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Today's Helping Of The DMCA
El pointed us to this nice DMCA story in UpsideToday. Time Warner says that it needs "effective protection, both technological and legal, against unauthorized uses of copyrighted works," showing that even AOL-TW agrees that the DMCA is intended to restrain personal use of copyrighted works rather than copying. For anyone around Stanford University, note that a protest is being organized for May 18 and 19.
Paragraph 229:
Protests against the DMCA are to be considered strictly in violation of the DMCA
Most citizens are unaware how the DMCA affects them, or will affect their lives even if "pay-per-use" becomes standard.
Furthermore, the hearings will probably be a love-feast of the media business types. So, if we mere users wish to get our point across and educate the public, we need to do it in a way that not only gets the public's attention but also informs them of the real issues. It's the DMCA that's bad, not necessarily all of copyright law, and whether or not you believe in free software.
Another thing, it's really sad reading this thread right after reading the thread of the development of BSD and how academics at that time were more interested in the truth, and software that worked, instead of just the money and power.
As an example of our failure in one instance of getting our point across, please see yesterday's triumphant "beacon of light" message from the attorney who won the CyberPatrol case--it was decided under the DMCA too.
Um, it will end when they knock it off and leave us alone. When they stop rewriting US law at whim to help their bottom line, when the politicians work for us again, and when they are no longer able to use their lawyers, guns, and money to hurt everyone who doesn't want to be a conforming, obedient little consumer. So basically, never.
Communication is only possible between equals
There is already a body of law that prohibits "unauthorized use" of copyrighted materials in all domains: Copyright law.
Rather than allow our rights to be bled by further legislation, TW/AOL has a right to help the federal government enforce the laws that already exist. To do anything more, particularly in the form of the DMCA, unconstitutionally inhibits fair use of copyrighted materials in favor of stronger rights for copyright holders.
If TW/AOL wants to protect themselves against "unauthorized use" they should either increase their contribution to the federal government so they can afford to pursue their valid claims (do they have any?) of copyright violation by loosening their accounting standards to indicate a higher taxable income (a simple numbers manipulation), or they should make their product in a manner that does not encourage the market to ignore their copyright and create a grey market for their copyrighted goods (less expensive, copy-prohibitive media such as cave walls, or not selling it).
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Here comes another DMCA-bashing session. So, here comes another obligatory Typical Slashdot Response Parody poll from the Poll Mastah...
What would you post in response to this article?
Poll Mastah
-cwk.
That being said, it's a real pity that the story on the 2600 freedom-to-link case didn't make it to the front page. The only reason given was that it was a long, long article that not everybody might want to read. So what? People should still know about it. It provides some dynamite anti-DMCA arguments that I hadn't even known about. Check it out.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Maybe we should not view movies as information but rather as enterntainment-cultural achievement combination? If we thought about movies as of service instead of thinking about films as of information, maybe then there would not be a confusion that arises as DMCA comes into our small internet based world. If movies are service then it is easy to see that the service providers may actually ask or even force their clients to some restrictions. For example: If you did not pay for your service, you can not use it. If you do not agree with the conditions of our service (such as only allowing to use the Video Materials with prescribed Video Viewing systems) then you can not legally use the service. etc.
In any case, information should be defined more precisely, movies are just copyrighted material, not information (even though they can be stored as a set of bits). I am not sure what exactly a good defenition of information is, but I would exclude most movies (except for scientific films) from having status of informative.
You can't handle the truth.
Seems strange that only "uses" is in bold in this story. If you put "unauthorised" in bold also, the story becomes a little more benign.
Come, on. The DCMA may be bad, but so is "unauthorised use" of copyrighted material. Why shouldn't TW do their best to minimise it?
The US Constitution grants Congress the power to grant copyrights for a limited time. If they keep upping the ante each time the deadline draws near, that is not "limited", because TW will never lose the copyrights of their characters to the public domain. Congress has overstepped its authority.
So, if TW invokes the DMCA to protect its characters, it's using an unconstitutional law to protect an unconstitutional franchise.
Normally, a copyright holder dies sometime, and their copyright fades. Not so for corporations like Time-Warner. Our legal system has been made into a twisted mockery of justice, in which immortal corporations are above the law.
The whole legal fiction of corporations being "persons" stems back to the 1886 Supreme Court decision in County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, in which the Court cited the "equal protection" clause of the fourteenth amendment. Equal. That means that the entire reason corporations are allowed to have rights as distinct entities is because all people have equal protection under the law.
This is a complete crock. Do the actions of corporations ever kill people? You betcha! So when was the last time you saw a corporation sentenced to death?
And, no, monopoly breakups don't count. Those are to keep the other corporations happy, and any benefit to real people is incidental.
Why do we as a society constantly reward and look up to these faceless legal machines which are designed to grow larger and make money at any cost?
The corporation may be an efficient way to run the economy, but it's a sick joke to even think of them as "persons". We need a system of laws that recognizes that corporations are a group of people, working together, and not some entity in and of itself.
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
There *has* to be another side, no? Personally, I
encourage everyone I know to ignore intellectual
property laws of all sorts. Data and ideas cannot
be owned -- they lack scarcity. 'Pirating' is
not theft because nothing is *taken*. Post it
everywhere! Encourage your friends to ignore
'Intellectual Property'. IP is inherently invalid,
and it seems the DCMA is just taking us closer to
the inevitable conclusion of a pointless concept.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Ok, time for self-aggrandizing... when I read things like
/. readers & Linux activists may have more political/PR clout than they realize.
:)
Critics of the DMCA have long argued that the "anti-circumvention" provisions tilt the balance too far in favor of copyright owners, while depriving the public of the ability to use and access information.
I equate "Critics of the DMCA" with "Readers of Slashdot and Linux users." Perhaps this is silly... are there other large groups of people organized against the DMCA? I think librarians in general probably are... but I also think that
Or I could be on crack.
---
From TWX:
"a fair use defense might allow a user to quote a passage from a book but it does not follow that the user is allowed to break into a bookstore and steal a book."
The "technological protection" clauses of the DMCA are not an inadvertent extension of copywrite holders' rights by a naïve Congress, the limitation of fair use is entirely intentional. The argument that a digital work is fundamentally different from a pre-digital work was swallowed hook, line and sinker. The statement quoted above is absurd hyperbole; in a more accurate analogy, loaning a copy of Orifice2K to a friend is likened not to loaning a book but to loaning the press-plates for the book. The previously sufficient technical protection inherent in the expense of building a letterpress allowed for fair use to function without undue anxiety on the part of copywrite holders.
Congress is only too well aware of the technical issues, thanks to their friends in the content industries. Their eyes were wide open and their ears filled with the sound of the bell on the till.
Fair use is a dead letter, as intended. Arguments to restore it will fall on deaf ears. It remains to make clear that, in consequence, the very basis of copywrite, its ostensible role in supporting productive endeavor and the common weal, is subverted. Is this line persuasive? I doubt it. The DMCA effectively creates the conditions for a lively black market, essentially ensuring piracy. And this may be the key to its undoing. We may thus look on software piracy as a moral imperative.
In the immortal words of Wat Tyler (the punkers, not the 14th C. revolutionary):
Copywrite is for tools.
illegitimii non ingravare
(1) Prohibition. When alcohol was banned, people still produced, transported, and consumed it. "But it was the law!" The amendment was withdrawn by a subsequent amendment. Work through proper channels? Write your representatives? Convince legislators through proper means? Didn't happen. And the people were REWARDED for their disregard of an unjust law.
(2) Segregation laws. Blacks must yield their seat on busses to whites. Rosa Parks refused. "But it was the law!" Should she have complied? I think not. Her refusal spawned the great civil rights movement. Work through proper channels? Write your representatives? Convince legislators through proper means? Didn't happen. And the people were REWARDED for their disregard of an unjust law.
(3) The 55 MPH speed limit. The Federal Gov't, which is not supposed to be involved in making local state law (10th amendment) effectively extorted states into mandating 55MPH by refusing them federal highway dollars if they refused to comply and legislate 55. The law was widely ignored by the public. "But it's the law!" The threat was finally ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL and highway funds were ordered maintained regardless of local state speed limits. The result? Most states hiked local speed limits imediately. (And BTW, no increase in traffic fatalities appeared unkile what the naysayers predicted). Work through proper channels? Write your representatives? Convince legislators through proper means? Didn't happen. And the people were REWARDED for their disregard of an unjust law.
Am I making my point here?
Right now it's the internet turning IP law on its ear, just as the press removed literacy from the sole realm of high society. IP law cannot survive in a world of instantaneous global communication with each and every one of us granted equal power to publish anything. The dinosaurs will roar loudly, but they're already sinking into the tar pit.
Will the fall of IP law hurt a lot of people? Certainly. Recorded music put a lot of musicians out of business. Automatic pinsetters put a lot of people out of work. Computers and robots put a lot of factory workers out of work. Refrigeration put the ice deliverers out or work. The automobile hurt sales of horses. Airplanes depressed the commuter ship industry. The film camera hurt portrait artists. Cellular phones hurt the operators of coin operated phones. Something must be hurt or killed so that something new can live and grow. The fall of IP law will usher in a new wave of "information brokers" and "knowledge dealers". Knowledge will cease being for the wealthy or the "authoirized" and will become an omnipotent commodity upon which a new and better society will be built upon.
I for one am looking forward to the future.
It looks like it might just be a matter of time before the DMCA takes full effect. If the protests fail, and the courts rule in favor of the corporations, we still have a response. Lets simply ignore the monolithic, monopolistic, pay-per-use culture and come up with something better. How about creting an information/media refuge by creatively applying shrinkwrap style licensing?
In the software world, the GPL is an effective response to overly restrictive End-User License Agreements. Some of the best software in the world has been released under the GPL. The author chooses to use that license, and their works are protected under it. On this side of the fence, everything is working pretty well.
Wouldnt it be possible to release other media under a license that is more permissive than the DMCA tainted Copyright? Draw up a new contract that preserves the rights of the artist to profit, and protects the consumers rights to fair use. Include a provision that makes peer-to-peer distribution possible under certain, well defined conditions (payment for example). Make it easy for the end users to be legit, and stay legit.
Recruit artists who are benevolent and informed to start publishing under this license. Show them the benefits to their fans. Demonstrate that it wont cause a loss in revenue. This might take awhile (and some legal precedent), but it could be fairly feasable.
Push the benefits of this style of licensing to the consumer. Put little stickers on all permissively licensed merchandise, so people know when their rights are protected. Show them the benefits of the new licensing, highlighting the added value of having more rights to use the content at their convenience. Maybe even rally around someone who gets busted for doing something innocent under the DMCA copyright (linux DVD anyone?) to have a poster child for the cause. If we could get some consumer demand, then we have more pressure on the artists to release material under the new license.
So how about it? Can we take our ball and go home?
-BW
Something that may be good to remember...
Copyright is *not* an inalienable, natural right. It is an artificial right, granted by a government FOR THE BENEFIT OF SOCIETY AS A WHOLE.
Protecting a good authors work helps society, as that author can go ahead and produce more work.
This applies to patent, as well as other IP laws. Remember, laws like this are for THE BETTERMENT OF SOCIETY, *NOT* FOR THE BETTERMENT OF A COMPANY'S BANK ACCOUNT.
Remember. They will tell us it is 'illegal' for us to copy their DVD's, or to decode them.. let's remember who granted them those protections in the first place. Don't let this get any more out of hand than it already is.
Just some thoughts on implied contracts. I was thinking about why software/music/blah blah is so confusing.. why isn't this legal ground already covered.. and here's why.
When Joe Smith walks into a store and buys a pack of twinkies, he grabs the twinkies off the shelf, pays the clerk, and eats his twinkies. There is an implied contract here, namely, the transfer of ownership of the twinkies to Joe, in exchange for money. We don't put it in writing, we don't attach 'terms of use' to the twinkies.. it's just assumed that, after the purchase, joe owns the pack of twinkies.
When Joe Smith walks into the same store and buys computer software, or a CD, or a DVD, he does the exact same thing. He takes it to the counter, gives them money, and walks away. The implied contract, again, is that Joe now *OWNS* the stuff he just bought.
Oh.. but wait.. there are OTHER things joe wasn't aware of. He wasn't aware that his software will force him to agree to a legally binding (debatable) agreement when he runs it.. so he may *own* the media, but he doesn't own the bits....
Oh. And running the bits on the DVD through some kind of algorithm and coming up with a decrypted movie to store on his HD? That's not legal, Joe.. even though it *IS* your DVD, and you *DO* own it..
The problem, folks, is that people don't understand the issues around what they are buying. They don't understand when they buy software that they aren't really buying it.. that they are just purchasing a license to use it... oh, but the store treats it as merchandise. They aren't a licensing agent of any sort... deceptive, no? The software industry DOES have their cake and eat it too.
Hey. Pirating movies is *ILLEGAL* already. So is pirating music. So. Tough. We can buffer these existing laws with other laws, just to make it seem scarier (sort of like, getting caught for armed robery, but also getting charged with assault with a deadly weapon (steak knife), posession of stolen goods (the twinkies you stole), illegal use of an automobile (getaway car), illegal posession of a steak knife, entering a business with intent to rob the store, and resisting arrest (running when the cops show up, oh, and posession of criminal equipment (the otherwise legal radio scanner you were using to listen to cop frequencies. It's totally legal, until you use it in conjunction with a crime)
Kiddie porn, piracy, soliciting minors for sex, all these things are already illegal.
A previous poster posted a really good note about how existing laws are fine, and about how AOL should spend their money to help enforce todays laws, rather than simply create newer ones.
No comment. ;-)
As a small bit of historical background, DMCA was enacted in 1998, but there have been legislative proposals to deal with technological circumvention measures since about 1995, IIRC. Many Law Professors were concerned about those proposals from the beginning, fought them, fought DMCA, before ever enacted.
Obviously, the fight was not successful, but the outgrowth of that early work still influences the legal debate today. See, for example, this paper by Professor Pamela Samuelson at Berkeley, published virtually right after DMCA became law, still frequently cited.
The US is *not* the centre of this planet, which is actually some 6000+ kilometres beneath your feet.
<FLAMEBAIT>
It is amazing how some people are saying that the internet is global and should therefore not be regulated, while otherwise they're still trapped in the good-old "We're-the-centre-of-the-universe" vision.
</FLAMEBAIT>
Perhaps it's time to add a 'US-centric stories' checkbox to the slashdot config page ;-)
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
The words "limit uses of copyright material" says it all about the mentality of the existing media groups. Basically they want to translate the Internet into a TV but with interaction (which maps to the ability to buy merchandise from them in their minds). Hello .... wakey wakeky guys. The ability for the user to *store* (or more correctly cache) and *transmit* data effectively decouples information in both a temporal and spatial dimension. Content distributors cannot assume that at 6pm, everyone will be settling down to evening news or that they can stagger the release of music titles to ensure word of mouth to control the build-up of hype. Hence their attempts to constrain the *use* of information through end-user licensing arrangements. By putting artificial restrictions (only home use, only link to original, etc) they hope to segment the market (much like aeroplane economy and business class) to sort out the people willing to *pay* for characteristics such as real-time (e.g. stock quotes), time sensitivity (last week's sports results are pretty valueless), or special services (e.g. customisation). However, the *big* assumption is that the consumer is passive and thus willing to have everything handed to them for the convenience (at a convenient markup). However, this IMHO is a serious misjudgement as what people (or at least the early adoptors) are seeking is the ability to combine/modify things to their liking. Star Trek would never have evolved the way it has if Paramount had forbidden the fans to write their own fiction or engage in unofficial conventions. The ability and freedom to mix your own tracks, design your own skin, or hack your own code modifications is viewed as a potential (lost) profit opportunity rather than a way of listening to what people really want. If a dispensing entity can restrict these rights, by fair means or foul, they then should be able to charge for the extra priviledges as per shareholder profit maximisation theory.
Unfortunately, the attempt to limit priviledges is not matched by a reduction in price. By attempting to license music rather than selling the rights to the contents they are effectively devaluing the resale and second-hand market. Some economists have noted that the secondary value of a good is often a more important determinant for marginal pricing, e.g. you can use a CD for the bits on it or as a drink coaster. Passing off a wasting asset as a durable good assumes that the consumers can't tell the difference or detect the reduction in value. Afterall, it's a standard trick when you can't raise the price, you reduce the portion size or dilute the intrinsic value.
One wonders what's worse, not having copyright and people borrowing your ideas, or having copyright protection and people *NOT* listening to you. So what can the Internet do? Well, you can take advantage of laws in other countries, compare and arbitrage prices across countries, or extend the reach of your opinions or new services. In other words, it forces individuals to think on a larger scale than previously.
LL
Medicine. It may make it possible to restrict the use of medicine in a way that increases profits but decreases use. E.g. selling a patented drug in batches of 10,000 and then banning redistribution, so that everybody has to pay for 10,000 pills whether they need them or not. Effectively this would stop some people being able to afford treatment.
The DCMA is so broad that you can use it to bugger things up in most markets, if you are ingenious/unscrupulous enough.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'