Slashdot Mirror
'Battling Censorware'
Lawrence Lessig
has written a short and sweet essay,
Battling Censorware ,
explaining why the
DMCA
allows Mattel to claim the rights to
CPHack.
He hits the nail on the head. I found myself reading this sentence over and over:
"code that cracks a protection device is criminal under the DMCA
even if the use of the copyrighted material that the code enables
would be fair use."
Hey! You left off the "Trolling for Corporate Rights!" tag on your post!
Suppose Consumer Reports tells me that XYZ Motor Company makes a car that gets 7 MPG and is in the repair shop every two weeks. So I decide not to buy an XYZ model car. Has Consumer Reports stolen from XYZ? I don't think so!
Suppose Peacefire.org tells me that a certain censorware product censors all the sites that criticize them with all the censor tags they've got (violence, racism, drug use ...). So I decide not to buy that censorware product.
Suppose my favorite diet magazine publishes the calories and grams of fat and sugar in a McDonald's Big Mac and Coke. So I choose not to buy any more Big Macs or Coke. That's my right. I'm a customer. I get to choose what I buy and other people get to talk about the products before I buy them. That includes competitors, magazines, rating services that I pay for, and anyone else who wants to offer facts or express an opinion.
Mattel has no God-given right to the money in my wallet.
You would have a case if the anti-censorware people were telling lies about someone else's product. Go ahead, point out the lies. I'll point out that Mattel lies about the content of PeaceFire.org -- they say it contains violent content -- in a deliberate effort to stop people from visiting there. There's your restraint of trade.
"get the answer; put it into the variable," indeed. :)
--
Yet another story about "Your Rights Online" which, translated into /. speak, is "My Right To Not Pay For Anything", which admittedly isn' quite as snappy.
How the frell does cphack allow anyone to steal anything?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It seems to me that the law is designed to make it very easy for big organisations to remove a customers rights.
Simply, they encrypt it and you have no right to know anything about it.
Deleted
The right wing religious fundamentalists that are so prevalent in the USA are almost universally highly militant (christian, jewish, muslim etc).
I suggest that someone explain to them how many of the sites being blocked are religious.
I suspect that they will be very interested to know that they are being put in the same categories as the 'pornographers' and 'fascists'.
Deleted
--
dinner: it's what's for beer
First we elect Judge Jackson to the Presidency, and then he can appoint him.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
that the act of passing the DMCA violates the DMCA itself as it now conflicts with the GPL in this particular instance? Legislatures are trafficking in an instrument that damages a copyrighted material protection method....
:)
Makes perfect sense to me...
Damn, I do love law sometimes. It's like math, but only word problems.
Given enough hydrogen, just about anything is possible.
This has been made allready, but I can't seem to find the URL right now...
---
Is CPHack a device for circumventing a copyright protection system? The site list is encrypted, but I don't think that this encryption is a copyright protection system. Surely the reason it is encrypted is to stop anyone from altering the list,
And is it any better now? Sure, more things get through but do you really think that what you are watching at the theater is the full vision of what the director had in his mind? Nope, the movie is cut and modified until it can get a rating low enough to be put on the shelfs at Blockbuster.
OK, I'll byte and say of course not, but I don't know the legal justification. Whould the goverment also be blocked if the viewing software was released with a license 'for personal private use only, no cort, law enforcement, or any goverment agent may use this software' restriction?
zenray
One way to do something apart from whine would be to find out where the candidates you can choose between in November stand on the DMCA. Then make it clear to them that their stand will affect your vote. There are many positions up for election, not just president. Here is an opportunity to at least try to do something about stupid laws by telling the people who passed them that they won't be in a position to do it much longer.
After all, that's how they got prohibition enforced in Springfield. (not a good example, nor is Sideshow Bob's landslide victory)
development.lombardi.com
Send them back in bits. Just an arm with a note saying that if they don't do X then a leg is next, etc...
DeCSS is extremely bad because it is so insidiously criminal - as evidenced by the foaming at the mouth /. open source zealots and their mindless rampage to crush anyone who dares claim so.
Failure of logic, part one: "This is illegal because people I don't agree with attack me when I say so."
DeCSS, which would have made any long-haired Linux "guru" able to watch DVDs,
Failure of logic, part two: The ad hominem attack.
did not have a license and as such would have lost those companies a lot of money. Hence, it was stealing. Get it?
Failure of logic, part three: "Loss of revenue equals stealing".
Better go back to troll school and learn to do it right.
Jay (=
In the capitalist economy that we are supposedly living under, then market forces alone are sufficient to enable both consumers to purchase quality products and for corporations to have the freedom to innovate and grow.
What the hell do you think "market forces" consist of? A good part of it is consumer feedback -- both to the supplier of a product and other consumers.
Jay (=
Wow...that was a sweet essay. Gives me hope that the DMCA will eventually be emasculated by First Amendment rights.
pooptruck
Please note that none of his examples of "extreme fair use" included rebroadcasting, claiming the work as his own, etc. Dan's point is that where the legal definition of "fair use" used to be essentially "you may do what you wish with this, as long as you do not infringe upon the rights of the copyright holder, the DMCA has essentially twisted fair use to mean "you may do what you wish with this, as long as the copyright holder decides it is fair use."
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Forget the kiddie-porn...
Encrypt DeCSS.
Steganographically embed the resulting cipher in a pretty picture of Tux.
Copyright (copyleft) the image.
Distribute freely.
All of us 'criminals' will probably go un-noticed. After all, it's impossible to prosecute the whole internet (right MPAA?).
But should the government, or a highly visible entity such as the MPAA get the code, see the code, complain about the code...
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
How about copying CDs to MP3 and not distributing them? (e.g. Your CDs sit in a cardboard box in your basement at home, while you listen to MP3s in your car.) Is that legal?
Pre-DMCA, it was clearly legal. Even if they had scrambled the CD and try to require a special descrambling player, it was still legal to copy your CDs to MP3s so that you could listen to them in your car. But DMCA changed that. It caused legal activity to become illegal.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
A couple possible reasons come to mind. This is just a half-assed guess, but that's never stopped anyone...
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No two human beings can agree on what's artistic and whats porn. The word "offensive" is a very personal word. Different people find different things offensive.....its a matter of culture, upbringing, and taste. This is why these kinds of software will _always_ be a poor replacement for the parent who wishes to shield his children.
afaik, us coders don't have artistic talents of any kind. getting them to program an artistic recognition ai is a waste of time. The last time people tried to be artistic, we ended up with the "paperclip" ;-)
pilot
But, according to our government, the press and many outspoken lobbyists, that was a different time. Things are different now. Freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to not have the miltary house its soldiers in your home, protection against unreasonable search and seizure, etc. are all outmoded concepts which have no bearing on the modern world.
Basically, according to the Clinton administration, its adjutants and affiliates and the mainstream media, if Washington and his colleagues has been provided with microwaves and minivans, it would have been wrong to want individual rights as granted to all people by God.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
That would be considered unlawful seizure of your property
:-)
Remember, you don't buy beer -- you rent it
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Might I introduce you to a word - tangible
Thank you. I am honored.
That's because the law is reality, even if you can't see it.
Obviously, it all depends on the definition of "reality" which really depends on the context in which it was used. The original usage was in a context of something like "the reality is that people believe they own software/music/etc that they bought, so legal attempt to do it differently will fail". My point was that this reality is just a perception and as such could be easily changed. Maybe you still want to call it a reality, I don't care much.
Here's where you go wrong. You don't need a license to use a program any more than you need a license to read a book.
You are confused. You don't need a license to real a book, provided you bought the book. When you buy software, you enter into a contract with the seller. This contract specifies what you got (basically, a set of rights). It so happens that most everybody is selling software in such a way that the set of rights that you are buying is a license to use and not much more.
You are making a point that a contract is enforceable only if a court agrees to enforce it and that's a problem with click-wrap sales contracts. Maybe. We don't know. But that's still the contract under which you are buying (buying, not using) software.
No more illegal than buy a book and reading it
Again you are confusing the act of using something and the act of buying something. The analogy, in your terms, is not to reading a book, but to buying a book.
Your slamming the other guy over his correct usage of the word 'rights'
Next time I'll put in [sarcasm] tags. But are you sure it was me? I don't remember slamming anybody in this thread about the correct usage of the "rights" word. I was pointing out that when selling/licensing stuff it is impossible to give more rights than you have, but that's not really about the correct usage of the word...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Where does it say that in the law? The anti-circumvention portion, which I quoted from, specifically says that it is not illegal to circumvent protection measures,
Read more of DMCA. The portion that you are quoting basically says that the Librarian of Congress can designate certain "class of works" and/or certain persons as exempt from DMCA. Whether he will do so and what "class of works" that may be is not clear at all. However, the DMCA itself very clearly prohibits circumvention of protection devices regardless of whether the intended use of the protected material is copyright-infringing or not.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
The commonly perceived reality that you OWN software that you buy IS reality.
Well, I don't know what's reality to you, but to me reality is something physical. Laws are not reality: they are (agreed to and enforced) rules of interaction between people. They are not reality.
You currently own the software you buy.
No, you don't. You get a license to use it.
Of course, ownership is a complicated thing by itself. "Property" basically means a bunch of rights, and this bunch can look different: it's not a yes or no question. You do get some rights when you buy software, but these rights are less than outright ownership.
You're also wrong, the GPL imposes no more restrictions that an unlicensed program.
I'm not comparing GPL to unlicensed use (which is basically illegal, anyway). I am comparing GPL to public domain and, of course, GPL imposed more restrictions than public domain.
My terms are correct and if you disagree, you're just proving that you're either wrong, or pedantic.
Ah, I see.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
God and Rob know I reload the homepage often enough to see every story come in.. It would be nice to just bump everything up to the homepage for us power users!
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Sometimes big money doesn't always work. Look at Microsoft. They have enough dough to buy DOJ out.
I'm trying to find answer for that question for some time now, but can't seem to find any posts explaining the legal background for deCSS or CPHack or that Canadian internet-TV broadcaster bowing to US courts. All I see here on Slashdot in past two years are a bunch of geeks asking these same questions, and I have not seen A SINGLE LAWYER posting here. I find it extremely frustrating not being able to find the answers here; while Slashdot posters are generally very logical and are asking really good questions their guesses as to answers to legal stuff are useless - you can't use logic for that.
I can't see any other explanation than that the US will "ask" the other country to "deliver" that person to them and then put them on trial in the US (they don't care how you got there). US de facto rules the world so there are very few countries that would deny them this "favor". In effect, if you don't live in the US you don't have any right the US person has (namely low taxes and high salaries) but God forbid you actually do something against them. Because their laws still apply to you; you get all the punishment but none of the benefits/protections.
And if someone thinks I'm trolling (I'm not even sure what a troll is), they better give some real "legal" explanation. There are (8 billion - 300 million) people living outside of US and lots of them are very interested to find out why do the US laws apply to them (or rather only the criminal section).
I've had good results using the VHS example. If you buy a VHS tape you can watch it on any VCR on the planet or even build your own vcr to watch it on. And if you need an archival copy you can make one. But with DVD's you can HAVE a backup copy you just can't legally make one.
What do you mean trout doesn't make good underwear?
Please tell me what AI can identify these banned items: the statue "David", George Carlin's audio recordings, a lady's ankle, a lady with uncovered face, a murder.
Actually, cpHack is the opposite of stealing. With cpHack, I can finally buy a copy of CyberPatrol and use those lists to block sites with my Linux box. I couldn't use CyberPatrol with Linux until now. And now I can review the lists and make necessary adjustments.
It's always been this way. The large corporations run the financially challanged off or into jail. Occasionally the legal dept loses, and it makes the news. The problem is that things like this aren't of any interest to the average joe. If it isn't important to him, why should politicians, pr depts, or any other type of human slime feel that it's important. Unless the lawmakers feel that something will adversely affect their elections, they will always side with the money. It's really quite simple.
It's easy to sit back and say "If they come knocking on my door, I'll see them in court!", especially when it's not you. If you want to fight the corporations, you need money. Chances are, if you can afford to pay a good lawyer, you're not worried about this sort of thing, because it helps you. I know I wish I could have taken Mattel to court, but when I recieved a copy of the permanent injunction because of my mirror site, I had no choice but to take down the files mentioned in it off the site, now all that remains is the essay. As if I (student) have the money to pay a lawyer, as well as having to go to Massachusetts for the contempt hearings and trial.
It's a shame that there's really nothing that most of us can actually do. Whatever options we have to fight this, it normally ends up being a fight against institutions that we ourselves funded, via taxes, or multinational corporations with deep pockets. I'm sorry to come off so negative, but lately everything has been sliding faster downhill than before. In order to take a stand in front of this mudslide, we need lawyers, and lots of them. Join the EFF and other such organizations, it's really all the little guy can do.
- It is difficult for mainstream America to get their mind around this issue! This weekend I went home to visit the folks, & I was trying to explain the problems with the DCMA, & had a VERY hard time getting my point across.
I agree! Yesterday, I was contacted by my ISP about my CPHack mirror, that they had a court order to remove it. I decided that I would, because the page had served a purpose, 167 visitors with presumably near that amount of downloads. However, I had left home to go to work right before they called, so my mom spoke to them. When I got off work last night, she was worried that I was 'in trouble'. I tried to explain to her that the software was legal, and all she kept saying was "You'll see when you get in trouble!" (this after I had already removed it and put up a small page explaining what happened). I almost yelled at her over it, but I just walked out of the room instead._______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
Commodore 64 Democoder
FC Closer
Lessig makes an interesting point. It seems if a single users decides to crack the protection on Cyber Patrol's black list it would be considered fair use: Nor would it limit (in my view) the right of a user to reverse-engineer a program to discover what sites that the program he has purchased is blocking.
So what we have here as a law that prevents the a person supporting anothers 1st Ammendment rights. So it is not so much CPHack that Mattel can attack rather the distribution of CPHack. Very scary for ISPs and for those against content filtering.
The only course of action is to get the law declared unconstitutional. I hope that some one out there has the drive to take it to the supreme court. Otherwise Trafficing in user rights will have a longer jail term then trafficing in drugs!
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Maybe but if you bealive people do that I have a bridge to sell you.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
What you say is true...outside the concepts introduced by the DCMA. If you help or facilitate the breaking of copyright protection, you have violated the DCMA. This is the new idea that everyone is so in an uproar over.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Are you saying that the copyright holder has no rights??? Stealing cable is theft. The cable company owns the rights to distribute the signal and charge for it. The MPAA (or equivalent agency) owns the rights to distribute many movies and/or songs. We can claim to have rights while denying them theirs.
We can, however, take up arms when these copyright holders try to defend their rights by stomping over ours.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Incorrect (IMHO)
Check out my other post on this article. "Trafficing in User Rights". Personl copying/cracking seems to still be legal it is the aiding an abetting part that has become illegal.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Ok so what is your point?? No one will argue with you that those are you rights...I certainly have not.
The argument against the MPAA is that if they try to make replication harder and protect their copyright by destroying MP3, MP3s have many legit uses that would be trampled.
No one can argue that copying cds to MP3 and distributing them is legal.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
...you're telling me that my Printer Driver is illegal according to the DMCA because it turns white text on a white background to black text on a white background - thus curcumventing "copy protection"? How the heck can this be legal?!
-Carl "No, we already thought of that one. 'Why?' '42' - It doesn't fit." -Hitchhiker'
> opening the fridge happens to be illegal. No, nobody is trying to keep you from drinking that
> beer, no, no, you have full rights to this beer, it's all yours -- you just can't open the fridge.
That would be considered unlawful seizure of your property, which I think is protected in the US by the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.
By analogy, it seems that the DMCA might not only violate the 1st amendment, but also the 4th one.
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Exactly what do you mean by "The Belt?"
A reference to the novel "revolt and rebirth" maybe.
That is no different then looking under the hood of a car you have purchased, finding out that it really has two hamsters running around in it for an engine, and publishing that finding in a magazine like consumer reports.
Which would not only impact the sales of that model of car (and most likely any other product made by the same company) if the "journalist" was being untruthful then the company has legal redress through laws against "libel". If the statements were true then any resultant legal action would involve the company as defendant
If a corporation writes shitty or misleading software we have a right to know about it.
Not only that, surely in such cases it should be the company who finds themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
If I want to sell an album I own, in theory I should be able to convert it to mp3, send the files to whoever seeks to purchase them from me, and then destroy the original physical medium and any cached copies I might have made for myself in the mean time.
How about if you wanted to make one or more copies? (Maybe on different types of media). So long as you wern't supplying copies to other people (or supplying originals and keeping copies) why should there be a problem?
It isn't that difficult to distinguish between "fair use" and "piracy".
Censorware is a natural application for artificial intelligence if ever there was one. In fact you cannot have effective Censorware without employing a reasonably mature AI.
Except that such AI's do not exist outside of Science Fiction. Anyway even if you could product such an AI how do you explain to it what should and shouldn't be censored. Especially when even such things as offensive words is very ethnocentric (especially if political correctness is a factor too.)
Does the DMCA have any effect outside the USA? If not, what happens when I release MyCPHack from the UK? How else can I help my American comrades? :)
Since the program was written by a Canadian and a Swede there are definitly still issues. The best place to do it from would be a country like Taiwan which could quite happily tell the US to "get lost".
If I bought it, it's mine. If I want to sell it, it's mine to sell. If I want break it into little tiny pieces, if I want to put it in the microwave, if I want to worship it as a proclaimation that God himself is going to touch down in a UFO on Main Street at 2:48PM, damnit, I don't need whoever sold it to me's permission to believe in whatever the heck I want to in their product!
The problem with software is to first remove the "licensing loophole" which is "we've only sold you permission to use it in ways we see fit and at the same time disclaim anything we can get away with disclaiming."
Also surely you should add "If i want to take it apart and tell other people what I find then I should be allowed to do so." (Tradmarks, patents and normal copyright protect the company from having their product "ripped off". Libel and slander protect them from untrue critisism.)
If I buy a car, I am allowed to look under the hood. If I buy food, I can look what it's made of. If I buy a computer, I can take it apart.
Not only that you can tell anyone exactly what you find and what you did.
But in the US I have no rights whatsoever over a prgram that I bought. I can't look under the hood, see what's in it or anything.
That's because you havn't bought the program, you've bought a licence to use it. What's needed is a law (not even actually a statute an appropriate court ruling) to eliminate this kind of anomoly.
If you decrypt the list of target sites from Mattel and publish it, and then even one person is dissuaded from buying that product to protect their children, then in a very real sense you are "stealing" from them. They have lost money from your actions, which is the equivalent of stealing.
So if a company produces a shoddy product and someone publishes that this is the case then that is "stealing" from the company?
So companies should not only be allowed to lie, cheat and make false claims about their products the law should protect their ability to do so?
Shouldn't the law be there to protect customers (and honest companies) from dishonest companies?
I can see it now. "This software is not licensed for use on non-Intel processors." Then add region coding... "This software is not licensed for use in the UK." Before you know, it'll be illegal to carry laptops on intercontinental flights, because of copyright issues.
Though what would stop someone having a CP list display program licenced as "not for use by Mattel or any affiliated body".
Also arround 30 years ago there were books marked "not for sale in the US or Canada".
That is no different then looking under the hood of a car you have purchased, finding out that it really has two hamsters running around in it for an engine, and publishing that finding in a magazine like consumer reports.
:). If a corporation writes shitty or misleading software we have a right to know about it.
Would YOU want to mistakenly buy a car that was run by two hamsters because no one told you because they weren't even allowed to open the hood of their own car?
I know this may sound absurd, but so is your argument
Maybe you shoud reread the ProCD decision. It had nothing to due with piracy. The entire case depended on the 'personal use only' clause in the shrinkwrap license. The Judge found that the clause was enforcable.
I feel like picking a fight with everyone who thinks they are right. - Rainmakers
I believe that at least a sizeable part of the problem is that people think that all the "right's groups" will protect them universally and powerfully. This is not always the case. Another part is that people seem to only be able to be worked into a fervor by the media, especially the television newsmedia, which frequently reports on insignificant things, most of which actually do not have any impact on most people. The people that actually are concerned over this thing are frequently dismissed as extremists. Most people think that the government would never do anything to the American people. Even if this were entirely true, the government only has to consistently pass enough small laws that even they see as "the right thing." If rights are consistently eroded away, it might be too late for them to be regained before Something Bad Happens.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
This is America. And given that fact, why does this news surprise you?
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
The programmers are in Sweden.
Mattel is in America (USA).
Why did they not say to Mattel (and the world), fuck you -- you're in another country with a different justice system. Nahhnahnah!!!
Someone please tell me?
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
People complain about how unfair the DMCA and UTICA (and I agree with them for the most part), but who'd doing anything about it? Marching and protesting are fine, but not very effective when the other side is spending millions of dollars on lobbyists.
Since geeks make up a small segment of the population, even if everyone who reads slashdot (and who lives in the US) writes to their representatives, we really don't make up a big chunk of popular opinion. As long as people get their news from CNN, etc . . there won't ever be massive popular support for our causes.
With all of the IPO millionairres in the tech field, and with geeks in general making pretty good money, why isn't here any organization (with adequate funding) dedicated to lobbying with a pro-geek agenda.
We can't every match the big boys dollar-for-dollar, but we have to have a presence to make any effective difference.
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Washington D.C. and the area surrounding it.
Naaah, all you need to do is look at your automobile or house to see that you don't really "own" anything and can do "anything" you please.
You see, you may "own" an automobile, but you cannot drive it on a public road or highway without proper permission (Driver liscence) and even then, if you do it in a manner that is not prescribed (say going 60mph in a 15mph zone) you may find that you will have the property that you "own" removed from your possession.
You may "own" your house, but you cannot do "anything" you please while on your land, inside your house. You cannot create certain things (drugs, explosives) inside your own house, on your own land, even if the things that you create are to never be taken off of your property. You may find that property taken from you if you make these types of things.
You may want to be careful of what you teach the general population regarding freedoms and rights. See Government V. Socrates for a clue. :)
Does anyone think that the US Federal government would like the likes of the founding fathers of the country, if they were alive and disliking the current form of government, and talking about a revolution? (woah, I got offtopic)
The way I see it the DMCA is just making copyleft and other open licenses that much more desirable. It's just speeding up the inevitable. When the restrictions created by DMCA start getting forced down everyone's throat, copylefted material looks better and better. The best response to the DMCA is to stop using content that is protected by it. It worked with shrink wrapped software. How many people out there remember the baroque (broke) copy protection schemes that were popular in the early '80s?
Even better, create and promote content that isn't created by the large corporations. Download MP3's that were made by people you *don't* hear on the radio and can't find in the local store. Create your own indexes of fame rather than letting the people who are addicted to owning content control that too.
The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) [anti-circumvention] shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title...
Your omission of the rest of the sentence makes this quote seem much stronger than it is. The "..." goes on to say: "as determined under subparagraph(C). "
The Librarian of Congress, under whom the Copyright Office operates, was given rulemaking powers in (C) to grant exeptions to (A). The legislative history of the DMCA shows that it was very important to Congress to preserve a way to allow fair access to allow fair use. The LOC rulemaking takes affect in Oct. and it will be absolutely critical to the subsequent interpretation of the law. I must disagree with prof. Lessig that the DMCA necessarily bans all cracking, even ones that lead to fair use. He points out that such an interpretation would run afoul of the First Amendment, but there is another interpretation that is much less far-reaching and is compatible with the law.
This interpretation is based on the fact that the law only bans circumvention of _access_ control measures. A limited defintion of "access" can distinguish "access control" from "use control". Accordingly, some of the members of the Openlaw DVD forum have submitted a reply comment urging the LOC to adopt such a limited definition.
This idea was first advanced by the original comment of the five leading Library Associations. We hope that the Copyright Office will treat these organizations with the enormous respect and credibility that they obviously deserve.
Of all the companies to bring this to the forefront... It *had* to be Mattel, the one company I was sure would never sell more than 12 copies of any software... Oh, well. Why couldn't they just stick with Barbie Dolls and leave this internet thingy to the professionals?
"Some days, you get the bear,
Some days, the bear gets you."
Oh why didn't I think of acting like a parent? How silly of me.
The point remains, you can't be there all the time, you can't hold their hand throughout their childhood with no time off, and you can't monitor 100% of their surfing without tools to help you do the job. I'm saying that a filtering tool that is transparent, individualized, and much more finely tuned to age could be an important *HELPER* to parents struggling to handle a culture that is often hostile to family virtues.
That tool has yet to be written and it is certainly not CyberPatrol in its current incarnation. But arguing against a product is one thing, arguing against the product category is entirely different.
Of course I want to be there as much as possible and I want to teach my child the difference between right and wrong and why visiting some of these sites is a *bad* idea. But to go from there to the idea that this is my only option and that I can't have any tools to help me technologically is just hiding your agenda behind the 'freedom' flag.
As for the crack about latchkey kids, my parents came to this country with 2 kids and 2 suitcases in order to get out of communism and have a better life for us. They both worked so that we weren't stuck in the S. Bronx and caught up in the gangs as recruits or target practice. Did I miss them while they worked long hours? You bet. But I think it is insulting to them and the millions of others in exactly the same boat to belittle their sacrifices in the way you did. Shame on you.
DB
Why not just make an open framework for Tipper Gore, the Catholic Church, the Baptists, and anybody else who cares to submit lists of inappropriate sites that should not be seen. Then parents can say, I trust x to manage this job and apply that set of filters on their little tyke's surfing, or even their own if they choose.
Having a bunch of geeks decide what is morally appropriate is just stupid.
DB
Saying that I have to be tied to my kid for 18 years in person is as silly as saying that I shouldn't buy a gate for my stairs. After all I should be close enough to personally stop him from falling down the stairs.
Real life doesn't work like this and if you insist that parents should work like that be prepared to be ignored. We need tools to assist in child rearing. Granted, CyberPatrol is stupid and needs to be completely reworked before I would consider it as a filter but the concept of filters is not in and of itself a bad one. Or do all of you keep slashdot set on -1?
DB
Actually, the Republicans have several legislators up in arms over civil forfeiture reform and are spearheading efforts to repeal some of the more egregious practices going on right now
DB
I've been advocating the same for several threads. If the list spec were opened so that each parent could pick your own and every religious or cultural organization that cared to could submit their own lists and individuals picked what ran then most of the problems would go away.
If I can get startup money for a venture I'm gearing up, I might just do it myself.
DB
Just ask them if they like the idea of living in a company town, with a company car and a company house. That's where we'll end up w/ the current trend of products like the DVD encryption.
I personally don't have a problem w/censorware per se but I do have a problem with somebody picking a list that I can't check and can't edit. There's a great IPO opportunity for somebody who would make a child filter that can truly be controlled by parents.
DB
For purposes of writing compatible programs, reverse engineering of a player program is specifically allowed assuming the user lawfully obtained the program. That DeCSS removes encryption is a necessary step for a player to perform its function. The fact that someone else now provides a player for Linux isn't relevant unless the player is distributed in a form compatible with all current Linux releases and remains so in the future.
Relevent sections of the DCMA:
`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
`(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
`(3) The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other than this section.
`(4) For purposes of this subsection, the term `interoperability' means the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I've wanted to ask a question regarding this for a while. Maybe this forum isn't being read much anymore, and no one will reply, but...
My reading of the DMCA, regarding copy protection, can be summarized by "If it requires a key, then it's locked. If you get past a lock without using the key, then you broke in." That is, as you quoted, if you normally need something with the authority of the copyright holder to get access, then that's a measure that controls access, and the DMCA makes evading such measures illegal, in general.
I think, this is not supposed to mean something like the language the work is in, or the means by which it is stored. Most digital media stores the information in 1's and 0's, and I have to apply something to decode it and make it readable (gain access), like a CD player, disk drive, etc. However, these aren't processes or treatments that have anything to do with the copyright owner.
Specifically mentioned as a technological measure controlling access to a work is encryption.
My question is: does DVD encoding really fit the general definition? In particular, the DVD decoding that takes place in the DVD player is licensed or something from the MPAA, but they don't hold the copyright to any particular DVD movie. Is their licensing of the decoding stuff "with the authority of the copyright holder?"
It seems to me that the idea is, if normally I need a key from the copyright holder, then that's a measure controlling access to the work. In this case, I don't really need a key from the copyright holder, I just need a DVD player. The copyright holder didn't give me anything separate from the work to gain access.
The counterargument, I think, would run like this. I don't know if this is true in fact, so please let me know. The MPAA gives decoding keys to DVD player manufacturers, with the authority of the copyright holder in some way. Effectively, the manufacturers get the key in advance for a multitude of copyrighted materials (the DVDs.) And, the DVD encoding isn't just how the media is stored, since I can change the encoding so that some manufacturers' keys work and some don't.
My counter-counterargument, which isn't legal and maybe childish, is that the "with the authority of the copyright holder" business ought to require more of the copyright holder themselves. I totally understand copy protection by, say, including a CD key or something, so that you need to use something else you got from the copyright holder (the key) to get to the work. DVD encoding is included in my player, and I don't have to apply anything other than the media itself to get access to it. If I were to make an exact duplicate of the DVD, I could give it to my friend (violating the copyright), and we could both play it. I wouldn't have to copy a key to be typed in, or run a decryption program that came with the DVD, or otherwise apply something from the copyright holder to gain access to the work.
Anyone with an opinion on any of these points of view, either from a personal feeling standpoint or a "this is how I think the law is meant to be interpreted" way, I'd be interested in hearing it.
The movie industry is insanely profitable. They have never had any justification for imposing copy protection schemes, as pirating causes them to lose approximately 1% of what they would otherwise earn.
And if I buy it, I *should be* allowed to do whatever I want with it within the terms of fair use. Don't make this into a "slashdot users are anarchist" post when all we want is what the law is supposed to give us. The DMCA violates fair use, and that is the beef we have. We are not advocating mass copying SINCE COPYING OF DVDs HAS ALWAYS BEEN POSSIBLE by sampling the output from the DVD player. DeCSS (which I assume is what you're referring to) is a PLAYER, it is not a TOOL OF ANARCHIST PIRATES, since the anarchist pirates have always had the required tools to copy DVDs.
That they are trying to restrict fair use shows us that they want to force us to buy their players that run on a specific operating system. It's worth noting that in order to play DVDs on a linux system you already must have a hardware DVD player (it's not like you're not buying a player). It's just that since they can't be bothered to support linux, we have to write our own tools to view the movie that we bought on the DVD player that we bought. Yet when we do so, all of a sudden we're accused of copyright violation...
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
See, that's the wonderful thing about a free market, if they're not making a profit out of it, they can either raise the price, reduce their costs, or get out of the business. It's as simple as that.
Even us commies up here in Canada recognize basic market principles.
No I don't get it! And I also don't have long hair so I guess I am not a Linux "guru", only a wannabe and therefore all opinions expressed in this rant are just that, opinions, no facts just personal observations and opinions.
Therefore, since I bought the DVD ROM with a decoder card that supports CSS decryption, I have no right to play my purchased DVD's under any OS that I happen to have running? I can only play it under the OS that the manufacturer intended.
I think I will go read the CSS licensing that came with my DVD ROM and decoder card and see if it says anything about operating systems. Or maybe, just maybe, I actually have a license to use CSS, if only I could figure out a way to decrypt it using my long-haired hippie operating system!
Or perhaps I should have purchased those extra licenses for CSS on top of paying for the player, the decoder, and the media. Yeah, that is probably what I really needed to do.
Anyone know where I can buy a license for CSS so I don't feel bad about purchasing all of the hardware and media just to have it sit in a useless computer.
Sarcasm aside, I am not going to argue with anyone that a company needs to make money to survive, however, wasn't the hard work that went into CSS licensed to the companies that produced the DVD players and decoders? Since those companies probably stand to make more money from the long-haired Linux "gurus" out there, because they will now buy the players knowing they are not limited to one or two operating systems, how is this insidiously criminal? They are not buying decoders because they now have DeCSS, so that may be losing some money, but they are buying media and players. Ok maybe the money isn't going directly to the people who did all the hard work, but does it ever?
Here's an idea that's bound to generate some controversy: How about an open-source, fully GPL'ed product that serves the same function as CyberPatrol, but fully reveals every site blocked, and a reason for blocking it? I think the open source community could put out a *much* better product than Mattel.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Not necessarily true, although they would like you to believe this. For them to be losing money, the people using the unapproved players would have to be people that would otherwise be using a player they have collected their tax on. If the people would otherwise simply not be buying DVDs in the first place, then they are gaining money from the existence of the unauthorised players.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
In other words, Lessig was wrong, the DMCA does not prohibit fair use.
No, but it does prohibit it by default for all works, then puts the decisions of whether to re-allow it for specific, limited classes of works in the sole hands of the unelected Librarian of Congress.
This puts the burden of establishing citizens' rights on the citizens, granting rights only as special exceptions to a policy of restriction of dissemination of information. This is backward; as governments are known as usually too prone to meddle in such matters, the default should be free speech and dissemination of information, and the burden at each step should be on the government to prove a specific and limited restriction meets a compelling public need.
No no. There is a right to try to make a profit. If you can't (because your product is shoddy, because you don't advertise enough, because you're a bad buisnessperson, or whatever) then the whole point of capitalism is that your business will fail. Capitalism works because consumers have a choice> about what produce to use, and can choose the best one. Then that whole invisible hand thing comes in, and the lesser products are weeded out. It's people who claim a right to profit that lead to many of the corporate restraints we have now; you have a right to fail and a right to try—not a right to profit.
Evil Thought of the Day: Everyone donate money to the FSF or EFF for the express purpose of buying the Learning Company from Mattel and then using it against them. Yes, I know it wouldn't work well, and neither would be able to get enough money together nor want to by the company, but its still evil, no?
-RickHunter
For christ's sake, i thought this was america. this shit pisses me off.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
Whether I'm babbling incoherently, talking about how to build a nuclear bomb, criticising a company, or coding, these are all speech, and thus congress can't make any laws that prevent these from happenning. Somewhere along the line the supreme court defined "protected speech" and "unprotected speech." At this point, we (as US citizens) lost our right to say that "one plus one equals two" (Orwell, gotta love him), and thus our freedom of speech. Rights? We have rights? Whatever.
Trust no one.
"Think for yourself, schmuck." -Robert Anton Wilson
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
The problem with this is I agreed to no license when I purchaced my new DVD. I agreed to nothing when I opened my DVD. And I agreed to nothing when I played my DVD. SOMEWHERE I would have to agree to the "license" in order for it to have any affect what-so-ever. If there is a license, I should be able to return an opened DVD because "I did not agree with the license." Try that and see what hapens.
"So all I have to do is issue an injunction banning the distribution of this 'CPHack' and you will ban all sights that oppose my run for president?"
I don't see how any one could even THINK of purchasing software that conseals the sites it bans from the consumer. Becides, if it bans them, why is giving out these urls so bad? There blocked, right?I was lucky enough to grab a copy of it from the local library for the whopping sum of fifty cents. Someone had damaged the book (about 200 pages out of the center are detached from the spine, but all the pages are there), so they were nearly giving it away. Now I've got to figure out how to hold it together... I've got access to a drill press, wire binding, and a lot of rubber cement, any suggestions?
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
try reading some stuff. The main problem with censorware is the inability for it to achieve it's stated goals so it blocks out non-adult stuff. I want my kids to find porn / drugs / rebellion etc. when it's right for them not for it to be shoved down their throats. I get a bit angry when my 10 year old get's Porn Spam via ICQ or mail or search engines. It juxtaposes against their world and can cause confusion.
....
.oO0Oo.
Censorware is used in adult environments too. And on ISP's. Want to find out about abortion. Too bad. Blocked out.
and it's nothing to do with nation state
I live in Europe.
Home of Genocidal Warfare, racial tension, xenophobia, terrorism, overcrowding, thousands of years of ripping the wealth from the people to the state, land clearances, deportation to the colonies
so drop that pathetic anti-US crap because it's pointless. Citizens grab on to what little power they have because they have been systematically dis-enfranchised.
The state wants to control because at some point they can charge you to circumvent that control. The more things are illegal the more justified they feel when they raid your house and don't find what they were looking for but "wait a minute what's this - links to drug culture, sex sites hey, we got us a live one".
Ever read 2000AD? When a Judge came into your house he was *bound* to find something illegal because there were so many things in the category and off you went to the cubes.
The state is just a money making machine so institutionalised that even if you assasinated every head of state the machine will just trundle on.
They only want you to buy what they can make. Anyone can make porn so it's illegal.
Simple effective control.
My advice - see how liberating a shoplifting spree feels. They stole your right to grow food the only way forward is to steal the food back again.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Supporting your argument by referring the reader to comics is not really the right thing to do, you know.,
Really, why is that then? I illustrated my point about the rule of law with a colourful example from the world of literature. It provides a useful bridge for people between their experience and my point. It also provides a tangent point for the discussion as you have clearly deomonstrated.
You know, you really sound far too bitter....
I was a bit annoyed at the posters aguments. I hate all that nation state crap "you Americans are all....." when it's just bullshit. Anyone who's ever been anywhere must surely have come to the conclusion that people are much the same but the ruling institutions they are almost 'stuck' with keep fsking them over. The 'net is still not entirely institutionalised and we can see before us the battles between the people and the bureaucratic machine. The post I was replying to lauded the political systems of Europe as superior to the US. My point was that both had yielded much misery upon it's peoples.
The best way for people to go (IMHO) is to resist the laws of the machine by just ignoring them. In the UK a jury can find you not guilty if they think the law is bad. That's what a jury is for - not to determine whether you have broken the law but to determine whether you are guilty. That's why a jury should be made up of your peers. Wanna change the law - go break a few ;-)
I don't hate Europe because, like all the places I have been, it is beautiful. I'm very thankful I don't live in an islamic state like Pakistan at the moment or somewhere else deeply opressed. At least I'm in a minor police state and am blessed with a comparitively luxurious existance where I even have the time to go on like this.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
It makes it so difficult to enter into discourse.
try reading some stuff. - I have "read some stuff". thank you.
Good then you'll be familiar with the issues of censorware blocking out non-depraved material and pages deemed innapropriate because they differ from the opinions of the blocker.
Yeah, I loved the place. My girlfriend and I had a weekend of non-stop sex, porn and drugs. And do you know what? That kind of makes me more qualified to talk about censorship because I've had a taste of a kind of freedom. Sex is fantastic and sharing sex with people other than your partner is great fun too. Be that in bed with them or putting up a web page with your bedroom pictures on or posting the contents of your digital camera to alt.sex.fucking.
I get my political information from more conventional sources.
Like the bible or maybe it's the Koran for you? Shame you've got a closed mind. If not then you would know that fiction is a great source of political ideas. Ever heard of George Orwell? no maybe not because as a bible type you should know that other books are a sin and that the bible is the only source of knowledge you will ever need.
Keep off the shellfish
oh BTW 1.Thou Shalt Not Kill
Don't forget it doesn't discriminate between humans and other species so get that Chicken McNugett out of your mouth.
Does anyone know if the ban on Rock and Roll has been lifted yet
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
BUT, the use of the program, or the mirroring, or even the download of it anywhere inside the US is still illegal. Lawyers have a tendancy to ask for everything they could possibly have a cliam to, and are asking for the logs of all the people who downloaded the thing, probably in order to track down more people to target.
But how much money does the MPAA actually make from the licensing per se? Isn't it more that if CSS decryption must be licensed they can then en- force region codes as part of the licensing. Yes, its still about money but also control. And on the main topic. If some slob encrypts their puke data using some really complicated protocol like oh say "rot13" does decrypting it with oh say pine's "rot13" function violate the law. ( Pine has rot13 doesn't it or am I mistaken ). And what about Lone Ranger decoder rings? Will they be illegal? Come on people, there has to be a way to turn this around so it bites Mattel in the butt.
They had two major drivers. One was :
A> buys a work of art from nearly unknown artist B, for a small sum.
Over time B> becomes famous, commanding top $ for their works.
A sells the artwork they purchased years ago for a large amount of money.
B demands a percentage of the profits from the sale.
The second was : A buys a work of art from B.
A changes that art, painting it, chopping it into bits, whatever.
B sues A for that action.
In both cases the arguments is that B retains certain rights to the work of art, in effect the concept expressed there, even if they have some the tangible work and the reproduction rights.
There have been a number of legal battles over this, I remember several involving the modification of the work that were won by the artist (don't remember if there were appeals).
I believe that there is a strong similarity between this and software licences and media distributions. Luckly software seems only to go down in value as it ages.
So the individual artists are fighting for rights that in part overlap with the interests of the big corporations - preventing copying and modification of their products. Luckly the corporations haven't caught onto the "increase in value" idea, when they do that classic car of yours and your inflated value house are going to be financial headaches.
Anyhow, the concept of "I bought it, I own it" isn't the clearest right now. In part this is due to the change in the amount of effort needed to replicate something, in part to changes in the various societies in the last 3 centuries.
Now concepts such as Copyleft take on the ownership issue by opening ownership up to all. If more generally useful (to the general public, not just /.ers) creations were released under copyleft, and promoted as "own what you use" Then there might be a change in the way the general population thinks, and eventually a change in the laws.
Think of the ad campaign - "do you want to just lease something that you can't complain about if it doesn't work, or do you want to own it and hav eaccess to the knowledge of how it works?" While most people don't want to be bothered with understanding how something works, they do get excited about having that something doing things they might not like - browser cookies, Pentium chip ID, Microsoft's document signatures, and so on. People get excited when their tools do things the people don't know about - if it had turned out that Cyber Patrol was blocking a number of Christian Web sites, might not the public reaction (in the US) forced a different outcome ? (remember the '666' in beard and other rumor campaigns that forced major corporations to spend a lot of money). In this case the argument that the consumer needed to know what was being blocked would have been brought to the forefront, and DMCA might have been steamrollered in the letter writing.
The point is that the argument that "I bought it, I own it" currently is weak when it comes to materials that can be considered "creative works" rather that simple material items. Making open and wholly ownable alternatives available can get around those issues.
Yes, under capitalism you have the "right" to make a profit in the sense that you are "allowed" to do so. But, you're not protected from losing that profit due to competition of any kind. If a consumer is informed of the poor list of blocked sites, for instance -no matter who tells them what that list is- they have a right to verify that that information is correct and to use that information to make an informed decision on what they're buying. This is the very reason they put the "Nutrition Facts" and ingredients labels on food products. To inform the consumer of the contents of that product, and allow the consumer to purchase or not purchase that product due to dietary needs and desires. The original argument would be akin to saying that a company could choose not to place the ingredient "strychnine" in their ingredient list because they would probably "loose money". Furthermore, it would prevent chemists from chemically analyzing --breaking the chemical code, in a manner of speaking-- the food to find out what it contains.
"Its a trick; get an axe." -Ash, Evil Dead II
Most large libraries have a quick binding machine to put together a year's worth of periodicals - not pretty, but functional. I used to rebind deteriorating paperbacks that way - the plastic cover has glue down the spine - the machine heats the glue and clamps the pages nice and tight - and there you have it - rebound for about $.10 worth of plastic and glue.... I'm sure a friendly librarian would do it for you.
So your argument is that if you buy a copy of Cryptonomicon, it is yours, right, you can copy it, chop it up, edit it, rewrite it, and distribute it w/o reference to Stephenson? Your point reduces the legitimate arguments to absurdity. We are arguing over fair use - it is fair use to play a DVD on a linux system, in my humble opinion. Having people arguing to completely undermine all IP law prevents reasonable incremental change. It is not all or nothing - we need to, with clear heads, make our points and hold the ground we can.
Very good points - it seems that the arguments become generally about the IP for which we are purchasing a single, transferrable performance license. What media is the initial transfer mechanism is irrelevant - we shouldn't have one set of rights for DVD and another for VHS, right? Certainly this can be contractually differentiated, and that is their legal ground - but should it be? In broadcast cases the consumer won - that's why you can time-shift broadcast viewing by taping a show and watching it later. Remember that this was all litigated prior - NFL, etc was not all all happy with the widespread use of videotape. But broadcast has a much harder time attaching an adhesion contract to their product, which is easy with a DVD or CD - so they had no choice but accept the common law and FCC regs. A seller of a DVD can attach just about any contractual terms they want... and when a whole industry forms ranks and a united front, their is no bargaining over the terms of that contract. Just spewing thoughts...
Since users require an external tool (made by those vicious hackers-child pornographers-credit card stealing-misguided geniuses ) to circumvent the access control, it *is* effective.
Anyway, the point isn't whether it was easy or difficult, the point is outlawing it takes away too many things. If that was our argument, they (yes, the mythical, mysterious, evil they) would just have to get a clue, implement stronger controls (arguable whether it is at all possible- for what is worth, I think it is) and we would be file-system-checked.
PS.- Sorry if I came on too trollish, I still haven't (and doubt I will) gotten adjusted to daylight savings time and am in a slightly altered state of consciousness.
Lessig's analysis is interesting, but he misses an important point: the First Amendment isn't the only constitutional issue here. Congress lacks constitutional power to pass copyright and patent laws that do not meet the constitutional test of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts. It also lacks the power to protect intellectual property under the commerce clause if doing so would violate this provision. This argument is spelled out in an article in the Harvard Journal on Legislation's Winter 2000 issue entitled "The Proper Scope of the Copyright and Patent Power," by Robert Merges & Glenn Reynolds. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be available on the web.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
You don't need to crack CyberPatrol in order to determine its accuracy on whatever criteria you wish to measure.
What exactly do you mean by that??? Unless you have a list of all valid URL's on the internet and try them all, how are you going to find out which one's are blocked that shouldn't be and vice versa? By breaking the encryption, you can at least determine which links are unjustly blocked.
Your statement may be theoretically correct, just like in theory a public key contains the same information as the corresponding private key, it just takes a bit longer...
NI3
I would imagine parts of the government must be THRILLED with the DMCA.. I suppose all of their supercomputers to crack encrypted messages is useless now? Since, afterall, decrypting people's messages, conversations, etc would be in violation of the DMCA... This could bring a whole new life to the underground :)
In the world of Physics, you can have a complete theory, explaining everything in crystal-clear logic and irrefutable proofs. But if the central, guiding assumptions are wrong, the whole theory collapses. Law, like Physics, is based on Logic, and on guiding assumptions. It is high time that the guiding assumptions of our Law were based on reality (experimental evidence) rather than the groundless dreams of lawyers and legislatures. In applying this rule to copyright law, one should note that our current law is based on the fact that a piece of work required significant effort to duplicate. This is not the case anymore, correspondingly, the Law needs to be written with the truth as its guiding assumption, or else it is wrong, and any rightness in it is purely coincidental. As any programmer should also know, tagging on bits and pieces of the solution to an already defective structure is not the way to proceed (witness: Microsoft Windows). The United States claims to follow the guidelines of the Constitution in creating legislation, which in essence state the protection of the rights of the individual (speech,arms,trial-by-jury,etc). It is time that the U.S. government wakes up to the reality that exists today and resolves the issues of today following the guidelines of the Constitution which it has sworn to uphold. Democracy is a flawed system, but perfection would be too much to demand. Let us instead see a well thought out common sense approach to resolving the issues of today following the precepts of the Constitution, and relying on the present reality for basis. Matt Danish mrdlinux@yahoo.com -- The Second Amendment is insurance against the day any one of the Bill of Rights is repealed. It keeps the politicians honest; no wonder they wish to restrict it.
Those who do not know the past are doomed to reimplement it, poorly.
In that same perfect world, everybody who is able would pay $35 for GNU/Linux. We don't see that happening either.
How 'bout that NASDAQ? Down 11%. BTW, this is the 32nd anniversary of the Martin Luther King assassination. Rough day.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Can everyone say DeCSS? How is this any different? DeCSS crasks the protection device (CSS) on a DVD. I hate to say it, but the more the DMCA is upheld in court, the worse off the DeCSS case will be.
kwsNI
suppose that Ford shipped a defective car,
Hmm, thats interesting. What if the defect was in a ROM controlling the engine?
Most learning algorithms probably wouldn't have a hard time distinguishing a porn site from most other sites. The all look the same, with lots of flashing text, bright colours, and ususally something along the lines of "You must be 18 to enter".
Find a selection of false positives and reapply to the learning algorithm to improve the accuracy. Even if it isn'tperfect, it would certainly be better than an algorithm that blocks things like "wish it was sunny" on the basis of obscenity in character 3-7.
So if I pirate it without decrypting it then thats okay? Or is it okay to decrypt it without pirating it? Or neither?
What if I write a dictionary? Are people allowed to quote definitions from it? Can I prevent people from doing this by putting something on the first page? Can I prevent people from reviewing it? Can I prevent this if its on CD? What about cutting and pasting the definitions?
As far as I understand it (Terms like "notwithstanding the provisions"... confuse me) According to section 12g, it is perfectly legitimate to reverse engineer the cryptography, and publish an analysis of the cryptography, with certain restrictions. The cphack authors didn't follow the letter of this section (e.g. They didn't ask for permission) , but they did follow the spirit of it (They wouldn't have been given permission).
As far as I can tell, the article is inaccurate in places too. There doesn't seem to be any reference to the GPL in my version of cpHack, and the DMCA does have a lot of exceptions to cover "fair use". The MPAA had to show that DeCSS could allow a DVD to be be copied to gain the injunction. Not just used.
Well if they are going to restrict code craking and make it illegal, let's hack the raw output. If we capture that with hardware modifications and/or process the stream (assuming streaming to a video/audio device under linux), and just capture the raw output. Not craking done. It has to become unencrypted at some point otherwise it would be useless.
I'm going to sleep. Maybe when I wake up this nightmare of idiocy will be over.
This is the worst thing to do.
Too many people are doing that right now.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
[Please excuse the dumb question, but this seems to be the best place to get a (semi) enlightened answer.]
:)
Does the DMCA have any effect outside the USA? If not, what happens when I release MyCPHack from the UK? How else can I help my American comrades?
I just had to tell you that you are speaking about market economy wich need not have anything to do with capitalism. I like market economy, capitalism I generally don't like.
The difference:
- Market economy is when the prices and availability of products depend on the demand/supply. Theoretaicaly this is a perfect setup unless companies get dirty and play the game MS-style. Market economy is the correct opposite of plan economy.
- Capitalism on the other hand is when you "by the sloe right of having money" can get to make even more money. This can be good when the money is used in a "responsible" way: to invest in your buessiness, raise wages etc to make a better company that produces more/better products... Unfortunately it almost allways takes a sick twist as in things as the stock market or lobbyism to name but a few...
Thank you for your attention."At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe
"Pick an A.C. sailor!.. We're cheaper than Karma Wh*res!" - A.C.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
The short answer is US law does not apply to those of us in the rest of the world. The long answer is that many countries do claim the right to legislate extra-territorially and those countries' own courts will presumably conduct cases and mae orders on this basis. Normally this power is used to regulate the behaviour of one's own citizens in another country. For example Australia and many other countries have legislation which prevents their own nationals buying sex from children overseas and the US (i believe) has or had laws preventing US Nationals travelling to Cuba. The US also has legislation such as the infamous Helms-Burton (sp?) Act which applies to overseas complanies investing in Cuba and other countries have occasionally tried similar tricks.
The key point, however, is what a country (eg the US) can do about nationals of another country who are not in that country (and own no property that could be seized in the first country). In the first instance it must be noted that in general one country's court orders are not recognised in another country by either the judiciary or the executive (The EU is an important but currently irrelevant exception). This leaves two options, getting your country's law enforced in the second country by that country's courts or having the person you're after extradited to your country. The first is essentially impossible: although it is possible to use choice of law clauses or even the default conflict of laws rules to come to the conclusion that a contract is to be adjudicated in (for example) Sydney by French law, this sort of thing realy only applies to contracts. In non-voluntary areas of the law (subjecting oneself to contract law is always voluntary - you don't have to enter the contract) I am unaware of any case of a court admitting that another country's law applies on its home country's territory and such a ruling would be very surprising.
This leaves extradition. First, extradition is only legally possible if there is a treaty in place allowing it between the two countries in question. The vast majority of such agreements are bilateral and hence the precise conditions under which extradition is possible vary with each pair of countries considered and there are big holes in the system (for many years Britain had no functioning agreement with Spain causing the latter to become something of a haven for Britishfugitives). However, there are some principles of law which are almost universal and are worthy of mention:
*A country has jurisdiction over crimes commmitted on its territory.
*A country may sometimes have jurisdiction over its own nationals even if they are not in its own territory (this area can be quite limited and is not universally agreed upon).
*A country does not have jurisdiction merely because the victim of a crime was its national (the US does not accept this position but it is pretty much alone on this).
It should be pretty apparent that for the sorts of offence material to the discussion, norma extradition arrangements will not cover the situation. This leaves Aos's suggestion that the US will just ask for the person to be handed over and because "US de facto rules the world" most countries would comply. Despite the plain inaccuaracy of the assertion that the US rules the world (one might cite some examples of policy the US really doesn't like and has not succeeded in changing, the Common Agricultural Policy springs to mind) this assumes that the governments of other countries will be willing or able to act illegally and in many cases in breach of their own constitution by effectively kidnapping their own nationals and handing them over to a foreign government. I suggest that one would have to go a long way to find a country whos executive officers would be prepared to risk the loss of office or imprisonment just to take the prbably very unpopular step of handing over someone to the US for using a perfectly legal (in that country) computer program.
Sorry, but I think your analogy is wrong. Nothing is stolen with either cpHack or DeCSS. cpHack allows those who already purchased the product to see exactley what's being blocked. I don't know your definition of stealing, but in my book, that is not stealing. DeCSS allows legally purchased DVDs to be viewed on the OS of the users choice. Again, no stealing is involved.
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
Or maybe a "what are they trying to hide" campaign to feed on a little public paranoia. If they don't want you to see it, it's obvious that they must be doing something devious and nasty, isn't it? ;-)
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Dutch
Grtz, Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I live in The Netherlands myself and I haven't seen anything like that here yet, it will not happen quick (I hope) but don't be to sure about that.
Grtz, Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
People will never learn.......
Grtz, Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
He was probably probably checking out Tubtop or Barbie Benson.
Fight Spammers!
The thing I can't understand is why the CPHack guys revealed their identities in the first place.
Perhaps they thought that by being outside the USA they were safe from US law (a common sense view which increasingly seems to be wrong).
We need a news group (alt.linux.binaries.something) where folks with "controversial" code can annonymously post their offerings and the rest of us know where to look.
Didn't someone buy "The Little Rascals" so it could not be broadcasted any more? (the show had racist content) Sounds somewhat similar, but with different intent.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I hate to see what companies are going to get pissed about in the future. We're not going to be able to do a damn thing without the man either trying to sue us, take credit for our work or maybe it'll be more like the mob, they'll just "wack" us. *BTW maybe slashdot needs to use some money from VA Linux and buy either a new webserver with some load balancing or some more bandwidth!!
I can see your point, especially about the mirroring. BUT, ignoring the mirror sites in the US, those lawyers would still have to obtain logs from the original (or mirror) sites outside the US. If I owned one of those sites I wouldn't likely give up the logs because of a US state court order.
Does anyone know why the authors of CPhack gave up, apparently so easy? Did they cave to pressure, did their ISP cave to pressure, did they get paid off?
I still curious to know why the authors of CPHack caved to Mattel?
When you 'purchase' commerical software, you don't actually buy it. You buy a licence to USE the software and the software company is usual kind enough to provide you with a copy of the software with the licence.
If you don't want to use the licence (by following its terms and conditions etc) then you shouldn't use the software as the licence is the product you brought.
Slightly confusing, I know, but that's how it is.
In real life, however, who knows what you get up to in private.You aren't meant to transfer CDs to audio casettes, but many many many people do... That's why you often see the disclaimer 'copying of copyright materials is illegal' because the manufactours know it goes on, but they are just saying that the product isn't mean't to be used like that
I wonder what the legal position would be if DeCSS et al is relesed as 'it is just a disc fuller to help fill up your harddisc for testing purposes' and people then used it for 'other purposes' the authors would be liable for the misuse would they? I wouldn't have thought so...
Just my thoughts about the whole issue, remember that I'm not a lawyer :)
Richy C.
--
You can't even make modifications to your own domicile without permission.
this must be a stupid question, or things wouldn't be in the situation they are now.
HOW THE HELL is software being outlawed by a law that hasn't even gone into effect yet? i must be missing something here...
Good point. Clearly, if the protection measures were effective, they would not have fallen so easily. is this a viable interpretation of effective? Does effective mean "is supposed to keep people from getting the encrypted information" or "actually does keep people from the encrypted information"?
censorship sucks!! no ifs, ands, or butts about it! IMO: if parents/ceo's don't want their children/employees to be checkin out Pam & Tommy then pull your connection and go onto a closed network. To stay in contact 'via email & surf 4 research' have mommy & daddy help you (at least parents would then be interested in their own kids). 4 corporations this is a little hard...so trust your employees to figure out what's right & wrong and if you can't (or your employees are dimwits) SPELL IT OUT IN A WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR DOC. Hell If I got in trouble every time I happended to have a naked breast pop on my screen I wouldn't be working...ever... ... uh...what was the orig topic again?
You might want to consider that there are two other things that deCSS bypasses, which to most people's mind constitute 'fair use.' One is region encoding. There is no legal agreement in any way shape or form that you sign that forces you to follow the region encoding scheme of the distributor. You as the purchaser of a DVD can take it wherever you like. You should be able to watch it whether you live in Taiwan or the US, or anywhere in between.
The other, and to my mind, far more insulting and irritating feature that's been added to DVD are the advertisements, which as I understand you cannot skip through due to the CSS encoding. Now as a consumer I believe I have a right when I buy a video recording in any form, and that is not only the right to WATCH it when and where I like, but to SKIP OVER the crap that I do not want to watch. The DVD manufacturers are ensuring that their advertising dollar gets in the door with this. However, I as the consumer do not care if their advertisments are successful. I as the consumer am not responsible for the success of their ad campaign. I as the consumer have paid for a PRODUCT not the MOTHER FUCKING COMMERCIALS that go with it, and I should be entitled to skip them.
For these reasons, I remain a DVD holdout. I will not buy them, Sam I Am.
IANAL, but it sure as hell seems to me there ought to be a big, juicy class-action lawsuit against Mattel waiting to happen. Most comments I've seen on this issue to date look at this as a matter of censorship. I see it as slander and restraint of trade. From what I've read about the site list, Mattel has applied a rather shotgun and poor approach to deciding what should be banned. If someone's web page was inappropriately banned as 'pornographic' seems to me their opportunity to earn money from banner ads/whatever would be unfairly restricted. No wonder Mattel wants to get rid of Cyber Patrol.
I wonder if one could counter this in court by saying "Hey, I broke it; it was cake. It wasn't effectively controlling access!" After all, if your security is "don't press the Z key!" I doubt you could stop people from using that hack.
Everything's been downhill since the TRS-80
The right of free speach has given you the ability to say whatever you think on shlashdot.org. Slashdot is run by some verry clean and talented people in the United States of America. The many rights that people receive here will attract the attention of many people who were being oppressed in the country they had grown up in. The United States is the best country in the entire world. It was formed on Jewish-Christian beliefs and is being subjugated by socialist and communist people as yourselves. Your methods involve removing religion and corrupting the education of United States children. You know that you can go into the United States and say whatever you want, without being thrown in jail, when if I was in your country and said negative things about your country, I would be put in Jail. You are taking advantage of my freedoms and rights to freely speak against my freedoms and rights. Only in my country, the United States of America, is it possible for Anonymous Cowards, such as yourself, to take advantage of the United States' policies in being by and for the people. You should go back in your country and compete with my system of government on your own soil. That is, if your government lets you own any. Linus Torvalds is a perfect example of a person who had a dream and found it easily expressed in United States of America. He is his own skill and no other man or government claims his talented mind. Only a governmnet that you support claims ownership of such things. You still beleive in Scientific Socialism from Karl Marx, yes? Well, I and my fellow Americans have been burrying you, your economy, and your words ever since. You'll never take away any of my freedoms until you take away my right to carry a rifle. I own many. One bullet for each of you and your comrades. Prepare yourself, lol, if you can, because I am going to walk all over you when you step foot on United States' soil. Now, go back to your shanty and think of more ways to undermine America.
without prejudice
This worries me also. DeCSS was written in Europe too.
What exactly has to happen for the US law to come into play here? I presume it's because the software is being used in the US. Would it follow then that if CPhack had never been imported into the US, that DMCA wouldn't have any jurisdiction?
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Each one accompanied by a note explaining 1) why the doll is being returned and 2) that we will not be buying any more mattal products
They may be able to ignore letters - but they can't ignore 1 thousand+ parcels
Oh - and another point - IANAL but would it be possible for a company to sue Mattel if Cyber-Patrol illegitimatly blocked their site. I don't know what grounds there would be for a case - maybe they could sue the libraries instead.
I've already used my 2 cents - here's a fluff-encrusted peppermint
Is Missspeeling Encryption? If so, is a spelling checker illegle? If so, is my favorite Word Processor, Final Writer for the Amiga and Win95, OK because it was written long before the "Digital Millenium"?
> No one can argue that copying cds to MP3 and distributing them is legal.
Actually, arguably, it can be.
If I want to sell an album I own, in theory I should be able to convert it to mp3, send the files to whoever seeks to purchase them from me, and then destroy the original physical medium and any cached copies I might have made for myself in the mean time.
--Dan
> The problem with software is to first remove
> the "licensing loophole" which is "we've only
> sold you permission to use it in ways we see
> fit and at the same time disclaim anything we
> can get away with disclaiming."
I don't know how much I mind disclaimers. Bottom line, I view software as I view movies--sure, there may be some stinkers out there, but I don't think we should be able to sue the guys who made Wild Wild West--no matter *how* awful it was.
Art has the right to suck, but don't go off trying to patent the buddy movie!
> Also surely you should add "If i want to take
> it apart and tell other people what I find then
> I should be allowed to do so." (Tradmarks,
> patents and normal copyright protect the
> company from having their product "ripped off".
> Libel and slander protect them from untrue
> critisism.)
Untrue criticism is not enough. Benchmarks must be suppressed, because they contradict the GoodThink of the Marketry of Truth. Windows NT is stable. Windows NT has always been stable. Windows 2000 is stable. Windows NT is unstable. You must upgrade to Windows 2000 to get stable. Windows NT is stable. Windows NT has always been stable.
Of course, there's the point--given the choice between fair, balanced case law derived by well trained judges in a democratic society vs. a quick line in a license agreement which basically says "Fuck with us and we'll rip your balls off", guess which one many unscrupulous companies will choose?
"If we can't threaten to rip customers balls off, we're doomed!"
--AOL
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
>Are you saying that the copyright holder has no
>rights??? Stealing cable is theft. The cable
>company owns the rights to distribute the signal
>and charge for it. The MPAA (or equivalent
>agency) owns the rights to distribute many
>movies and/or songs. We can claim to have rights
>while denying them theirs.
Cable is a continual service. I pay this month, I get to turn on the TV this month.
Purchased videos are not a continual service. They're mine. They don't change over time, they don't get anything new from the manufacturer showing up on my doorstep in two months...they're mine. Can I make a copy and sell it? Nope. Can I make no copy and sell *my* original? Yup. No different from a book--I can't copy my property and give it to anyone else, but I sure as hell can give my property away.
The MPAA got their payment when I bought the movie. From that point until when I sell or disavow ownership of that payment, the movie is mine.
Denying this perceived reality is meaningless. If the law says something else, people will ignore it until they get arrested for doing something that they could never imagine as being wrong.
--Dan
No.
The claim is that you get a license to use the product.
Reality does not match the claim, because people--
A) Are not lawyers
B) Should not need to be lawyers
C) Should not need to hire lawyers
Just to buy software.
Software is little more than de facto data encased within physical media. You may be limited to the number of concurrent installations you may possess, but effectively, that's the only really widely accepted limit on software.
There's usually some question regarding the GPL at this point--people seem to forget that while most "software licenses" remove rights that common law grants without a second thought--hell, it's part of that whole "private property" thing that we *almost ended the world over*--the GPL adds rights by specifying conditions where duplication may be accepted. You're always allowed to give someone else more rights, more latitude, more freedom, particularly with you're own code. But unless you make a highly formal arrangement, you ain't getting less. I can swing my arm farther and farther away from you, but I'm not allowed to pummel your nose, your chest, and eventually worse without some pretty hardcore contracts--and no, a shrink wrap doesn't count.
--Dan
As if any modern newsgathering organization would piss off an advertiser. The only investigative coverage it's possible to find in mainstream media these days is in government scandals (and even then, only personal scandals that don't upset the advertisers or parent companies).
Wish I could find that Eisner quote, something to the effect of "ABC News shouldn't bite the hand that feeds them" (in reference to critical coverage of Disney). That rare moment of candor pretty much confirms what we surely know to be true; that corporate media serves the corporate master first, and above all other priorities.
The reason I like this site is that while corporate flacks are free to post comments, so is anyone, and they all get the same exposure. Makes for a much broader range of opinions and insight than the pablum they're feeding us at CNN.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
"At some point" might be within your monitor which. through legal trickery, you are not allowed to tamper with. There are display vendors that are creating systems that encrypt the video signal that is fed from the video card to the display.
If Big Business thinks that we are going to "hack the raw output", then they will take every measure to ensure that you don't *get* the raw output.
Chilling, no?
Lenny,
Is CPHack a device for circumventing a copyright protection system?
I think they've got this one right, according to the DMCA. The clause pertains to access control mechanisms, and the encryption prevents access (ie. acquisition). CSS, on the other hand, is a use control mechanism, rather than an acccess control mechanism. The two are distinct in copyright terms - "access" means "acquisition".
Anyway, none of this applies to me, 'cos I'm in the UK. Except for the fact that Skala sold his rights. Shame. He was under a lot of pressure though, I'm not sure if I could have handled it and kept my nerve.
We didn't reject it. We ran it. (And someone else submitted it before you - sorry.)
Most of our YRO stories run on the slashdot homepage, but not all of them.
Click on the YRO section box on the left side of every Slashdot page to see all the stories, including the ones that weren't important enough for the main homepage.
And/or, go to your user preferences, scroll down to "Customized Slashboxes," check all the boldfaced sections, and then check "Your Rights Online" and any other slashboxes that strike your fancy. That'll keep a list of YRO stories handy.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
It's really amazing - you folks actually think a production studio is going to put $20 million (and that's SMALL budget!) into making a movie and that buy forking over $9.95 at T-Mart your 'buying' that production to do whatever you want with, heehee. Actually, you CAN buy the movie, setup a chain of theatres and other distribution - but you'll need big bucks, and unless you just like burning money, you'll probably want to make a little bit o' profit to pay the mortgage, buy the kids shoes, etc.
Actually, in a 'perfect' world (from the content producers point of view) if everybody DID honor the licensing, the producers wouldn't have to attempt to resort to fair use restricting, draconion techno-content control mechanisms (like having to have a licensed player) - but as it is, they feel that (even if it is wrong, there's that perception amongst publishers) hey, people are making and distributing unlicensed copies, we're losing money, we must do SOMETING. It the Gates "Open Letter to Hobbyists" all over again, whining about only 10% of BASIC users actually paid (which was TRUE), so NO MORE MR. NICE GUY, which gave us the Msft corp we know and loath today. QED: piracy ruins it for everybody, 'taint the producers fault! They're just protecting their own interests, even if they end up resorting to criminal means to do so.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I mean, to play devils advocate, there IS a lot of crap out there for parents and guardians to be concerned about - I'm about to the same point as with Msft and their pirate user base (Msft uses criminal mkting practices, yes, and a lot of their uses are criminal license violators, buy one copy and let everyone use it! Everybody does it!!) - those who want censorware are tossing out the baby w/ the bathwater, while those against it are a bunch of deranged perverts.
So, maybe what tax funded public Internet providers (pub libraries) should do is designate two areas: one for those under 16 to use with a list of approved or unapproved sites to browse (an 8 yr old probably isn't yet interested in researching therapy for breast cancer) - and an 'adult' section w/ unlimited browsing capability to research the psychology of deviant sexual practices if they so choose.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
But that's not the point. The timing is unfortunate (another week would be nice), but I recently reminded staff that we can monitor web usage, nothing more. Here is a summary of traffic; (MB) Thu 55, Fri 42, Mon 65, Tue 64, Wed 73, Thu 71, (told staff Fri morning) Fri 38. Unforunately I don't have more than that one day yet - I will be getting updated logs on the weekend. The previous Friday to this summary was 79MB, so I don't think it's a DOTW effect.
If people think they can get away without judgement then they exercise none of their own...
Basically the DMCA has managed to put a legal barrier around a technical barrier that simultaniously protects and restricts a "work of art" (or similar) from both legal and illegal use. It is obvious that there needs to be a serious change in copyright itself - the community needs to recover some rights from the individual in the name of progess. Mind you, that sentence seems a little silly when we're talking about things like illegal copies of "Titanic"...
Find a way to calm down the want and your outrage will drop back to something realistic.
Yet another story about "Your Rights Online" which, translated into /. speak, is "My Right To Not Pay For Anything"
Bullshit!!
"Fair use" is "Fair use" and is written into the copyright law for a purpose. As Lessig points out, the DCMA allows copyright holders to deny fair use by wrapping the work in technology.
The medium of copyrighted works should have no bearing on the interpretation of the copyright act or limit or enhance the rights of the copyright holder or the user of the copyrighted work.
Why US universities are screaming about this I don't know. As their libraries become increasingly digital, so will the difficulty of accessing and using texts for the purpose of teaching.
"Whats that? You want to copy an excerpt on OO concepts from Ivan Hutchinson's Beginning Java 2 for an introductory programming unit? Sorry - that text is only available on CD-ROM/DVD/"
The medium should be treated as irrelevant... not doing so will only create a massive legal and beaurocratic nightmare.
M@T
'sapientia potestas est'
I remember a declaration of independence written in 1776, which voiced a rather eloquent declaration of the liberties that Americans have the right to expect. I remember this country fighting wars against Great Britain to uphold their self-declared freedoms.
I remember Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Adress, presented during one of the most trying periods of our history, state "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
But that was long ago... back when we were just a federal republic.
Now, we are no longer such a republic. We have embraced capitalism and its love of one thing only: MONEY.
The government that Lincoln talked about is no more.
Our government is now of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, and the fucking people be DAMNED!
There was no revolution, not a single shot was fired. We lost.
And every American citizen has himself or herself to blame... they allowed it to happen. And now that the corporations are firmly entrenched, we have bugger-all chance of ever getting our liberties back.
So, sit back, watch your DVD's on your licensed players; allow little Johnny to surf the web knowing that Cyber Patrol will be preventing him from seeing such smutty sites as Peacefire.org (they hit positive for nudity, sexual acts, violence, etc.); and when you find yourself evicted from your house by a faceless corporation because "you purchased a spreadsheet program and neglected to read the fine print on their legally binding shrink-wrap license," do so happily, since this is indeed the fucking land of the free.
"Here come more homeless! God bless America!"
(Then again, you might want to consider doing something, like supporting the Electronic Freedom Foundation during those "must-watch" commercials on your DVD.)
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
The article URL has changed. Here is the new link
The best part of the article is how Mattel is expecting to take a HUGE loss on the company.
Put another way, former CEO Jill Barad paid about $3.5 billion for The Learning Co. (TLC), which is now reportedly expected to fetch between $500 million and $1 billion.
And, as icing on the cake, Mattel has associated their company and name brand with repressive censorship. I won't be buying anything with the "Mattel" name on it ever again.
Nice job with the lawyers, guys.
Something I hadn't thought of ... can anyone answer this question ... is cphack an original program that implements the encryption algorithm used by CP, or did the authors disassemble the encryption algorithm, then convert the assembly to C?
... if cphack was written from scratch to implement the algorithm, then Mattel should have no basis to claim copyright infringement. If cphack is merely a translation of the Mattel written subroutine from machine language to C, then I'd have to agree that the distribution of cphack is probably copyright infringement. I mean, if you were to take a binary of the Linux kernel, disassemble it, and convert it back into readable C code, that wouldn't magically remove the copyright on Linux, would it?
There is a difference
Of course, if the case were to be tried in court, a fair use defense could be raised, but that option disappeared when the programmers cut their deal with Mattel.
If you are mirroring software which is now illegal under the American DMCA, please consider redirecting your logs to
You cannot be forced to turn over information to lawyerly thugs if you do not possess it. As for those of us living in the United States, we need to begin comming to terms with the unpleasant fact that, for many intents and purposes, we now live in an extremely authoritarian, draconian state, and begin organizing our lives accordingly.
In short:
- Mirror sites: please send your logs to
/dev/null to protect the identity (and anonymouty) of your "customers" - i.e. those who download the files you are mirroring.
- Get involved politically - we have a moral duty to ourselves and our forfathers to make every effort to win our country back. While you can couch this obligation in whatever terms apply to whatever country you are in, I think it goes without saying that we all need to be involved, wherever we are, and fight these trends with all of the political weapons our democratic systems provide us, wherever we are. You can be certain the extremely well-financed opposition is doing so.
- Tell your friends and neighbors - Yes, you will be mocked by many of them. Thanks to the popular media apathy is very fashionable. Anyone expressing a passionate political view will be labelled a radical. Get over it, and express those views anyway. Peer pressure to remain silent and pretend not to care is one of the most insidious forms of censorship and social engineering, and we need to start standing up to it.
- Fight these trends on the grass-roots level (which most of us are doing anyway). In my case, I and a couple of friends are working on the open content concept of a new, free culture mentioned earlier here on slashdot. In a very real sense, every open source project is a grass roots effort in this respect. Get involved.
- Have a way out. We have a moral duty to ourselves and our families to have a an escape route, if and when things degenerate further. The notion of an Amercian needing to seek political asylum in Canada or Europe may sound (and seem) absurd, but remember that it has happened before (remember Oppenheimer? Not to mention thousands of conscientious objectors during the Vietnam war) and will most certainly happen again. Quite possibly to us, given the current state of technical and IP legislation.
Thank god my airplane will get me to Canada on less than one tank of fuel.The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Censorware seems to be a hot-button issue that could get a lot of free press. However the key to raising public awareness isnt going to be talking about false positives. Will Joe Average Puritain care if little Billy cant visit a science site about breast cancer? Probably not. Its the porn that slips through the filter that will cause outrage. Focus on that, and then explain some of the technical reasons why censorware will never be 100 percent effective. Then offer the perfect alternative to censorware: local logging of all internet connections.
Local logging offers parents the ability to see what their children are doing, and encourages a relational approach to parenting. Rather than install a blacklist in a box and unleashing the kids on the net, local logging can open the door to talking about important issues instead of pretending they dont exist. Which would you prefer as a parent?
A) Little Billy spends 4 hours trying to get around the censorware, checks out some T and A, and then does it all again tommorrow.
B) Little Billy cant get around the censorware, but it isnt installed on his friends computer. They stay up all night downloading movies from supergoldenhardcorekinkypornographypalace.com
C) Little Billy looks for some porn, and sees some T and A. When you get home, you check the logs and sit Billy down for a LONG discussion about your values. You have the opportunity to provide information and take disciplinary action.
Now, you cant do a whole lot about B. However if your kids do not know that you are logging at home, the need to go somewhere else to try to look at porn is diminished. The probability of catching them in the act is increased.
If my kids look at porn, hate, or build-your-own-boms.com I want to know about it. Actually restricting the information is playing Whack-A-Mole. Having the opportunity to talk about it, after they see it is much more valuable. It gets you involved in their lives and gives you another opportunity to shape their growth. Personally I think that this is the best solution.
Specs for the logger:
Strong encryption and validation of the logs. If log files are deleted, the administrator is notified. If Billy can crack TripleDES in an afternoon, you have bigger issues to deal with than a little bit of porn.
Adjustable levels of visibility. You can either make it unnoticable to prevent B above, or very public to encourage self policing. Public terminals should always be run in NOTICE- We _are_ logging mode.
Protocol versatility Take care of as many sources of inappropriate information as possible.
Difficult to Disable The implementation is an excercise for the reader...
Easy to use Well, Duh!
Make the log files easy to read Highlighting based on trigger words might be useful. Parsing search queries for the search terms would probably take care of a lot of it.
Anyone care to get started?
-BW
The logical first step in battling censorware - other than continuing the legal battles already in progress - would be to encourage the Library of Congress, National Archives, and every other public institution, to refuse to accept, archive, catalog, or provide reference links to any document in any media with a format that is trammelled with IP encumberances or that is not fully documented.
This would not make much difference in the short run, other than sending a message that the public is not going along with the game, but it is very important to get it started now as a sort of "injunction", to keep the censorware industry from presenting the public with a "done deal" that would be nigh impossible to reverse later.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Cracks maybe legal until October (does it really make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?), but what is already illegal is to distribute tools for circumventing protection devices.
It's like you can still use a debugger (until October, at least -- grab your chance), but you cannot buy it, you cannot sell it, you cannot put it on your site.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
The claim is that you get a license to use the product. Reality does not match the claim
Unfortunately, the 'reality' you are talking about is nothing but perception, a generally held view of how things work. As such, it could be more or less easily changed, and there could (would?) be a lot of marketing dollars thrown at exactly this task.
To give an example, think about property-seizing laws. There is that general perception (what you would call a reality) that one must be guilty of some crime in order to be punished (mens rea, and all that). Bzzzt, wrong. You pick up a hitchiker, get stopped by cops, the cops find a bag of grass in the hitchiker's pocket -- your car will get confiscated. This is clearly contrary to what most people think should be just and proper, and still these laws are still on the books and I am unaware of any serious effort to repeal them.
the GPL adds rights by specifying conditions where duplication may be accepted. You're always allowed to give someone else more rights...
Sorry, you are wrong. It is impossible to add rights -- you cannot give more than you have. You can transfer all the rights that you have, but you cannot grant additional rights because you don't have them to grant. Giving somebody a subset of your rights is easy and standard, but giving more is impossible.
[hurriedly pulling on asbestos underwear] That's why the most free code is public domain code. Yes, its derivatives can be made non-free, but the code itself is as free as it gets. GPL most certainly does impose restrictions on its licensees and for all the talk about these restrictions being for the greater good, they are restrictions nonetheless.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I'd really like to know how we can get a clear, concise, understandable explanation out to the public that will motivate them!
I am of rather low opinion of American public (there is a very good description of it in Gibson's Idoru) and don't think we'll be able to make it care.
However, a campaign on the basis of "Even when you buy it, it's not yours" could push the button of a lot of people. There is a strong feeling that if you bought something, it's yours to do with anything you please -- and DMCA breaks this.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
This is the part of the law concerning use of circumventing programs, and or circumventing thing manually.
There is a seperate part of the law that has to do with the trafficing of such devices/programs, which has already gone into effect
My rights end where yours begin, your rights end where mine begin. You have the right to just about anything you want to yourself, but you don't own his head, so therefor without his express permission, I would recommend refraining to only beating your own head in, and not those of your friends or your wife (whom you also don't own). And if your not the wife beater you sound like, I apologize for the previous comment :)
It's not as much to stop modifying the list as it is to stop their competitors from using it. The competition in this industry is as harsh as with anti-virus programs, because the effectiveness of both tends to be judged by the number of sites/viruses they block, not by the actual job they do.
So they probably just want to keep people from using their list... this IMHO would be better served by using sentinel websites. They could setup a porn site, without any links to it, and block it in their software. If their competitors' products start to block it, they just show a judge that the only way their competitors could have found that site would be to have read their list. Much like a map maker including fake culdesacs in rural areas to try to catch companies who would just copy their map instead of doing their own research.
I imagine that one was because the box said that it was a personal edition. It's not like the user bought it, took it to work, and only then found out that it was a personal version. If the shrinkwrap is 'visible' beforehand, then it's not a shrinkwrap. The shrinkwrap term means a license you don't see till you break the shrinkwrap.
If you believe otherwise, post a link to the trial info, I'd be interested in seeing.
Just because something is intangible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A law is intangible - it's just words on paper. But if you break a law, police officers, who carry very tangible guns and clubs, will come to haul you away.
That's because the law is reality, even if you can't see it.
Here's where you go wrong. You don't need a license to use a program any more than you need a license to read a book. They're exactly the same from the point of view of copyright law.
No more illegal than buy a book and reading it. Anything not forbidden by copyright law is allowed. You only need to look at the license if you want to do more with it (copy it, etc) than is usually allowed or if you were informed beforehand that usage is limited.
Good. Your slamming the other guy over his correct usage of the word 'rights' was silly and didn't accomplish anything except to make you look ignorant.
Sure, having a copy is legal. But having the means to make the copy isn't. So they've essentially made fair use illegal.
The problem with the DMCA is that any anti-copy protection measure is prohibited, even if required to exercise your rights.
The commonly perceived reality that you OWN software that you buy IS reality. Sure, some megacorp may buy a few politicians and get that changed, but that's then and this is now. You currently own the software you buy.
And shrinkwrap licenses have never (not once, not even for a second) been found to be valid. The only time there was even a chance was when the company sued a pirate, and based the claim on the shrinkwrap prohibition of piracy, not the statute. This was upheld, but only because the basic action was illegal, not because the shrinkwrap said so. In no other case has a shrinkwrap been uphelp.
You're also wrong, the GPL imposes no more restrictions that an unlicensed program. It is assumed that all distribution is prohibited, except in the case of transfering ownership, or fair use of samples. The GPL simply gives the user more rights than the default (barely any). It's not as free as saying "Here, do *anything* you want with it" but it's a hell of a lot more free than not putting a license on it at all, in which case the assumption is that everything which can be forbidden is forbidden.
If you don't like my word usage, don't waste my time telling me so. My terms are correct and if you disagree, you're just proving that you're either wrong, or pedantic.
The reality is what happens. That things will remain this way forever because it's the only right way is the perception.
If I punch a police officer, I will get arrested, that's reality. My perception that this will always be the way it works, or should be the way it works, is just a perception. I could believe differently but if I punched the cop again, the result would be the same.
The contract doesn't have to hit the courts to be invalid. If I draw up a contract, never show you, yet try to sue you for violation of this contract, do you have to take it to court to know it's bogus?
If the buyer doesn't know there are additional restrictions imposed before the purchase, then those restrictions have no force. There was a similar case with a car rental agency. They had a list of what you couldn't do with the car, but they gave this 'contract' to you on the back of the receipt, which you didn't see until the transaction was finalized. It doesn't matter if they offered your money back if you read the contract and didn't agree, because the contract had no force. So anyways, someone did something that was on the list, the company sued them for damages (from a reasonable use of the car, not something stupid like lighting it on fire.) and lost, because the customer had no way of knowing, at the time of agreement, about these clauses, thus they were irrelevant.
It's not hard to extrapolate from that to showing that all cases where you have a contract that one party doesn't know about are void. It doesn't have to go to trial each time.
A shrinkwrap license, of EULA clickthrough, that you only see after purchasing the program and weren't specifically told the contents of before, is invalid. This is why the software companies want to push through a law to make these binding, because under current law, they aren't.
If shrinkwrap licenses were valid, do you think they'd waste millions lobbying for a redundant law?
Nope. Buying something gives you the right to use it in all ways that aren't prohibited by law or pre-existing (before or as part of the purchase) contracts.
It's the old argument of, I can buy a book and burn it, or laugh at it, or read it, etc. The seller has no control over my actions. Copyright law does limit some things I can do with it, but those restrictions have nothing to do with the specific book or seller.
Software is exactly the same way, except that it's more functional than a book, so some wise guy decided to try click-through licenses. But the software can't offer you anything of value (consideration in legal terms) to sign the contract, so it's void. They could offer you usage of the software, in trade for money, but you've already paid for, and have the right to use the software, so what they offer you has no value.
They *could* offer extras, like a service contract, in trade for you agreeing to the EULA. But there'd have to be a way for you to use the software fully without agreeing, or they'd be using coercion (illegally withholding your rights) to force you to sign.
There is *no* way under current law that a shrinkwrap or click-through license is valid.
The GPL is a different animal because it allows you the usage you're entitled to, but if you agree to a further contract, it lets you do more.
The GPL has more restrictions that freeware, but less than a book or un-GPLed program, because there's no way to legally distribute a changed copy of the book, without specifically contacting the author/publisher and asking. The GPL removes a step, offering you a contract, that you may choose to accept.
But they came for your whiny cowardly ass at the end right? Then it's all good baby.
By the way, my apologies for the HTML tags in the forgoing. I posted it extrans by mistake.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I can think of two analogies, one to cover DeCSS and another to cover Cyberpatrol.
People routinely make fair copies of copyrighted materials for private use. I tape shows on my VCR for later viewing. I also audiotape some CDs to listen in the car. This is considered fair use, and as the article points out is why copyright does not conflict with the first amendment. What DMCA's anti TPM measures do, in effect, is to make it it illegal to own the equivalents of VCRs and tape recorders for future media. This cover the DVD case.
In the CyberPatrol case, suppose that Ford shipped a defective car, and Consumer Reports analyzed this and published their results and testing procedure. What DMCA makes illegal is the equivalent for electronic products. You could still discuss things in generalities, but you couldn't give enough details for users of the product to verify your conclusions independently.
Of course, it isn't that simple. What DMCA does is insidious. It does not ostensibly remove any of these rights. What it does is allow manufacturers to limit these rights by making the means to excercise them illegal.
Analogies are almost always imperfect, but I think these cover the facts better than the proDMCA's assertion that without DMCA the electronic equivalent of breaking into a store and stealing books was legal..
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I disagree. Probably the best way to censor the computer you have at home is to install monitoring software. This software would log everywhere the person went.
I know this is a privacy issue but it would be private citizens installing it on private computers for monitoring their children. It could also be a way of keeping enployees in check. Just display the logs of all the employees internet browsing, including the boss, in an easily accessable site. The system becomes self regulating.
I've had experience with this. To stop somone from going to porn sites all I told them was that I could get on the computer and see every where they went. They never did it again. It has worked supprisingly well. If they were to have done it I would find out then the internet would be unpluged. Fear of being cought held them in check.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
No, there isn't.
If you fail to make a profit then it sucks to be you, but your rights have not been violated in any way.
This point was made very neatly in Robert Heinlein's first published story, "Life-Line". The protagonist builds a machine that accurately predicts when someone will die. Naturally, the insurance companies are upset, and respond by filing a frivolous lawsuit (just like Mattel). I wish I had the story handy to quote the judge's decision blasting the plaintiff for trying to sell the notion that he has a "right" to make a profit despite the fact that changing circumstances have made his product obsolete.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Is there another clause that says otherwise?
MSK
Maybe "a work protected under this title" does not include such works to which the fair use exception applies? It's a stretch, but I can't imagine the law was really intended to say what it seems to be saying.
Are there any legal types out there who could offer a better interpretation?
MSK
It is difficult for mainstream America to get their mind around this issue! This weekend I went home to visit the folks, & I was trying to explain the problems with the DCMA, & had a VERY hard time getting my point across.
My father isn't a dolt either, he has a doctorate in Audiology & Speech pathology, and has a couple patents and inventions to his name. We need a simple analogy so that regular people can understand this issue!
--Remove chicken to e-mail
I disagree here.. someone buys the program and decrypts the list. someone buys a car and looks under the hood. where does the stealing come in?
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
And consumer magazines are criminal too, ofcourse.. someone may actually find out a certain product does not do what it's supposed to do, and decide not to buy it! Wow! more theft!
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Nope. I don't get it. I am legally allowed to build my own recordplayer. I can build me own green/red 3d glasses for those neat 3d pictures. And I am also allowed to read a book through whatever glasses I happen to wear or not wear. But I can't build my own dvd player, even though I already payed for the software (movie). hell.. I can even build my own movieprojector or VCR, which does much the same thing. apparently the medium decides the copyright, which is strange to say the least...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
When I look around, I already see a backlash. Unfortunately this backlash is not against companies, governments or organization, but rather seems to be directed against the US. The place where companies can do what they want, and where individuals don't count. The place where I can walk the streets with an assault rifle, yelling: "Hitler was a l33t d00d!!", but cant even get a decent beer until I'm 21. Where I can practically get arrested for walking around with a porn pic on my t-shirt for fear of hurting the children. The backlash is already here, and I fear there is not much that can stop it.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
"That's perfectly normal, sir. That engine is supposed to squeak"
nuff said....
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
If I buy a car, I am allowed to look under the hood. If I buy food, I can look what it's made of. If I buy a computer, I can take it apart. But in the US I have no rights whatsoever over a prgram that I bought. I can't look under the hood, see what's in it or anything. Nobody is forcing companies to do anything, but some companies are forcing consumers to stand up for their rights. Fine, you have the right to own a gun.. but before long that could be the ONLY right you have left as an individual. All other rights are only for companies.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
If an employee uses authorized software like his e-mail reader to decrypt a memo, then print it, it could still be illegal. He was using the software in an unauthorized manner; to wit, decrypting proprietary copyrighted material to deliver it to someone outside the company.
Don't forget that it was the press, not the government, that got the first evidence of astroturfing, nicotine doping, the Love Canal coverup, mercury dumping, "embrace and extend", Unsafe at Any Speed, planned automobile obsolescence, and countless other example of unconscionable behavior on the part of American and international corporations. And it was the press that exposed Nixon's illegal bombing campaigns and the Watergate coverup. Could he have used parts of the DMCA to fight them off, by handing them an encrypted tape then, having them arrested as soon as they broke it?
Unless the courts strike down these specious restrictions on "fair use", US citizens are badly, badly screwed, by their own government, on behalf of monied corporate interests.
--
This is not my sandwich.
Let me see if I have this straight. Some folks who got very rich by exploiting old school control and scarcity economics bought themselves a law that protects their gravy train. The folks who comprise the courts were appointed by the same politicians who sold themselves in the form of the DMCA and only considered candidates for said courts that have gone through the "classic education" system and therefore don't understand the new paradigm. All these folks live in the vacuum known as "The Belt", go to the same cocktail parties, and rehash the same old school concepts as if doing so makes these ideas new and fresh. Now . . . what was the question again?
I think, therefore, ken_i_m
DTV will be a reality in the near future (here in finland they are starting broadcasts real soon), now imagine that broadcasting companies start embedding a copyprotection into the bit stream of their broadcasts, as with CSS it needn't be perfect it could even be blantanly easy to crack but thanks to the DMCA, videotaping these kind of transmissions would be illegal. (well at least in the states, not here though)
This is right on the money except for the part where you think it will only by illegal in the US. If it happens here it will spread.
The idea is to make everyone pay every single time they watch something. No more going out and buying that movie your kids want to watch 500 times. If they want to watch it 500 times, you pay 500 times. No more 5 day video rentals. If mom, pop, bro, and sis all want to watch the movie but can't on the same schedule, too bad--pay 4X. You get an important phone call or are called out on an emergency, too bad you can pay again to watch the rest later (2X)... theoretically. But perhaps they don't intend to rip us off that bad. who knows...
By the way, this part is very important: If you must pay each time you watch something, then there will need to be a way to track each thing you watch. And circumventing the tracking will be illegal as well. Privacy concerns anyone?
I hope I'm wrong, but I think this is where their heading with this whole DMCA thing.
numb
It really disgusts me the way the DMCA is being used to control information. It's been said for years that information would become the center of our economy. Just as our information infrastructure really starts taking off we get slipped a law that tilts the playing field even further in favor of big corporations. This is not coincidental. It's not about piracy, and it's not even about money as much as it is about control of information. To be specific: in the "digital millenium" gain control of the information first, then the power and money will follow. The Linux/OSS industry serves as a great example of how powerful a force information (knowledge, data, code, etc) is and how it can be so effectively turned into money and power.
And the big guys aren't as stupid or short-sighted as they'd like us to believe. They know that most power and money will be derived from information now. This is why they're all fighting for control of the flow of imformation be it through controlling distribution, controlling production, censorship. Businesses and government have plenty of people that are all about power and money and understand the new way to get it. Control of information and/or it's distribution in any way automatically gives you power and as I said the money will follow. This is not a new idea, nor is it my own. It just happens to be truer than ever these days.
One can only hope that the aggressive bullying going on by Mattel, the RIAA, the MPAA, etc will backfire on them. Maybe eventually people will see what's going on and get pissed off about it. Getting the word out is the hard part. The sad thing is that the major news outlets probably have more to gain by being able to stake a claim on their area of distribution so they're unlikely to go out of their way to encourage freedom of information distribution for the small guys.
How about lobbying for laws to protect our freedom? It seems like all the laws I hear of are all about taking away freedoms. Are we too free or something? Is that why? I'd personally like to see some new laws protecting the free flow of information. There's just way too much incentive to control the flow of information these days. And how do you convince the average person that information is that important? Sorry for the rheotoric but I'm a little aggravated right now.
numb
The entire DeCSS affair and the other cases around the DMCA have generated a lot of fuss and made people re-think copyright issues, fair use definitions, the legality of region coding on old movies etc. etc. In all of this there is one development which hasn't gotten enough attention in my opinion, especially since its impact is truly gigantic in comparison to the DVD dilemma. The sentence pointed out in this /. story entails the seed of enormous profits for the MPAA and various other corporations in the film/tv-media industry. combine the statement that "digital copyright protection may not be circumvented by code/technology even if fair use would allow the use of said material" with two words: "digital television". DTV will be a reality in the near future (here in finland they are starting broadcasts real soon), now imagine that broadcasting companies start embedding a copyprotection into the bit stream of their broadcasts, as with CSS it needn't be perfect it could even be blantanly easy to crack but thanks to the DMCA, videotaping these kind of transmissions would be illegal. (well at least in the states, not here though) be afraid, (no kidding) be very afraid...
> Firstly, please do not add breaks at the end of each line.
Fine just this once...really the slashdot comments box needs to be much larger. Personally, I prefer narrow collumns of text, easier to read.
> Secondly, our economy is already strangled by
> the slew of so-called "consumer rights"
> which are basically ways for the government to
> exert its control
I am not asking for any "government control" in
fact I am arguing AGAINST government control.
Capitalist ideas (which I do fundamentally
disagree with) say that you should be able to
sell your product. Fine. What I am arguing is
NOT that they should not be able to sell a
product, it is that they should NOT be allowed
to lie about it.
Market forces alone are IN THEORY enough to
stop these things. The fact is, IN PRACTICE ,
they are not. Companies have found that it is
more profitable to make shoddy product and
hide the fact that its shoddy than to actually
compete and make a good product.
> And of course their is such a thing as the
> "Right to make a profit".
No you have the right to TRY and make a profit.
Whether you make one or not is completly a
differnt story.
What you are defending is the right of a company
to stop consumers from looking at their products
and making informed decisions.
Why is it that the only recognized "individual
liberties" are the "right to be profitable"?
Should I not have the right to speak out?
If you make a car that is unsafe, shouldn't I
be able to tell people why it is unsafe? Should
you be allowed to make untrue claims about your
product?
Now, I am not asking for government control. I am asking for the removal of a government control. The removal of a control that serves NO purpose except to allow companies to hide the defects of their products from the public.
Just because we are "capitalist" doesn't mean that
profit can be our only motivation. What is wrong
with a person publishing information to help
people make informed decisions?
There are some things that are just more
important than a companies "ability to profit"
and if they violate these things, then they
deserve what they get.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> Yet another story about "Your Rights Online" /. speak, is "My Right To
> which, translated into
> Not Pay For Anything", which admittedly isn'
> quite as snappy.
Not only is it not as snappy, its not an argument
that anyone has actually made, except you in your
straw man.
Do you have no concept of the fact that other
people think differently then you? Is your view
on the way things "should be" the only possible
"correct viewpoint"?
I am sorry, I don't agree. I recognize, yes. If
you create something, you have the right to do
whatever you want with it. However, I do not
recognize your claimed "right" to tell other
people what they are allowed to do with their
copies of it (assuming you allowed them to have
copies).
I can't really speak about this in a legal sense
because I am no lawyer and the body of law on
the subject is (as usual with law) much more
large and convoluted than even some of the more
interested people, like myself, have time to
actually read.
What you are asking for is the "Right to restrict
what other people can do". That is not a right
that I recognize. (unfortunaly my government may
in some circumstances recognize this suposed
right, however, my government has never actually
represented my interests...but thats ok...I don't
represent their interests either. (they don't
recognize my rights to do what I want, I don't
recognize their right to tell me what to do...its
a weird relationship...we just ignore eachother
mostly...)
Anyway,...noone is arguing for the "Right to have
everything for free". Just simply arguing that
just because you worked on something, doesn't
give you the right to bully other people around.
As a matter of fact, I have read a small bit of
copyright law, and some descriptions of it by
people who have law degrees and actually understan
the legal mumbo jumbo.
Even copyright law doesn't say you "own what
you make". It says you "hold copyright". Its
a limited time thing. it is not "property".
Is there any concept in real physical property
that says "75 years after the person who claims
the propery (or builds it, makes it) dies, it
becomes public domain for anyone who wants it,
even if the builder has living relatives who are
using it at the time"?
Talking in terms of "theft" and "property" is
just plain wrong. Its not.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I may, however, make copies for my *personal* use.
The copy that I use in my car stereo is legal.
The backup copy of my software is legal.
The review (including small quotes) I publish about the book I read is legal.
The warning I publish about documented unwanted side effects of a product is legal. (if my claims are true)
Teaching others what I have learned at a course is legal (as long as I do not copy any material)
Your mileage may vary depending on jurisdiction, but these are examples of *legal* copies. aka fair use.
"They" want the legal means to restrict our rights, so that we can only do what we are explicitly allowed by "them". Not what we want to do, not what the law otherwise allows, not what we migt need to do in the future (after the company holding my keys has gone under).
Only what they explicitly allow.
Nothing else.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Here's the real problem with not caring:
but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Unionist.
but I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
there was no-one left to speak up for me.
This is a quote from Rev. Martin Niemoller, commenting on events in Germany 1933-1939
I tried to submit the story but it got rejected, I guess there's been too much Mattel pounding already :)
There's something about this CPhack issue that really disturbs me. One of the guys creating cphack is from Sweden and the other is from Canada. Note that neither of these two states belong to the USA. The DMCA is a US law and as such it is supposed to be valid only for US citizens. Yet it seems that this case heavily involves DMCA that is not supposed to be valid for these guys? What's next? An american entity suing dutch coffee shops on the basis that marjuana is illegal in the US, or what?
Real life is overrated.
And why does the MPAA want control. To make more money. Yes, I know it's a little circular, but in the end, everything the MPAA is doing is for more profit on their end.
kwsNI
remind me of each other.
For insurance purposes, the swimming pool has to have a fence, it has to be a non-trivial fence, and it has to be locked. You have to have demonstrated not just intent, but reasonable measures to prevent accidental drowning by unauthorized swimmers.
Now apply it to the anticircumvention measures of the DMCA. They haven't said how hard the electronic publishers have to try to protect their art. Can they encrypt the data by XORing with "DMCARulz" and call the data 'protected'?
From what I see, they can. One could argue that the CSS key used to develop deCSS was 'trivially' protected, almost as bad as the XOR encryption example.
One could also argue that the owner of a swimming pool that lightly protected would be readily open to lawsuit.
There, I've just Rot13'ed my data. Now I consider it encrypted and protected. By pressing the Rot13 button on your newsreader after October, you're breaking the law. Those who write and distribute newsreaders are breaking the law, now.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The MPAA v. Goldstein et al case was based on this very paragraph of the DMCA. The judge wouldn't listen to "fair use" arguments in the preliminary hearing because "fair use" is a defense to copyright infringement and the defendants were accused of distributing means to bypass controls not copyright infringement.
The answer to this is the Sony Betamax case (sorry, I don't have a proper citation) in it the Supreme Court held that if there are non-infringing uses to a technology, it can not be held to violate copyright to distribute it. Essentially, the EFF needs to get someone to declare at least this paragraph of the DMCA unconstitutional.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
I suggest that we plan to conduct a letter writing campaign to promote Lawrence Lessig as a candidate for the next open seat on the Supreme Court.
Lessig: He Gets It.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Problem is that the DMCA makes it so that there a[re] no non-infringing uses of a program designed to break copy protection, even when there are non-infringing uses for the results.
I think you are missing the point of this thread. Section 1201 Paragraph 1 says that you can use such a program if your use is a "fair use" but section 1201 Paragraph 2 makes it illegal to distribute such a program whether or not is has fair uses. I.e. if you can write it yourself, you may use it, but you can't give it to any others.
This (Sec. 1201 Para. 2)is where I find that the DCMA is in conflict with Supreme Court precedent and I hope that a court will so rule.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Mattel "bought" the rights to CPHack in settlement of their case. This is a unique aspect of this specific case and bugger-all to do with the DMCA.
I wish the Slashdot editorial would read the stories they link to before commenting upon them. They might get a reputation for sensationalising the news they report ...
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
Read the DMCA. "Effectively" controls access means this:
17 USC 1201(a)(3)(B):
a technological measure ''effectively controls access to a work'' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
And as Mattel demonstrated in the CPHack case, a large company will bully the little guy.
This will really be litigated when a large company goes against another large company.
Fight Spammers!
It's possible that they might screw it up on the sale.
Fight Spammers!
Mattel has to claim that the list is scrambled to protect the work.
That this list is protectible.
But it doesn't matter anyways.
Reading the text, it includes, "
".I just looked at my watch and checked my RTC and found that it's April 4, 2000.
Fight Spammers!
After writing a letter (about Mattel etc) to the largest newspaper in my area, the following article appeared:
http://www.press.co.nz/2000/14/000404c00.htm
It reads almost a bit like an abbreviation of the letter I sent, covering the points I made in the manner I made them, and so is one hell of a morale booster regarding "What Can I Do? (Preferably From The Comfort Of My Armchair)".
If you write a letter to your news provider, containing a summary, research, links, etc., then they not only have your point of view, they have quick launch-pad for their own fact-finding, meaning that in order to meet a deadline, they don't have to just grab what Mattel is trying to tell them and write about evil hackers trying to expose innocent kids to obscenity.
Keep a constant stream of information going to the media, this way our side has at least a chance of being heard. If they have to go out and look for our side of the story, vs Mattel delivering info to their doorstep, chances are the deadline leaves Mattel's version predominant. The MPAA is walking all over DeCSS coverage and it seems apparent that many people in the press have no idea DeCSS is anything but a pirate's DVD-copying utility...
Don't stop writing - sometimes it works.
This may be one the more highly rated AC posts of all time.
Andy Walton wrote this, many years back.
======
> Right. Freedom without responsibility is no freedom at all.
And responsibility without freedom is not responsibility at all.
Totalitarian control of human beings means the death of responsibility,
as everyone is "just following orders."
<engage rant mode>
I would rather be a brain-dead junkie in a gutter with a sticky copy of
Hustler as a result of my OWN stupidity than a clean and well-fed
automaton in a tiki-taki house with my actions dictated by you or
another self-anointed earthly representative of God's Will ((C), All
Rights Reserved). I want to run through parking lots like a lunatic,
fall and scrape my knees. I want to color outside the lines. I want to
cover myself with lime Jello and run down the street shouting random
lines from Finnegan's Wake (are there any non-random lines in Finnegan's
Wake?). If I want to smack my skull against the wall, damn it, it's my
skull and my wall. If I want to sing the Leave it to Beaver theme in
Esperanto while whacking off with topless pictures of Sandra Bernhart
and standing ankle-deep in a galvanized steel tub full of Kraft Honey
Dijon salad dressing, that's none of your business.
And if this means that I'll be shot as an anarchist when the revolution
comes, so be it; I'd rather have the worm-eaten stench of a private tomb
than the prim, sterile, chrome-lined common tomb which people like you
want to make of the Earth. And when they decide that you're not quite
orthodox enough, I'll save you the next spot over up against the wall.
<rant mode off>
Clear enough?
> If you help or facilitate the breaking of
> copyright protection, you have violated the DCMA.
This ain't nothing new, actually. Copier manufacturers, cable stealers, etc. have been getting this for years. But cable is an ongoing service; DVD's are a product you buy. The idea that you're only allowed to use a product you buy in ways that the manufacturer has deemed profitable to them--and that you're not allowed to give the manufacturer the finger--yeah, that's new.
--Dan
Censorware is a natural application for artificial intelligence if ever there was one. In fact you cannot have effective Censorware without employing a reasonably mature AI.
All the censorware really has to do is read through each page and look at each picture before putting it on screen to figure out whether it is porn or not. It takes some skill to know the difference between an artistic nude and a XXX pix.
Personally I like the whole human supervision thing. Let your kids know that mom or dad or the made or big sis could just walk in and see what he is viewing before s/he has a chance to react. More importantly provide that strong moral base that lets a child not really care about porn.
This reminds me of the situation with Alcohol. In the west liqueur is restricted from the kids. Mom and pop drink but they don't dare let the child near the stuff. The result is that he sneaks off to sip a little while nobody is looking and grows up into a drunk lying across the barroom door. Jewish kids on the other hand get wine at major feasts ( Passover, Wedding etc... ). The result is that they get to see this as something they can have if they want to but which has a foul taste. The result is fewer drunks.
Anybody want to take bets as to the relationship between censorship and the higher rates of all sexual dysfunction in the US? If not for America, it wouldn't have occurred to me that there is a link between sex and chains.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
We have our own bill of weirdness here, the RIP bill which is designed to allow aceess by the authorities of encrypted data - it's supposed to help catch rapists and child molesters etc. The out come of it is such that they can force you to hand over your keys etc or they will chuck you in gaol for a coupel of years - if you've lost or forgotten the key, you have to prove it (how does one prove they've forgotten a key?).
Problem here is that 2 years is less that a sentence for child molesting etc.......
For more information, go here
Erm, my point was that this bill will hopefully be ruled against the EU human rights acts
So there you go - it's not just the States that puts out stupid, short sighted bills!!
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
I think a more plausable attack on these lines would be "It doesn't effectively control access, because the access control is utterly undiscriminating in the case of fair use - it blocks fair use as well as unauthorised access, therefore it is not effective within the parameters that it must operate. It violates the First Sale principle."
-jwb
Back when the CyberPatrol thing was going on, I sent a very polite letter to Mattel telling them that I would no longer by any of their products because they were using their product to effectively censor criticism of their product etc. Finally, 2 days ago, I recieved a formletter from Mattel basically saying "for questions on our products, call this number"....
Great public relations, ignore the problem and it'l go away....
-=Bob
OK, let me see if I understand this. A child pornographer has collected a gigabyte worth of disgusting pictures. He took the pictures himself and copyrighted them. He encrypts the pictures with a weak encryption scheme and sells them to other perverts. The FBI wants to catch this sicko. Does the FBI violate DMCA if they decrypt the pictures?
In other words, Lessig was wrong, the DMCA does not prohibit fair use.
Lessig is right. DMCA does not prohibit fair use. But (and this is a really big BUT) DMCA does prohibit unauthorized access for whatever purpose, be it fair use or not.
Think about some beer in a fridge. You can drink the beer -- no problem, it's legal. However, opening the fridge happens to be illegal. No, nobody is trying to keep you from drinking that beer, no, no, you have full rights to this beer, it's all yours -- you just can't open the fridge.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
As you can see, the DMCA is the result of a World treaty on intellectual property. It is not an only-American thing. It's just that America implemented it first, but soon everybody in the World will be hit by it.
Be prepared, and don't laugh at Americans.
It's this attitude that you have a right to pirate stuff and crack other people's programs that has led to laws like the DMCA and UCITA. They were created in response to the illegal activities of computer hackers to provide a measure of security for other people's works.
This argument suffers from the same problem that every other pro-DMCA argument I've seen has.
If these activities were <i>illegal</i>, then why why were <i>new</i> laws necessary?
This is like the argument that without DMCA, it was legal to do the equivalent of breaking into a bookstore to steal the books. It fundamentally misrepresents what DMCA is about. DMCA is not about making piracy illegal. Piracy was illegal before DMCA, and it is no <i>more</i> illegal after. DMCA is about giving the copyright holders' lawyers more powerful tools to combat piracy.
So far so good, but there's an old Chinese proverb: many laws make many criminals. When you hand somebody a powerful legal weapon, you have to ask how purpose specific is it? The problem with DMCA is that the tools it gives the copyright holders aren't particularly beneficial to preventing piracy, but are very powerful in restricting the normal, non-infringing and heretofore legal use by consumers. Of course, this is economically beneficial to the producers of copyrighted materials. Otherwise they would not want it so badly. However, just because it increases the profits of copyright holders is not sufficient to make it a good law.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
the public at large is totally unaware that their rights are being taken away. In the censoreware example, people for the most part actually think that it is beneficial for their children to have censoreware installed in public places. And like much of the everyday technology they use (toasters, cars, TVs) they expect that it will just work. It never occurs to them that it could be blocking something legitimate!
However what is actually being taken away is the right of people to examine such products and tell people if they actually work. As I have said before I'm sure the US motor industry is wishing they had though of lobbying for the same kind of laws in the 1960's.
Maybe in needs explaining that an absolute right to examine and critque any product is an essential part of any free society. With the only people who benefit from silencing of critical examination of any product, be it a car, a piece of software or a pen are those who produce shoddy products and falsely advertise them.
Of course, it goes on to say that it's up to the Librarian of Congress (?!) to decide, in advance, what constitutes circumvention for the purpose of fair use. That hasn't happened yet. But then again, as others have pointed out, the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA haven't taken effect yet anyway -- not until October.
MSK
This kind of article scares me.
American law has always bent the way of the corparation and ensures that they make as much money as possible, at the expense of the rights of the individual.
The only real case hear has nothing to do with "protecting the morals of our youth"... It was a huge embaressment that a couple of programmers made a tool to render the software useless. Would you as a parent or an institution buy software that was easy to circumvent?
I offer my congrats to the authors of CPHack on GLPing it and then seeling your "rights" to the program to Mattel, that has to be the funnyest legal hack I have ever heard of.
Frankly what we need to protect the morals of our children are parents that actually spend time with their kids, not plop them down infront of a TV or computer as an e-babysitter. If we take the time to teach our children right from wrong in the first place, such big-brother-esque software as CyberPatrol would not be neccessary.
If mattel wanted to "protect the morals of our children" They should pull their entire barbie line of products, for those give young girls a wrong idea of beauty, that will eventually lead to problems such as Anorexia and Bulemia. Mattel and it's group of companies sell many toys that espouse violence... Mattel has never cared about morals in the first place, only the bottom line.
More Caffeine. NOW
No no no.
If a consumer decides, based on information that
you give them, not to buy a product. Then you have
not "stolen" from the company.
The company did not "lose money" they simply did
not "make more". No company has a right to any
money that they do not already have.
Under you rlogic any sort of consumer protection
advisories should be outlawed.
I am sorry, but a consumer has a RIGHT to know
about a product before they buy it. They have a
RIGHT to be able to make sure that it doesn't do
nasty things. Furthermore, they have a RIGHT to
NOT buy it, if they find that it does something
other than what it is advertised as doing.
If the company loses money because people find
out what it REALLY does, then it is their own
fault for making a bad product. Consumers have
a right to know about these things.
There is no such thing as a "Right to make a
profit". If they want profit, they should have
to work for it, and make something worth buying,
not just make a bad product and supress any
dissenting opionions.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Anybody remember what movies were like in the 50's? A few easily offended people decided they didn't want anybody to see anything naughty at the picture show, and so the movie industry had to put up with a couple of decades of official censorship by people whose self-appointed duty was protecting the morals of our innocent children.
..
Let's hope it takes them a little less than 20 years to realize they're making the same mistake
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
What is needed is a programming language that closely resembles English (or other natural language). Not like COBOL, much closer. So closely that programs in that language would be (mostly) correct English texts. It is not necessary that this language will be easy to program in. OTOH it should be very easy to read what is written in it, even for non-programmers.
Here's how it should look like:
- Let X be content of file "censorware.exe"
- Let Y be byte number 2745 of X
- Let Z be Y added with 73091
- Let T be byte number Z of X
Publish that in an (hypothetical) Online Journal of Applied Cryptology (a refined version of sci.crypt).Now that's speech, isn't it?
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. I'm not even an American.
--
Industrial space for lease in Flatlandia.
[Damnit. Two really bitter Slashdot posts in a row. This doesn't bode well.]
You know, the more I think about this, the more I'm beginning to realize this is really the argument we need to start making.
There are lots of complicated arguments I could make, but I think I'd rather just leave it at--
If I bought it, it's mine. If I want to sell it, it's mine to sell. If I want break it into little tiny pieces, if I want to put it in the microwave, if I want to worship it as a proclaimation that God himself is going to touch down in a UFO on Main Street at 2:48PM, damnit, I don't need whoever sold it to me's permission to believe in whatever the heck I want to in their product!
See, that's the nice thing about capitalism. There's no central planner to say that you have to sit here, or go there, or be nice. There's no excessive transmission of executable context, to speak in geek terms. You pay the cash, you get the product.
Without passing judgement on the rightness or wrongness of communism, there's some delicious irony in that while Open Sourcers are supposedly the biggest backers of communism, we're the ones screaming our brains out over software freedom while the biggest companies in the world lick their chops on the concept of being The Central Planner.
After all, what are these newfangled "circumvention-resistent" devices but a yoke against which our core freedoms as consumers are jerked away? Imagine, for a moment, that Master(a fine purveyor of padlocks) was powerful enough to extract a licensing fee from any makers of lockers, safes, and doors. Imagine you needed to prove, *to the lock*, that the object it was being placed on was licensed before you'd get your key.
Lemme tell you what'd happen, real quick: People would figure out how to bust the key--which they bought, when they bought that lock--out, so they could go about their business of doing whatever they damn well pleased with *their* *property*.
The only reason these laws are getting passed is because people seem to think this is limited to just tech stuff.
We're talking about *basic* *freedoms*, here. We're talking about *the right to private property*. When I buy a master lock, I buy the lock, and I buy the key.
When I buy a DVD, I buy the lock, and I buy the key. They're right there on the disc. Sure, they're made difficult to get to, but I've got 80 head screwdrivers for the reasons of custom screw designs *BUILT* to make it difficult for me to get to things. But ya know what?
If I wanna break my car, it's my car to break. If I wanna throw my DVDs in the Microwave, it's my aluminum to fry. If I wanna use the keys on that disc for something The Manufacturer Just Wouldn't Approve of, damnit, it's my disc, they sold it to me, they took my money, they can go away. If I steal the keys off of some DVD I haven't bought, then I'm a thief. If I use the keys on some DVD I bought...
THOSE.
WERE.
MY.
KEYS.
I'm going to sleep. Maybe when I wake up this nightmare of idiocy will be over.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
Full text:http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/DMCA/ hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-30 4.html
The largest problem facing those of us who are aware of issues like this (Censoreware, DVDs, the DMCA in general, etc...) is that the public at large is totally unaware that their rights are being taken away. In the censoreware example, people for the most part actually think that it is beneficial for their children to have censoreware installed in public places. And like much of the everyday technology they use (toasters, cars, TVs) they expect that it will just work. It never occurs to them that it could be blocking something legitimate! In the case of the DVD issues, very few americans have any need to play a DVD from another region. After all-- our region sees *almost* all of the movies (there are quite a few Japanese imports I would love to get my hands on, but the average American isn't interested) they would want to see. And how many non-geek friends who want to play DVDs do you know that have ONLY an unusual OS and a DVD-ROM? Not many.
I'd really like to know how we can get a clear, concise, understandable explanation out to the public that will motivate them! I've tried explaining the DVD issue to people, and mostly they don't care one way or the other. When it comes to censoreware, they are a little more concerned, but it always comes back to "I'm not affected, and it's probably good for my kids."
Ideas are welcome! If you've had success getting these points across, let me know!
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
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.