple USB storage device. And, no, I did not have to install any device drivers.

My gripes are mainly with the SMS interface. While writing a text message, making one particular mistake (hitting the Back Key) forces you to either save the message in your Drafts folder or lose it. There should be a way to go back to writing the message immediately, but there isn’t. You have to save the message then open it again from the Drafts folder. What a hassle.

Another improvement would be an easy way to set the volume of the message alert. I’ve explored the menus and haven’t been able to find a volume control for message alerts.

This phone has been on the market for a while so it’s not really a hot item. But it’s still in the running as far as low-end cellphones go. As far as making calls, taking a few pictures, and listening to media is concerned, it scores a fair rating and can compete with others in this class. If, however, you love sending text messages, this offering will slow you down. There are better phones for that.

My advice: if it comes free with your cellular service subscription, take it. If you want to buy a new phone, you might want to compare it with others first.

Many people who know or care about computer security probably won’t be surprised to hear claims that Linux or BSD is generally more secure than Windows. That conventional wisdom seems to have been confirmed yet again by the results of a hacking challenge last March 28, Friday, at the CanSecWest 2008 conference. This was reported in the InfoWorld article, “With Vista breached, Linux remains unbeaten in hacking contest“:

Earlier this week, contest sponsors had put three laptops up for grabs to anyone who could hack into one of the systems and run their own software. A $20,000 cash prize sweetened the deal, but the payout was halved each day as contest rules were relaxed and it became easier to penetrate the computers.

On day two, Independent Security Evaluators’ Charlie Miller took the Mac after hitting it with a still-undisclosed exploit that targeted the Safari Web browser. After about two minutes work, Thursday, Miller took home $10,000, courtesy of 3Com’s TippingPoint division, in addition to his new laptop.

It took two days of work, but Shane Macaulay, finally cracked the Vista box on Friday, with a little help from his friends.

Macaulay, who was a co-winner of last year’s hacking contest, needed a few hacking tricks courtesy of VMware researcher Alexander Sotirov to make his bug work. That’s because Macaulay hadn’t been expecting to attack the Service Pack 1 version of Vista, which comes with additional security measures. He also got a little help from co-worker Derek Callaway.

It wasn’t all clear sailing for Linux though. The story noted that the Vista exploit involved a “cross-platform bug that took advantage of Java to circumvent Vista’s security.” Such an exploit could conceivably work in Linux as well. Furthermore, the story also stated:

Some of the show’s 400 attendees had found bugs in the Linux operating system, she said, but many of them didn’t want to put the work into developing the exploit code that would be required to win the contest.

(Post updated) Why didn’t Macaulay use the Java exploit to break into the Linux laptop too — and walk away with another laptop? It was the rules. You could only use an exploit once and claim a prize. I wonder though, why no one else found that exploit on Linux first. I would have wanted to know if it really could be used to break into the Linux box.

And was it just too much difficult to work out exploits from the exposed Linux bugs? One would think that the prize would make such work well worth it. Unless, of course, it was just too much of a hassle to do so in the alloted time.

Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that even with a cross-platform Java exploit and bugs in Linux, it was still too difficult (or not attractive enough) to hack the Linux box. The Vista laptop was far easier to take down and OS X one easier still. That is the same reality that will be facing many amateur and “gifted” hackers in the real world. In that sense, then, a Linux system is quite likely the most secure of the three — for now.

By the way, what operating system are you running at work and at home? Do you have problems with computer viruses? Viruses may not be a hack, but they are still an issue.

Like one very intelligent person once said: When you’re running from a hungry bear, you don’t really have to outrun it; you just have to outrun the next guy.

The GPL has won another victory — its biggest so far. Linux-Watch, in the article “Biggest legal victory ever for GPL“, reports:

The Software Freedom Law Center filed a copyright infringement lawsuit on Dec. 6 against Verizon Communications on behalf of its clients, the two principal developers of BusyBox. The suit alleged that Verizon violated the GNU GPLv2 by distributing Actiontec MI424WR wireless routers–which contained unsanctioned GPLv2 code–that were used with Verizon’s fiber-optic Internet and television service, aka FiOS.

On March 17, the SFLC announced that Verizon has come to an agreement with the SFLC and the BusyBox developers, which enables them to dismiss the GPL enforcement lawsuit. BusyBox is a lightweight set of standard Unix utilities commonly used in embedded systems. The popular development tool kit is licensed under GPL. Verizon and Actiontec violated the GPL condition that redistributors of BusyBox are required to ensure that every user of the code, or a device containing the code, must be provided access to the program’s source code.

To date, Verizon is the biggest company to be accused in court of a GPL violation. The fact that the case has ended in a settlement should set a good example for others to follow should they ever find themselves in the same position. Hopefully this will also send a strong signal to those who may think that they can get away with not complying with the terms for using GPLed code.

To learn more about the GPL, its history, and its terms, here are some important resources:

• Here’s the GNU General Public License (GPL) itself: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
• The GNU GPL on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
• The Open Source Initiative (OSI) page for the GPL: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

Microsoft-Watch columnist Joe Wilcox is at his best when he tells it like it is. He’s a bit like John C. Dvorak but with less crankiness. In his March 6 post entitled “Interoperability by PR Is a Gambit“, Joe pulled no punches when he gave readers the lowdown on Microsoft’s commitment to interoperability:

Microsoft’s idea of a Document Interoperability Initiative is to put together a bunch of businesses that profit from file format incompatibilities. And that is supposed to demonstrate — quoting from the press release — “Microsoft’s commitment to implement a set of strategic changes in its technology and business practices to expand interoperability through the implementation of its interoperability principles.”

The Document Interoperability Initiative is shameless propaganda along the lines of Monday’s Internet Explorer 8 standards announcement. Real initiative (pun intended) would be a group that included Adobe, Apple, Corel, Google, OpenOffice, Sun and other developers of software that produce documents and/or have their own desktop file formats.

Other forms of “openness” and “interoperability” on the part of Microsoft have been found to be far less substantial than the hype contained in the company’s announcements. You have, for example, Microsoft’s promised release of voluminous documents on the APIs of its major applications, apparently to comply with the directives of the EU Commission. In its February 21, 2008, press release, Microsoft announced:

To enhance connections with third-party products, Microsoft will publish on its Web site documentation for all application programming interfaces (APIs) and communications protocols in its high-volume products that are used by other Microsoft products. Developers do not need to take a license or pay a royalty or other fee to access this information. Open access to this documentation will ensure that third-party developers can connect to Microsoft’s high-volume products just as Microsoft’s other products do.

A few paragraphs later, Microsoft also made a promise:

Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license.

How should we take this? Well, Linux-Watch editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, in his post “Does Microsoft really want to be open source’s friend?” says:

Since then, I’ve looked more closely at the details of Microsoft’s “new” position and it looks even more to me like a new coat of paint on the same old Microsoft “We’re so interoperable” BS. I especially like the fact that open-source developers can use Microsoft’s intellectual property just so long as the code that results isn’t used in any money-making operations. That includes, by the way, using it inside your own company and never actually selling, renting or providing service for your program to anyone else.

In other words, Microsoft is opening up its secrets for you to look at, but, woe to you if you try to use any of them in anything that might actually make money. Microsoft isn’t offering open source a new opportunity, it’s offering open source a trap.

The Trojans of legend could have done well to heed Laocoon’s advice in Book II of Vergil’s Aeneid: “equo ne credite, Teucri. quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.” (”Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even bringing gifts”).

The FOSS community would do just as well to be wary of the “gifts” from Redmond.

Has Philippine Senator Edgardo Angara become a proponent of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM, also deceptively called Digital “Rights” Management by its proponents)?

Last July 3, 2007, the Senator filed “AN ACT AMENDING CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8293 OR THE “THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CODE OF THE PHILIPPINES” AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES”, also known as Senate Bill 880. The bill’s short title, “AMENDING R.A. NO. 8293, TO INCLUDE INTERNET PIRACY”, can give you an idea of its general purpose.

For much of the bill, the focus is on minor changes to existing laws on copyright enforcement, fair use, personal importation of copyrighted works, registration of copy right, copyright infringement, and related procedural matters. In the beginning and at the end of the bill, however, definitions and measures are introduced which give legal protection to DRM techniques by prohibiting ways to circumvent them.

At the beginning of Bill 880, the terms “effective technological measure” and “rights management information” are defined as follows:

SECTION 229A TECHNOLOGICAL PROTECTION MEASURES

“EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURE” MEANS ANY TECHNOLOGY, DEVICE OR COMPONENT THAT, IN THE NORMAL COURSE OF ITS OPERATIO N, CONTROLS ACCESS TO A PROTECTED WORK, SOUND RECORDING, OR OTHER SUBJECT MATTER, OR PROTECTS ANY COPYRIGHT OR ANY RIGHTS RELATED TO COPYRIGHT AS PROVIDED BY THIS ACT.

171.13 “RIGHTS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION” MEANS INFORMATION WHICH IDENTIFIES THE WORK, SOUND RECORDING OR PERFORMANCE; THE AUTHOR OF THE WORK, PRODUCER OF THE SOUND RECORDING OR PERFORMER OF THE PERFORMANCE; THE OWNER OF ANY RIGHT IN THE WORK, SOUND RECORDING OR PERFORMANCE; OR INFORMATION ABOUT THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE USE OF THE WORK, SOUND RECORDING OR PERFORMANCE; AND ANY NUMBERS OR CODES THAT REPRESENT SUCH INFORMATION, WHEN ANY OF THESE ITEMS IS ATTACHED TO A COPY OF THE SOUND RECORDING OR FIXATION OF WORK, PERFORMANCE OR APPEARS IN CONNECTION WITH THE COMMUNICATION TO THE PUBLIC OF A WORK, SOUND RECORDING OR PERFORMANCE. NOTHING IN THIS ACT REQUIRES THE OWNER OF ANY R IGHT IN THE WORK, SOUND RECORDING, OR PERFORMANCE TO ATTACH RIGH TS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION TO COPIES OF IT OR TO CAUSE RIGHTS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION TO APPEAR IN CONNECTION WITH A COMMUNICATION OF THE WORK, SOUND RECORD ING OR PERFORMANCE TO THE PUBLIC.

Chapter XXI, on the other hand reads as follows:

CHAPTER XXI. TECHNOLOGICAL PROTECTION MEASURES AND RIGHTS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

SECTION 229A TECHNOLOGICAL PROTECTION MEASURES

229A.1. ANY PERSON WHO DOES EITHER OF THE FOLLOWING SHALL BE GUILTY OF A CRIME, PUNISHABLE TO THE SAME EXTENT AS PROVIDED IN SECTION 217.1(B) OF THIS ACT FOR THE FIRST OFFENSE, AND TO THE SAME EXTENT AS PROVIDED IN SECTION 217.1(C) FOR THE SECOND OR SUBSEQUENT OFFENSE, AND SHALL ALSO BE LIABLE UPON THE SUIT OF ANY INJURED PARTY, TO A RELIEF, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES, INJUNCTION, IMPOUNDMENT, AND DESTRUCTION. THE REMEDIES PROVIDED IN SECTION 216 SHALL APPLY, MUTATIS MUTANDIS, TO VIOLATIONS OF THIS SECTION:

(a) KNOWINGLY, OR HAVING REASONABLE GROUNDS TO KNOW, CIRCUMVENTS WITHOUT AUTHORITY ANY EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURE; (b) OR MANUFACTURES, IMPORTS, EXPORTS, THE PUBLIC, DISTRIBUTES, OFFERS TO PROVIDES, OR OTHERWISE TRAFFICS IN DEVICES, PRODUCTS OR COMPONENTS OR OFFERS TO THE PUBLIC OR PROVIDES SERVICES:

(i) THAT ARE PROMOTED, ADVERTISED OR MARKETED FOR THE PURPOSE OF CIRCUMVENTION OF ANY EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURE;

(ii) OR THAT HAVE ONLY A LIMITED COMMERCIALLY SIGNIFICANT PURPOSE OR USE OTHER THAN TO CIRCUMVENT ANY EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURE: OR

(iii) THAT ARE PRIMARILY DESIGNED, PRODUCED, ADAPTED OR PERFORMED FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENABLING OR FACILITATING THE CIRCUMVENTION OF ANY EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURE.

229A.2. THIS SECTION PROHIBITS CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES, AND DOES NOT REQUIRE AN AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSE TO SUCH MEASURES. THIS SECTION DOES NOT REQUIRE THAT THE DESIGN OF, OR THE DESIGN AND SELECTION OF PARTS AND COMPONENTS FOR A CONSUMER ELECTRONICS, TELECOMMUNICATIONS OR COMPUTING PRODUCT PROVIDE FOR A RESPONSE TO ANY PARTICULAR TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURE. THIS PARAGRAPH DOES NOT PROVIDE A DEFENSE TO A CLAIM OF VIOLATION OF PARAGRAPH (1)(B).

229A.3. A VIOLATION OF THIS SECTION IS INDEPENDENT OF ANY INFRINGEMENT THAT MIGHT OCCUR UNDER THIS ACT.

SECTION 229B INTEGRITY OF RIGHTS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

ANY PERSON WHO DOES EITHER BE FOLLOWING SHALL BE GUILTY OF A CRIME, PUNISHABLE TO THE SAME EXTENT AS PROVIDED IN SECTION 217.1 OF THIS ACT, AND SHALL ALSO BE LIABLE UPON THE SUIT OF ANY INJURED PARTY, TO RELIEF BY WAY OF DAMAGES, INJUNCTION, IMPOUNDMENT, DESTRUCTION OR OTHERWISE, AND THE REMEDIES PROVIDED IN SECTION 216 SHALL APPLY, MUTATIS MUTANDIS, TO VIOLATIONS OF THIS SECTION.

(a) KNOWINGLY AND WITHOUT AUTHORITY REMOVES ALTERS ANY ELECTRONIC RIGHTS OR MANAGEMENT INFORMATION FROM A COPY OF A WORK, SOUND RECORDING, OR FIXATION OF A PERFORMANCE, OR KNOWINGLY AND WITHOUT AUTHORITY DISTRIBUTES, IMPORTS FOR DISTRIBUTION, BROADCASTS, COMMUNICATES OR MAKES AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC COPIES OF WORKS, SOUND RECORDINGS, OR FIXATIONS OF PERFORMANCES FROM WHICH ELECTRONIC RIGHTS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION HAS BEEN REMOVED; OR

(b) ALTERS ELECTRONIC RIGHTS MANAGEMENTINFORMATION WITHOUT AUTHORITY, KNOWING OR (WITH RESPECT TO CIVIL REMEDIES) HAVING REASONABLE GROUNDS TO KNOW THAT SUCH ACTIVITY WILL ENABLE OR FACILITATE AN INFRINGEMENT OF ANY RIGHT PROTECTED UNDER THIS LAW.

It is truly ironic that as other countries may soon begin reforming their intellectual property laws to limit or eradicate the more restrictive forms of DRM in response to protests from consumers, the Philippines is going backwards as Bill 880 may actually enshrine DRM into Philippine law!

Bill 880 has been pending in a Senate Committee since September 9, 2007. Will it become law? I think that will depend on whether effective opposition to it can be mobilized.

Do you want to give Senator Angara a piece of your mind? Why not write him, contact the media, or blog about it?

Resources

• Bill 880 (in PDF) can be downloaded at: http://www.senate.gov.ph/lis/bill_res.aspx?congress=14&q=SBN-880.

• The Philippine Senate also released an announcement on Bill 880:
  “Angara calls for safeguards against Internet piracy.”