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And before any of you jump in to point out that the DMCA is just a U.S. thing, you had better keep in mind that the DMCA is just the U.S. implementation of the WIPO COpyright Treaty [wikipedia.org], so these types of court cases are probably in the pipeline for your country soon too!

Yes, but it is a lousy implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. There were other competing legislation, and considering that U.S. law already complied with the entire treaty with the exception of one provision, I think it is fairly safe to say the DMCA goes far beyond being a mere implementation. The DMCA law dramatically expanded the scope of copyright law, conflicting with the first sale doctrine by granting copyright owners the power to dictate audience behavior, and going ridiculously far beyond copyright protection by giving owners the power to control access to intellectual property, whether a violation exists or not. You can read more about it in Taking A Bite Out Of Circumvention: Analyzing 17 U.S.C. Â 1201 As A Criminal Law by Jason M. Schultz. There is also a nice summary taken from a paper by Pamela Samuelson, Why the Anti-Circumvention Regulations Need to be Revised.

Would you employee someone who didn't show up to work 90% of the time? Of course you wouldn't, it would bankrupt your business. Well, maybe you would; Turn on CSPAN sometime. The place is empty. Those are your employees in action. They don't read the legislation they pass. They don't show up for work. They've pretty well delegated all authority to multinational corporations.

Woohoo! Go vote in your gerrymandered district. Vote on your paperless voting machine. This is the most important election evar! Vote and think you are free.

This is a very important legal distinction, and one that congress didn't address enough of when creating the law. In theory, copyright holders do not have the legal right to prevent you from bringing their content across country lines for personal use (assuming the other country has similar laws). The obvious intent of the DMCA was to support the legal rights already given by the existing copyright laws, not to create an entirely new class of de-facto (and actionable) rights defined by those who currently have the right to mass-reproduce the material. EULA not withstanding (and, let's be honest, they don't), there is no legal framework for region control of copyrighted material. If such a thing is allowed to stand, the next logistical step is to segment the captive market by state and / or metropolis. This would reduce competitive pressures from surrounding communities, and reduce online sales to a few, more highly profitable mammoth corporate entities. I'm not being paranoid here: regional access was implemented in order to increase the sale price of overseas copyrights by segmenting the market and asuaging fears of competing with offshore copyright holders. This has been a part of the video game industry since Nintendo offered the US rights of the NES to Atari. Thankfully, without a DMCA provision, importation of videogames was available to the sub-market of any hobbyist who really wanted access to the material, a market not so large that it would reduce the attractiveness of a copyright that is likely to be purchased, but large enough that a truly significant game would not be completely missed by those who might consider gaming an emerging artform (Seiken Densetsu 3? Radiant Silvergun?).

This is just one point of the new generation of copyrights being taken by those who hold the traditional copyright. For example, they are taking the sole right to control access to the fast-forward button... preventing the user both physically and legally from advancing through anything they might have a financial stake in you watching. They have taken playback medium rights, ensuring that their content can only be seen in a particular set of circumstances, like on a Windows(tm) computer, or a Sony (tm) DVD player. Translations of media for personal use are gone, as are backups... an often abused right that is necessary for anyone who A: has lived through a fire or B: has no idea where they put that CD that they love so much.

Some of these new rights are being taken (backups) in an understandable attempt to enforce the rights they already have. But many (regions, commercials, resale rights) are simply a way to use the legal framework to squeese out more dollars from end consumers, and should be fought against.

Nowhere in the DMCA does it state that it is an intended framework for the non-congressional creation of new rights for copyright holders. Chapter 12 is titled "Copyright Protection and Management Systems," and the first and second sub-clause 1201 and 1202 (referred to in the above article), are entitled "Circumvention of copy protection systems" and "Integrity of copy management systems," respectively. Thus, when they referred to the circumvention of ''(b) ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS.--(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- ''(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

Hence, as restricting region traversal is not a defined right of a copyright owner (holder), multi-region DVD players, and in fact the sale of region-free (but not copy-free) DVD players should be completely within the confines of the law. While it does, in certain points, refer to devices that circumvent access controls, it should be recognized that these two terms are being used interchangably by our elected officials, but that the overriding intent is the protection of existing rights, not creating a new class of rights. Intent is not the sole criteria of the courts, but many rulings have fallen upon the side of intent when explicit statements have failed. No court would believe that Congress intended to define the fast-forwarding of commercials as "theft."

I'm sorry, this was going to be a quick little ramble. It sort of grew a life of its own.

-C

I'm not sure Leahy gets technology very well. After all, he did help to write the DMCA.

"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a good bill on which so many of us have worked so hard and cooperated so closely across the aisle..." Senator Leahy's remarks concerning the House delay of voting on the DMCA October 20, 1998 - Sen. Patrick Leahy

Under the DMCA, you are not allowed to own devices that can circumvent copy protection. It doesn't matter how many uses there are for your decoder, the mere possibility that it could be used to circumvent copy protection renders it illegal.

NOT true, according to a lawyer from Morrison and Foerster, a genuinely kickass intellectual property firm that likes to be called MoFo. I love that!

"To facilitate enforcement of the copyright owner's right to control access to his copyrighted work, the DMCA also prohibits manufacturing or making available technologies, products and services used to defeat technological measures controlling access. Similarly, the DMCA prohibits the manufacture and distribution of the means of circumventing technological measures protecting the rights of a copyright owner, e.g., measures which prevent reproduction. But to ensure that legitimate multipurpose devices can continue to be made and sold, the prohibition applies only to those devices that:

• are primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing;
• have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent; or
• are marketed for use in circumventing. Id."

Quoted from THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT, Jonathan Band, Morrision & Foerster LLP Washington, D.C. jband@mofo.com

Full article here.

Incidentally, the Mighty MoFo were the pro bono defense lawyers for Dennis Erlich in his litigation with Scientology.

• The Digital Future Coalition
  
• The American Association of Law Libraries
  
• The District of Colombia Library Association
  
• The University of Maryland
  
• The Consortium of College and University Media Centers
  
• PBS
  
• The American Library Association
  
• The Association of Research Libraries
  
• The Special Libraries Association
  
• The Medical Library Association
  
• Georgetown University
  
• The California Digital Library
  
• The American Association of Universities
  
• The American Council on Education
  
• The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges
  
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation
  

wether or not the freedom of the Internet jeopardizes the freedom to USE the Internet "

Very eloquent and accurate.

On the other hand, your flame was rather insulting,

Whenever someone moans about "the Feds", I have to ask what the hell are YOU (yes, you) doing about it? Are you expecting someone else to step in and solve these problems?

Who the hell am I? Well for starters I'm an over 40 PHB who lives in the US and has been on the net since the old days, pre 1980. My entire career for the last 20+ years has been the internet, starting long before GUIs.
What the hell am I doing about it? Plenty, you should be as well. All of us should, not just because it's our livelyhood, because it's our privacy and our basic freedoms as well. Personally, I have regular dialog with many elected officials on many different levels. I'm no stranger to the telecom lobbists or in my Representetive or Senators offices on capital hill and my state capital. I support the Electronic Frontier Foundation , Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), Internet Free Expression Alliance (IFEA), Digital Future Coalition (DFC), and the TRUSTe Privacy Policy Certification Program as well as several others both monetarily and with my time. Do you?

Am I expecting someone else to step in and solve these problems? No, I am involved, are you?

Although you had a good point in your post, I feel the impact of it got lost in the flames, instead of flaming posters on /., try using some of that effort to get the laws and the policy changed, you might be surprised at what one person can do.

Now that we've done all the complaining about the law and the DCMA, next step is to get involved.Here's how, Constructive communication to the folks who can make a difference beats whining every time.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
US House of Representatives
US Senate
Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC)
Internet Free Expression Alliance (IFEA)
Digital Future Coalition (DFC)
TRUSTe Privacy Policy Certification Program

Electronic Frontier Foundation
US House of Representatives
US Senate
Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC)
Internet Free Expression Alliance (IFEA)
Digital Future Coalition (DFC)
TRUSTe Privacy Policy Certification Program

Unless someone offers a critic of existing organizations, with changes to be made - I'd argue we may have to many organizations and creating another would continue to fragment what influence there is to be had.

Or in other words, what "we" don't need is to defuse our resources by building up a new organization, but use those resources to strengthen or affect change within existing organizations.

There are a lot out there. I started with three:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

The Center for Democracy and Technology

From there I was able to also dig up links to:

The Internet Education Foundation

The Media Access Project (non-profit telecomm lawyers, interesting..)

The Global Internet Liberty Campaign

Digital Future Coalition

Let alone those that aren't "purely" technical - such as the ACLU or People for the American Way, that touch on things like 1st Amendment (yep, American biased I am) rights. I could keep going and going, but if I didn't bore you ten lines ago, you would be now.

The likelihood of having THE "geek organization" are slim. Finding issues we can individually devote our resources to and building coalitions where interests overlap is a more realistic goal.

The DMCA passed the Senate unanimously in May 1998 (see here) so you can blame every senator in office at that time.

It passed the House by a "voice vote" which means no record was made of how individuals voted (so just blame them all).

It was signed into law by "President" Clinton in September 1998 (see here).

All of this was done to "prepare" America for conformance with WIPO and WTO.

Things are getting scary when Pat Buchanon starts making sense!

People here should also know of the Digital Future Coalition.

Finally, and most important, the legislative history makes it abundantly clear that Section 1201(f) permits reverse engineering of copyrighted computer programs only and does not authorize circumvention of technological systems that control access to other copyrighted works, such as movies.21 In consequence, the reverse engineering exception does not apply.

But what about this text ? Has it no legislative value ? Remarks of Chairman Bliley from the Congressional Record

Mr. BLILEY. Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, I want to make some additional comments. Specifically, given that the Conference Report contains several new provisions, I want to supplement the legislative history for this legislation to clarify the Conferees' intent, as well as make clear the constitutional bases for our action. Given the inherent page and time limitations of spelling everything out in a conference report, I wanted to share our perspective with our colleagues before they vote on this important legislation. Moreover, given the unfortunate proclivity of some in our society to file spurious lawsuits, I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about the scope of this legislation, especially the very limited scope of the device provisions in Title I and the very broad scope of the exceptions to section 1201(a)(1).

[...]

As advances in technology occur, consumers will enjoy additional benefits if devices are able to interact, and share information. Achieving interoperability in the consumer electronics environment will be a critical factor in the growth of electronic commerce. Companies are already designing operating systems and networks that connect devices in the home and workplace. In the Committee's view, manufacturers, consumers, retailers, and professional servicers should not be prevented from correcting an interoperability problem or other adverse effect resulting from a technological measure causing one or more devices in the home or in a business to fail to interoperate with other technologies. Given the multiplicity of ways in which products will interoperate, it seems probable that some technological measures or copyright management information systems might cause playability problems.

To encourage the affected industries to work together with the goal of avoiding potential playability problems in advance to the extent possible, the Committee emphasized in its report and I made clear in my floor statement that a manufacturer of a product or device (to which 1201 would otherwise apply) may lawfully design or modify the product or device to the extent necessary to mitigate a frequently occurring and noticeable adverse effect on the authorized performance or display of a work that is caused by a technological measure in the ordinary course of its design and operation. Similarly, recognizing that a technological measure may cause a playability problem with a particular device, or combination of devices, used by a consumer, the Committee also emphasized that a retailer, professional servicer, or individual consumer lawfully could modify a product or device solely to the extent necessary to mitigate a playability problem caused by a technological measure in the ordinary course of its design and operation. The conferees made clear in their report that they shared these views on playability.

So expect a Federal lawsuit to be filed shortly after January 27.

I believe the answer to all of these is no. They should all (save the Lib.) be covered under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act title II.

You're right, a good reading of the injunction makes clear that they're not defending the terrible copy protection in the dvd mechanism. However, this has a lot to do with recent changes in the U.S. copyright laws, I recommend that folks read H.R. 2281 - The Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The Library of Congress has an easier to read summary online.

What it really comes down to is that the defendants were informed that they should have removed the offending materials and refused to do so (it's right at the top... of the injunction right beneath the 69K of MS-XML.) They can't touch the guy who wrote DeCSS because he complied upon notification of transgression.

If you haven't yet actually read anything about the DMCA, you'll find the WIPO/Title I sections useful in understanding what they new laws have to say about reverse engineering of the sort used in DeCSS. WIPO is the World Intellectual Property Organization, and Title I is the U.S. Congress ratifying general new international agreements about intellectual property. Read Educause's summary, particularly the section on: "Prohibitions on Circumvention of Technological Protection Measures ."

Pratik Dave
ps: Given the specific burden of proof placed upon service providers and their DMCA agents given by the DMCA, I'm especially shocked that some of the defending sites were .edu sites. Since we're (academic sites == service providers) monetarily culpable if we don't take "prompt" action upon notification, seems like someone at rpi dropped the ball.

This part doesn't take effect for a few months, but see if you don't find it the slightest bit relevant (and frightening):
''(b) ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS.--(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
''(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;
''(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or
''(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.

The Digital Future Coalition has a page of resources relating to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It was signed into law just over a year ago. Therefore the restrictions on circumventing copy protection seem to be scheduled to take effect about a year from now. By the way, you may remember this as the WIPO enactment bill before it got the goofy name.

The Digital Future Coalition has a page of resources relating to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It was signed into law just over a year ago. Therefore the restrictions on circumventing copy protection seem to be scheduled to take effect about a year from now. By the way, you may remember this as the WIPO enactment bill before it got the goofy name.