Comments On The DMCA Published

vectro writes, "Well, the copyright office has published all the comments they've received. It looks like all the comments are pro-consumer, with the exception of those from media companies: Time/Warner (movies), Sony Computer (interestingly, comments focus on Playstation rather than movies or music), and the MPAA." These are in .pdf format, so you'll need Acrobat Reader.

Comments

It's not over yet...

[RancidPickle]

Most of the comments concern DeCSS. While the initial comments are no longer being accepted, you still have time to reply to comments (March 20th). If you have any input, you can rebut and reply to any of the comments posted. Mine is up there. Several issues concern most of the visitors to /., including DVDs, encryption, reverse-engineering (how about not being able to make your new hardware work on Linux because it was illegal), and other copyright issues.

Comment #224 has notes about one computer association's concern with DMCA, #209 concerns the input from the MPAA, and #43 is the yacking of Time-Warner. Some very interesting notes were posted by Universities and Museums.

If you want to play DVDs on your Linux box, and you have an interest in how Linux continues to develop, make your voice heard. Post replies to comments. Some of the comments are very well written and thoughtful.

Re:Hasn't this been passed into law already???

[technos]

The Copyright Office often publishes their intrepretation of, and guidelines for law enforcement to use, for new laws concerning copyright. In this case, they have asked for outside input from us, the citizenry that will be beat down by the new laws. And we have said, collectivly, that the DCMA sucks so badly they should pressure Congress for a rewrite at very least. I actually submitted a short monograph of my opinion, in writing. See if you can find it..

DMCA Can Be Turned Against Itself

[MeowChow]

We all know that The MPAA has used the DMCA to structure the CSS licensing system in a way which effectively controls both DVD publishers and DVD player manufacturers. I believe that if the MPAA wins their current legal battle over DeCSS, they will set a precedent with a side-effect that is antithetical to everything the MPAA is fighting for.

Consider what would happen if an open-source encryption/decryption algorithm was created (like CSS, the strength of the algorithm is not important), with a license that explicitly forbade both commercial and governmental use. Now any warez/mp3/movie pirate could encrypt their warez and post them for the public consumption with complete impunity. No law enforcement agency or company could bring any action against this pirate, because in order to do so, they would have to prove that they performed an act of piracy in the first place, which would entail infringing upon the terms of the license of the encryption algorithm.

Perhaps the government has legal methods to work around this.. perhaps they are even built into the DMCA. Nevertheless, this sort of "restricted license" encryption, if employed by pirates, would make it more difficult for any company to protect their copyrights online.

Lets do it! :)

Re:DMCA Can Be Turned Against Itself

[konstant]

Consider what would happen if an open-source encryption/decryption algorithm was created (like CSS, the strength of the algorithm is not important), with a license that explicitly forbade both commercial and governmental use.

I sympathize with your goals here, but really, dream on. One thing I've come to realize over the years is that "schemes" that aim to turn law or finance to the benefit of the little guy generally are ill-conceived.

Essentially, what "would happen" is that the megacorp threatened by the warez distribution would convince a judge that there was reason to believe you were pirating their works. The judge would allow discovery, and you would be forced to decrypt the materials yourself.

Remember, big companies do not stomp on little people by winning court cases. They operate by threatening you with the inevitable bankruptcy that any form of legal action would necessarily entail for a person of average means. They realize you can't afford trial costs, and they know from experience that ther mere threat of a lawsuit is generally enough to have you eating out of their hands.

This law is tailored to harm us. It would be bettr to eliminate it, and failing that to protest it. Attempting to "use it to our advantage" will only work to our detriment as we turn our energies away from defeating an unjust law. Bottom line: I don't want to learn how to live with the DMCA. I want it dead.

-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!

So what's next?

[Tassach]

I find it unsuprising that the big media companies (AOL/TW & Sony) are the only respondents who support DCMA. Of course their arguments are specious at best.

Some of my favorite lies and FUD:

"I am aware of no works or classes of works that have, because of the implementation of technical protection measures, become unavailable to persons who desire to be lawful users"

David Carson, General Counsel for Time Warner

Gee Dave, how about a person who owns a Linux-based PC with a DVD-ROM drive (but not a set-top DVD player) who wants to legally purchase a DVD movie and watch it on his (legally purchased) computer hardware? What about an American who buys an obsure Japanese-language Anime DVD, but can't watch it on his legally-purchased DVD player because of the regional encoding? What about the person who hooks up his new DVD player thru his VCR, because his TV only has a 75-ohm input, and can't watch any movies because of the Macrovision feature? These are all perfectly legitimate scenerios where a law-abiding consumer would be forced to defeat "technical protection measures" (in violation of the DCMA) in order to use a legally-purchased product.

"Time Warner is also vitally interested in the healthy maintenance of the 'fair use doctrine'."

I'm sure you do, so long as it is Time Warner who is making fair use of someone else's intellectual property. They just have a problem if someone else wants to make fair use of their IP. Sorry, Davey; you can't have it both ways.

I really, really hope that some Federal judge out there has the stones to strike the DCMA down; or at least issue an injunction to keep it from being enforced till it makes it up to the Supreme Court. Even though the current Court has a pretty lousy track record in upholding civil liberties, at least they pretend to give a crap about the Constitution; which is more than I can say about Congress & the President.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'