In order to help capture the publics attention, the EFF or Electronic Frontier Foundation has used a popular keyword, "endangered" but they replaced the usual animals and plants with gizmos and software. They have chosen technology that is threatened, endangered or even driven to extiction by misguided laws and lawsuits. They draw a pretty good analogy by stating that these legal motions are polluting the technological rivers and are poisoning the air that innovators need to breathe. Everything from the venerable Betamax VCR to filesharing software has been affected.
Anyway, besides raising public awareness, the EFF also hopes to garner the financial support they need to fight these polluters, so they have listed Extinct, Endangered and even Saved "species" to show what has already happened, what is in the works and even some legal battles that were won. Here's one example from each catagory:
Extinct Streambox VCR  | Species: Streambox VCR
Genus: Recorder for "time-shifting" RealAudio streams
Closest Surviving Relatives: Gizmos like the Totalrecorder which can capture audio streams later in the path by emulating the soundcard device.
| What it is: A software program for recording and playing back RealAudio streams.
What it allowed you to do: It allowed you to record and play audio streams that were originally intended to be played with a RealPlayer G2.
Why it's extinct: RealNetworks didn't want just any company to be able to interoperate with its closed system for content delivery. It sued Streambox under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), arguing that the program violated the law's "anti-circumvention" provisions when it mimicked Real's "secret handshake" to capture audio streams. Struggling under the weight of the lawsuit, Streambox eventually settled -- and when the dust cleared, the VCR utility was sentenced to life in an underground development lab.
What you can do about it: While versions of the Streambox VCR can sometimes be found roaming free on the Internet, its distribution is illegal -- and if US trade partners are forced to adopt DMCA-like laws, similar gizmos will outlawed worldwide. Join EFF today to help us halt the global export of overly restrictive copyright law. | Endangered Total Recorder  | Species: Total Recorder
Genus: Virtual soundcards
Threat: Entertainment companies pressing for operating system-authentication of soundcard drivers.
| What it is: A software program that appears to your computer to be a soundcard, but rather than sending an audio stream to your speakers, it saves it to a file on disk.
What it lets you do: Total Recorder allows you to record any audio that your computer can play.
Why it's endangered: Hollywood is pushing Microsoft and other operating system developers to make it so your computer will detect whether the soundcard software in use comes from a major manufacturer -- that is, whether it's been "tamed" and will do what Hollywood and the majors have agreed it may do.
How you can help save it: You can choose not to purchase or use computers/software programs that use a driver-authenticating scheme (like Microsoft's Secure Audio Path) or multimedia in formats that require it for playback. If you're an artist, you can choose to make your work available in open formats that are more fan-friendly.
| Saved Skylink garage door opener  | Species: Skylink Model 39 Universal Transmitter
Genus: Universal remote garage door opener
Threat averted: Overreaching claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
| What it is: A universal remote-control transmitter for your garage door.
What it lets you do: You can program Skylink's universal garage door opener to open garage doors with electric motors and receivers made by a variety of other companies.
Why it was endangered: Chamberlain, manufacturer of the Security+ line of garage door openers, wasn't keen on having to compete with Skylink. The company sued, claiming that Skylink's universal opener violated the DMCA's "anti-circumvention" clause because it "circumvented" Chamberlain's rolling-code security mechanism.
How EFF helped save it:EFF filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Skylink, arguing that the DMCA is supposed to protect against unauthorized access to copyrighted works -- not stop homeowners from accessing their own garages. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the DMCA [PDF] shouldn't function as an anti-competition statute, and Skylink was permitted to stay in the universal remote business.
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If you would like to see the complete listing, then head on over to the EFF site and look at them all. This is pretty clever and we have to hand it to whoever came up with the idea. Just as there was a public outcry when our world was being exploited for corporate profits with no regard for the environment, new laws were passed and things are better now than they were. I suppose this is no different. What do you think?
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
