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How Will The DMCA Be Implemented?
bl968 writes "Wired has an excellent article entitled "Fear of a Pay-Per-Use World" on the upcoming Librarian of Congress decision on granting exceptions to the DMCA anti circumvention provisions. The DMCA, which was enacted in 1998, bans the circumvision of technical protection measures like encryption systems and other methods designed to prevent access to copyrighted works. When the DMCA was passed it contained, a delay to the date the anti-circumvention provisions take effect. This delay is about up and your comments are needed"
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act exploits a loophole in the Constitution that makes "the lifetime of the Universe" a valid value for "limited times" in the copyright clause. It's all part of the slippery slope to make copyright perpetual. This must be stopped; click here to help.
<O
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XPlay Tetris On Drugs!
Will I retire or break 10K?
While at the time the lawsuits were filed DeCSS was still legal for the authors to create and use, the problem is that it is "illegal" to distribute circumvention tools, and that provision didn't have a delay on it. The MPAA didn't go after Johanson or 2600 et al for using DeCSS, they went after them for distributing it.
If you look at the last paragraph in this article they mention this problem, that even if broad exceptions are granted for circumventing content locks, it's still illegal to hand out the code to do so. Sucks huh?
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Will the world 100 years from now be a world with no current public domain as everything will be locked up?
"We consider that the likely impact of the coming into force of section 1201(a)(1)(A) will be that more works will be more widely available to more authorized (lawful) users than before. Those who shoulder the burden of arguing that section 1201(a)(1)(A) should not go into effect for all works on October 28 cannot prevail unless they can demonstrate convincingly that the contrary is true"
Hmmm. 2600.com attempted to aid in making DVD playing software more widely available and you folks sued them for it. The purpose of DeCSS was arguably to further the development of a Open Source DVD player, something that would have put the DVD format into the hands of many more users. We could demonstrate it much more convincinglu if you'd stop suing us.
Icebox
When the MPAA was asked to comment on the current situation, they had this to say:
"It is our opinion that the DMCA is integral to the well being of corporations. Not only does this protect us from the evils of software/movie pirates, but his also presents an end to bankruptcy. We have talked this over and have thought of this wonderful (patented) plan: When a company is losing money and facing bankruptcy they will release a useful piece of software with A very weak encryption system. Once someone attempts to break it we will Sue under the DMCA for unspecified (see millions) of damages. And since this creates less bankruptcy -- it is better for the average consumer."
Getting the Librarian of Congress to narrowly protect our specific interests is helpful, but in the end, inadequate.
What we need is a new law.
The current law grants us our basic rights only as a special exception made after lengthy deliberations by a single appointed official, two years after the lack has been found to cause problems.
The burden of proof doesn't belong where it's been put.
Congress must repeal the DMCA and replace it with more cautious laws. If you're organizing on a cause, organize around that; in the end, nothing else will do.
Given the structure of the law in this country, I think that we should ask for capital punishment for the infringer, or if the case brought to court fails, for the supposed infringee.
If you don't like a law, make it unenforcible.
Don't be reasonable, be outrageous. Be bold. Be daring. Be hostile and ridiculously vindictive.
Make the penalties so incredibly strick for the loser, either party, that nobody in their right mind will take this route. Knowing that if they lose, they DIE!
And don't think it can't be done... There are a few less Chinese software pirates around because they took the US at its word for trade concessions.
Yes, Bill Gates and his coterie of acolytes is responsable for firing squads and wooden markers. And I'm sure its not keeping him awake at night.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Prohibition didn't work because a VAST majority of americans were against it. When 2/3 of American adults like to do something, it's idiotic to try to make it illegal.
Joe Sixpack and Vinny Bagadonuts doesn't care about DMCA, freedom or anything like that. As long as the football game will be broadcast on time they're happy. I have no idea how we can do it, but we have to make more people see the DMCA as personally offensive and intrusive.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It's always been illegal for me to borrow tapes/cds from friends and libraries and record them, but it is easy to do, so everyone does...
What a lot of the DMCA does is provide for a technical implementation for existing laws.
Forgetting for a moment the fair use issues, which can probably be resolved, this would seem to be quite fair.
Except that it isn't. This is really more about power than anything, about the freedom to live relatively freely, to misquote Sabrina (Teenage Witch), 'Every Law Shall Have a Loophole'.
The DMCA is giving dictatorial control over certain aspects of life to corporations (cough, spit, wash yer mouth out with soap) who really don't have the maturity/morality/whatever not to abuse it.
In a way it is quite amusing, anyone can have shares, companies exist to profit the shareholders and are willing to go to pretty much any lengths to do so. We are becoming our own goalers.
For instance, a DVD sold in Japan will not play on a DVD player sold in the United States because of technical protection measures employed by the motion picture industry.
How does this work the other way, I thought that regional encoding was illegal in NZ, but since then a scary source sez it ain't.
This goes way beyond fair use I'd have thought.
(been interupted so many times writing this I'm not sure what I was thinking though, it was way better than what I said though!! :)
~ppppppppö
Can a corp be married? Nope.
Can a corp be executed? Nope, and in some states it is illegal for a corp to go under because of a civil remedy (see the Big Tobacco case). Now, excuse me if I just don't "get" this, but isn't the Constitution the Supreme Law of the Land? Yes. The legal higherarchy is skewed, but roughly, it's:
- The Constitution, which provides the ground rules of operation;
- Federal Law, which makes more clear definitions of what's good and what's not;
- And the Bitch, Case Law (or Common Law). This is law pressed out in court rulings. Read the DeCSS briefs? The A vs. B (regular courts) and A v. B (Supreme Court) rulings make the intricate web of law only lawyers, judges, and felons in good prisons with libraries can understand.
Personally, I believe we can solve all of this corporate boldness fairly easily. Add a EULA to the Constitution: "By use of this document, you hereby attest that you have not and will not attempt to bypass the civilian rights listed herein. If at any time this statement is no longer valid, the person and/or corporation that does so will lose all rights listed herein." Yeah, right. Every Republocrat and Democritan in the House and Senate and in every Governorship and State Assembly in the nation is bankrolled with CORPORATE MONEY. The government and the corporations WANT to take your rights away. Welcome to the Corporate Socialist regime. This is why I am voting for Ralph Nader, and every civil-liberty loving bastard should as well. He is the biggest voice against corporate power. He is responsible for the Clean Air and Water Acts... seatbelts.. airbags... Freeedom of Information Act... and another three dozen pieces of legislation which protect citizens' and their rights.I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Umm please don't, a riot composed of geeks waving bar scanning dildos would be way more humour than my heart could take....
~ppppppppö
On the other hand, what you suggest is also somewhat dangerous... To continue your analogy, you'd have to make VERY sure that whoever was doing the audit was not a script kiddy, and was not being influenced by one. Otherwise they'd just use it as an opertunity to leave more root kits around, only this time the exploits would be intentionally created backdoors instead of loopholes and exploits. So they'd be considerably harder to patch...
Well, it's time to MAKE them care, by making them aware of the impact that the DMCA will have on their lives. It might turn out that Joe Sixpack downloads his favorite Elvis Costello tunes from Napster because his LP's are scratched beyond recognition. And what if he wanted to get DVD soon, but didn't want to worry about the MPAA charging him a flat rate to play the movie? Then he should start caring about how the DMCA will affect his life.
One of the major reasons why I hate the DMCA is because of how it became law: a joint venture between the MPAA, RIAA, and the government. In no way was this act approved by the US citizens. The very fact that the DMCA will become law soon flies in the face of this passage of the Declaration of Independence:
From the consent of governed. Now, did we give any consent to have the DMCA passed into law? NO. Were any referendums held to study public opinion on this issue? NO.
The DMCA IS destructive of the ends established in the Declaration, and it is our right to abolish the DMCA. It is not only our right, but now it is our responsibility to eliminate the DMCA. The DMCA will affect our happiness in the future; we will become drones, being forced by the MPAA to shell out X amount of dollars to watch a pre-recorded movie for Y amount of time. Even worse, the RIAA might soon mandate that we pay for FM radio by the minute. I fear that this idea (or a similar incarnation) isn't far off.
Do I sound a little like Henry David Thoreau? Good! It's nice to know that I'm the only remaining Transcendentalist in the US.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Eh? Texas is quite more likely to dismiss legal hair-splitting and shenanigans of the type listed above and to administer simple, clear justice.
The problem is there are several entities that have informally referenced the Digital Millenium Copyright Act when talking about a wide variety of protection schemes they purport to have placed as a barrier to control access to their work. In their hands, the phrase "technological measures" and "control access" combine to form a hopelessly broad category which contains trivial or well-known encoding schemes upon data which is dubiously classifiable as copyrighted content.
Under such practice, it would be difficult without new legislation to define what scope of "access controls" congress would protect, and which measures employ a sufficient degree of technology. Would not a modern-day Da Vinci declare his practice of backwards writing a "technological measure" and prosecute any who realize and declare that a mirror would then give them access? Recent experience shows that he would, and go farther -- in charging for the only approved mirror and declaring other mirrors illegal under a poorly written law!
Thus one key concern may not be the access to the copyrighted works themselves, but rather the access to the technology that accesses them. When this technology is held as a trade secret, controlled via licensing with onerous fees, or otherwise restricted from any who would build innovative delivery channels for the copyrighted work, then the DMCA becomes a tool for those who wish to consolidate control of both the content and the cradle-to-grave distribution of the content into a few rich conglomerates. Technological protections should not be able to be considered both as a "technological measures that effectively control access" under DMCA and as a trade secret with restricted distribution. There is no benefit to the public for both considerations to be in effect simultaneously. Like patents, full disclosure and registration of these "technological measures" should be required before the additional protections of any law like DMCA may be invoked.
If a "technological measure" is implemented that goes further than simply granting access to a work, but also executes additional policies, such as giving one group of people access while (possibly temporarily) excluding another group of noninfringing would-be customers, then is this scheme worthy of protection under the DMCA? Citizens and consumers would say no. Why should DMCA be cited to protect a scheme that allows the copyright holder the unprecedented right of geographic designation of access, such as the regional encoding scheme for DVDs? In the past, has it been illegal for duly printed and purchased books, audio tapes, magazines, or other media to traverse geographical boundaries? Are we to constitute a government with no powers of censorship only to legislatively empower multinational corporations to routinely exercise such power? There is an important distinction between the DMCA's intent to prevent copyright infringment and industry's intent "to manage access and to exclude unauthorized users" as described by the MPAA. The DMCA must be clarified to forbid this type of practice and disallow descrimination based on geography or based on any other demographic attribute except possibly age.
My award goes to Fritz A. Attaway for this little number
"To the contrary, the use of technological measures in general, and of access-control technologies in particular, has already greatly increased the availability of a wide range of copyrighted materials to members of the public."
The thrust of his argument is
(a)access control enables the copyright holders to make available trial versions or restricted versions like those cable movies that cut out 1/2 an hour into it and ask for your credit card number.
(b) Access control is a means of making sure that unauthorized use of material is not possible. This is implemented "in tandem with the hardware."
These don't seem too unreasonable to be honest. I think the reason I have such a hard time relating to the MPAA is that they consider movies, music whatever as product. Most of the crap they put out is, "Mission to Mars" for example has about as much artistic value as Lemon Fresh dishwashing detergent. I could care less about access control on product like this.
What scares me is the idea that access to artistic or intellectual works which have real value to humanity and society will be controlled by a capitalist driven authority like the MPAA. ( milar concerns have cropped up with the human genome project, fortunately all parties agreed to release their data into the public domain. )
And it's the MPAA's movies that reach the wider audience. Shudder
:wq
His argument stood perfectly well when you considered the following: When DeCSS was developed, Linux lacked any functionality to talk to DVD's as more then ATAPI CDROMs. There was no UDF filesystem support. Jon made this argument in his defense when he took the stand at the DeCSS case.
.88 magnum -- it goes through schools.
Also, if they weren't sueing Johansen, why was his house raided and him and his father taken into custody?
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It's a
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It's a
-- Danny Vermin
By then it'll be too late.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Looking at the text of title 17, section 1201...
Subsection (c)(1) reads Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title. so the "fair use" defense is unaffected by this measure.
As for DeCSS I'm guessing the defense lawyers are hammering real hard on subsection (f) which explicitly permits reverse engineering any access control AND distributing the means to do so so long as it is solely for the purpose of allowing interoperability. Of course the corporate weasels didnt like this so they are claiming DeCSS in "purely a piracy tool." IANAL but from reading the actual letter of the law it seems that all it should take to defend against the suit is claiming "I made this code to allow interoperability between the firmware code on commercial DVD drives and the linux OS since nobody else had made a driver for it." - that fulfills the requirement in (f)(2) that it is for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability and also of (f)(3) where the information gained may be made available to others ... solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability
In the absence of the MPAA being able to prove that any of the coders intended DeCSS for piracy or actively used it for such (and since "fair use" remains intact their lawyers should be able to argue that the presence of decrypted movie fragments in old temp files on their disks is simply evidence they played them, not that they copied them) whilst the MPAA may throw more and more money and lawyers at this they should eventually lose.
# human firmware exploit
# Word will insert into your optic buffer
# without bounds checking
I had a
One of the major reasons why I hate the DMCA is because of how it became law: a joint venture between the MPAA, RIAA, and the government.
Not to mention being passed by a voice vote so that we can't even tell who voted for or against it. (Safer to assume that it was unanimous and vote the whole lot of them out.. if only we can convince others of the disgusting nature of this law.)
Do I sound a little like Henry David Thoreau? Good! It's nice to know that I'm the only remaining Transcendentalist in the US.
Let's not get too full of ourselves here.
Anyway, this law was bought and paid for by corporate interests. The average citizen had no input on it, nor did the government care to even attempt to see how people felt about it. They slipped it through as quickly and quietly as a bill this attrocious can possibly be slipped through. By using a voice vote, everyone in favor got to get the bill through while avoiding attaching their names to it. Sneaky as hell. How does a bill this big and important get through on a voice vote? It's called corruption. We need to fight this and we need to make people understand what it means to them. Explain how it will affect them. I'm just not sure how to go about doing that. Most people I know just kinda shake their head and say something to the effect of, "Well, that's the government for ya." I'm beginning to despair of ever finding enough people who give a damn about this to make any sort of difference at all.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Initial written comments in this rulemaking were due February 17, 2000. The Office received 235 comments. All 235 comments are now available below for viewing and downloading. Copies of comments are also now available for inspection and copying at the Copyright Office
To quote the first line of the linked page.
Initial written comments in this rulemaking were due February 17, 2000.
I'm probably just begging to be whacked upside the head with the Clue Stick, but...
From the way this article reads, it sounds like the anti-circumvention measures of the DMCA don't go into effect until the 28th. IANAL, but it sounds like this would mean that any uses of it as a defense in court cases before that time would be considered an attempt to apply the law ex post facto, which is explicitly unconstitutional.
Wouldn't this mean that all charges pressed under that clause of the DMCA, including the infamous DeCSS case, be legally groundless?
Like I said, IANAL and IAPC (I Am Probably Clueless), but it seemed like something to think about...
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How about if we encrypt the source code to deCSS. Then, if the MPAA decrypts said source code, they are in violation of the DMCA. They can't sue us because to get the evidence is against the law.
What makes you think the DMCA would be any use in assisting the little guy against a large corportaion or federation?
So while an analog format may be excempt from the regulations, it also isn't very useful on the net.
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And DeCSS is illegal because.........
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Yes, but a law is presumed constitutional unless and until a court declares it unconstitutional. "I think this law is unconstitutional" is not good enough, unless you're a judge.
Also it is rather trivial to pass unconsitutional laws in the US. The concept of "high treason" is appently unrecognised, indeed IIRC US legislators have freedom from prosecution WRT any crimes they comit "at work".
Globalization has been the big corporate wet dream for the last few years. Some /. readers have sung the praises of the global economy.
How is it that it is good for the corporations to take advantage of the wonderful global marketplace, but a crime for consumers to do the same?
Seriously, how can they defend this? The Regionalization mechanism seems to be a system designed both to restrain trade and to fix prices? Doesn't this constitute some kind of criminal conspiracy? I know ADM and it's competitors were busted for global proce fixing in the Lysene market... So there should be some way to prosecute them under US law, at the very least.
I can imagine the defense: "Oh no you can buy a movie wherever you like, you just can't watch that movie..."
I don't see what the issue is here.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Well, here's a quote from him, which you can find by following the above link, and following the Issues button...
Giant corporations have hijacked our democracy, have no allegiance to our country or communities, and are increasingly controlling our government, media, childhood...What other society tolerates electronic child molesting the way these corporations are targeting 4-year-olds [on TV]? They know when parents are away working. Then they market their products, undermining parental authority...junk food...violence as a solution to life's problems. People say it's up to the parents. Yeah, but who designed an economy where it takes two, three breadwinners to make a middle-class family living? These top CEOs are making 415 times the entry wage in their own company. You know what it was in 1940? 12. 1980? 40. Now, 415.
You know, Jon Katz could maybe take a hint and stop using digerati wannabe books as a starting place for social discussion and simply head to the Nader site for some launch points. After all, Nader is a Linux user!
[Looking forward to 2004, when Slashdot hosts streaming debates in the next presidential election, complete with a Questions bot and a discussion forum]
I do not have a signature
So,if the DMCA "bans the circumvision of technical protection measures like encryption systems and other methods designed to prevent access to copyrighted works" then I can copyright my Emails and encrypt them! If carnivore or the NSA decrypt my Email, then they are breaking the law and they will have to stand up to Jack Valenti!. Ha! Valenti and his lawyers will protect me!
/me hides his stack of 2600 mags.
What? Uh, No sir. Never heard of DeCSS, nope, never bought a T-shirt of it neither. Nope nope!
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I regret to inform any new Slashdot readers that the comments period at the Library of Congress has been well expired. They had public hearings regarding those comments in May, and even the post-hearing-comment-rebuttal-comment window has passed.
All that's left to do now is wait. Virtually all the scheduled opportunities for public comment (read: your rare chance to not be ignored) have passed, as most slashdot readers probably know.
What this thread should provide an opportunity for Slashdot readers to do, is organize and take action should the LOC rule in Big Copyright's favor. We have until October 28th to prepare, and once the ruling comes down, anyone interested in the enrichment of the public domain and the rights to fair use of copyrighted material needs to be ready to stage an information campaign the likes of which has never been seen.
Prepare fliers and protests. Get ordinary people's attention focused on why this abuse of the limited copyright monopoly harms them. I'm trying to compile an HTML archive of important documents and arguments that can inform people about their relationship to copyright and it's place in society. Burn stuff like this to CD and distribute it near theaters, video rental shops, Kinko's, or other areas where people are likely to be in a receptive mood regarding their rights as individuals. If you're interested in knowing the URL when my compilation is done, send me an email with 'dmca' in the subject line.
Make the argument heard, because if the LOC rules to delete fair use and copyright expiration, we have the hardest argument yet to make to change what will be the status quo.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Slashdot (not to mention other sites such as Technocrat) have been covering this since early 2000; this particular article says that comments "are due Feb 17 2000". Add this to the earlier story about Mojonation, which is a repeat from July 30, and one can only conclude that the Slashdot editors are suffering from an acute problem which makes it impossible for them to retain any kind of long-term memory. This illness is caused by some form of brain damage.
OTOH, so the Slashdot editors are brain-damaged... what's new about it?
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Copyright, according to US constitution at least (that's the most easily accessible source of the definition, I presume everyone's is similar), is a limited set of rights afforded for a limited time to content creators. In my opinion, the MPMA/DVDCCA have broken their side of the bargain by using technology to attempt to secure additional rights, and for unlimited time. They therefore do not deserve the protection of copyright law, and I have no moral qualms about making copies of DVD movies.
If Digital Convergence has any "intellectual property" claim, it is most probably patent -- and without seeing specifics, I'd be dubious about even that. (Query how a process for Web information retrieval triggered by the scanning of a bar code is any innovation over a library's retreival of remote database records when it scans a book at checkout.)
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
Hmm, no. "Capitalism" is the correct term, since what we are talking about is the abuse of the concept of "ownership" as a means for acquiring wealth and power.
In that case you'd have to call the old soviet union "capitalist". The abuse of ownership is perpetrated with the consent (and by the actions) of the state.
The free market is what made the MPAA. The fact that they are now big enough to get some legislative influence and restrict the freedoms of others should be no shock to you.
The last thing that large organisations, be they the MPAA or Microsoft want is a free market. Their continued existance relies on the lack of competition.
What they want is a situation where they can do what they want and everyone else is obliged to follow suit.
Digital device makers could put a little random noise in with each playback, so the first viewing looks acceptable, but every time you copy it it gets a little bit worse and worse - just like the old stuff. Would this make everybody happy? (no).
Just being facitious.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I made the same mistake
Corley and 2600 are being charged with trafficking, which has no such effective date. The ban on trafficking was effective immediately.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
"Law Enforcement, Intelligence, and Other Government Activities. - This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, information security, or intelligence activity of an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or a person acting pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State. For purposes of this subsection, the term ''information security'' means activities carried out in order to identify and address the vulnerabilities of a government computer, computer system, or computer network."
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson