Slashdot Mirror
DMCA Anti-Circumvention Provisions
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Let's start with a review of the law. The two sections we're most interested in are Title 17, Chapter 12, Section 1201(a) and Section 1201(b):
" 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
"(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES.-"(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter....
...
"(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-"(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;"(3) As used in this subsection?
"(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
"(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."(A) to 'circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
"(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.
"(b) ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS.-"(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that?"(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;"(2) As used in this subsection-
"(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or
"(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof."(A) to 'circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure' means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure; and
"(B) a technological measure 'effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.
The law covers two related but distinct concepts. The first is the concept of "access controls," the second is the concept of "copy controls." The law covers these two items separately and treats them differently, so it's important to make the distinction. Copy controls can be thought of as measures which actually prevent copying. Access controls prevent usage, not copying. Copy controls: Macrovision, serial copy protection for digital works, old floppy protection schemes, etc. Access controls: encryption, passwords, usage restrictions, etc.
Section 1201(a)(1) prohibits anyone from circumventing access control measures, with exemptions to be determined by the Librarian of Congress. Section 1201(a)(2) prohibits anyone from building, importing, or distributing a device designed for circumventing access control measures -- no exemptions.
Section 1201(b) prohibits anyone from building, importing, or distributing a device designed for circumventing copy control measures. Note that there is no counterpart to 1201(a)(1), that is, you are not prohibited from USING such a device if you manage to obtain one without building it or obtaining it from anywhere else. (Achieving this is left as an exercise for the reader.) Using such a device would presumably fall under older copyright laws -- you're making a copy.
Only the very first section -- 1201(a)(1) -- had its implementation delayed. The other two -- the device-building sections -- took effect immediately upon passage of the law, October 28, 1998. That first section was the subject of a hearing and review process in which the Librarian of Congress had the option to exempt certain classes of copyrighted works from the prohibition. The public had a chance to comment and reply to others' comments.
The review process is now complete, and the ruling has been issued. Only two exemptions were issued:
- Compilations consisting of lists of websites blocked by filtering software applications;
- Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsoleteness
The Register of Copyrights considered and denied all of the other exemptions suggested. Commenters and speakers suggested a wide range of exemptions. Libraries, universities and individuals generally promoted exemptions; corporations owning vast amounts of copyrighted materials opposed them. There were several factors working against any exemptions being granted, though.
The first and largest factor was that the rule-making only applied to that single section of the law, regarding circumvention of access controls. The Register of Copyrights shot down a lot of comments because the commenter's focus seemed to be on copy controls rather than access controls. For example, if a work prohibited one from copying a section of the work in order to comment on it, that would be considered a copy control, not an access control, according to the copyright office.
Another factor was that the Register of Copyrights defined "classes of works" very narrowly, in a way that severely damaged many of the submissions -- they were too broad. Imagine, if you will, being asked to write an essay on why slaves should be free. You do so. The teacher hands it back with an "F" and say, "No, not slaves in general -- I wanted you to identify specific slaves and tell me why those particular slaves should be free as opposed to the others." Even though the libraries and universities made powerful arguments pertaining to large numbers of works, because they didn't break down their arguments into specific narrow categories -- even though it would be silly and wasteful of paper to do so -- the Register of Copyrights threw out their arguments. Even where specific classes of works were singled out by the commenters, unless they submitted a great deal of evidence, they weren't deemed to have met the burden necessary of proving that they were being harmed by the prohibition on circumvention of access controls. In particular, the Register of Copyrights noted that "individual cases" would not be sufficient to meet the burden of showing harm. And no exemptions were granted where there was a large company opposing the exemptions.
So what happened to DVDs? A section of the ruling was devoted to discussing the DVD situation -- if you've been following the DVD mess, this is a must-read. The Register of Copyrights declined to enact any sort of exemption for circumventing access controls on DVDs, citing a number of factors. Within the twisted logic of the rule-making, the factors are actually sensible -- if you accept his premises, even a madman is sane. They seem to have been thinking of the region-coding scheme as the primary "access control" worthy of note. The copyright office reasoned that since you could buy a Windows machine or a DVD player (or a DVD player from another region, if needed), or perhaps a VCR, that there was no reason for an exemption. (Keep in mind here that 2600 et al. are being sued under the other sections of the DMCA, so their plight is not an example of harm caused by this section.) The Register did consider that the blending of copy controls and access controls in CSS might be a problem, but decided that Congress, not the Library of Congress, should address it. As a result, the final word on DVD's is this: you can't make or distribute a device to circumvent either the access control function of CSS or the copy control function. However, you may circumvent the copy control function, subject to the limitations of normal copyright law, but you may not circumvent the access control function. Thus it is illegal to, for example, fast-forward past the advertisements at the beginning of a DVD that you purchased, since that would involve circumventing the access controls.
(As an aside, my cynical nature suggests that if any censorware vendors had commented on this rule-making and said something along the lines of, "Our company will utterly collapse if you grant an exemption here," like Sony, Time-Warner, the MPAA and other copyright-holders did with regard to DVDs, that exemption wouldn't have been granted either.)
Possible penalties you may face are both civil and criminal. The criminal penalties are a fine of up to $500,000 and five years in prison; civil penalties are the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff or up to $2,500 per act.
So where does this leave us? One area that wasn't discussed in the rule-making was how a user was supposed to exercise the right to circumvent access controls without being able to purchase or create a device for doing so. Typically "device" is interpreted very broadly -- it means "any combination of software and/or hardware." So let's say you decide to take advantage of the exemption for publishing the lists of sites blocked by censorware products. You can feel free to circumvent their encryption, as long as you don't use any devices to do it -- no software, no hardware, no tools whatsoever. Even a pencil and paper is a "device" for these purposes. Presumably you could print out the encrypted file and then decrypt it in your head.
The other exemption is similar. Libraries pointed out that companies often go out of business, perhaps leaving them no way to gain access to some of the works they've purchased. So for this purpose, libraries can circumvent the access controls on those works -- assuming they can do so without creating any sort of "device".
In other words, this whole exercise was futile. The prohibitions on actually circumventing access controls will never be enforced, or at least rarely. Far more common will be prosecutions and civil suits under the sections which deal with making and distributing devices, where there is no concern with exemptions. Copyright holders will concentrate on taking away the tools to circumvent rather than preventing people from circumventing, since it isn't possible to circumvent without tools and most people do not possess the ability to manufacture their own tools.
(I should point out that there are certain other narrow exemptions built into the DMCA -- read it in its entirety if you wish. They are very narrow indeed and have very specific requirements. Rely on them at your peril. For example, you are permitted to circumvent access controls if those controls violate your privacy by collecting or transmitting personal identifying information. But you still aren't permitted to create or obtain a device to perform that circumvention.)
Readers: I hope that this article can be a resource for answering the questions about the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA that come up time and time again. This is the law, as much information as is available. If a question is coming to your mind about a specific circumstance, the answer is: whatever a judge says it is. There is no more information, no firm answers. A device can be purely software, and in the same vein as encryption software, restrictions on publishing such software devices run squarely into the First Amendment. Will there be a case testing this? What will win, the DMCA or the 1st Amendment? In 2 or 3 years, the Librarian of Congress will conduct this same review process once again, looking at the restrictions on circumventing access controls. Perhaps the library and user communities will do a more convincing job the next time around. But keep in mind that the strongest parts of the law, the prohibitions on devices, are not subject to this exemption process.
-- Michael Sims, 2000-10-30
This is genius.
The "rule in the Constitution" you seek are Amendments 9 & 10. I suppose the DCMA is wrapped in "commerce clause" mumbo-jumbo, so the courts will probably bless it. The Founding Fathers knew that a state which could hand out the goodies (social security) could also take them away (DCMA), so they tried to limit its powers. Unfortunately, FDR bullied the Supreme Court into permitting the vast expansion of Fed power that we endure today.
>> Debugging tools have the primary purpose of
>> helping to debug code
Yeah, well DeCSS has the primary purpose of allowing all those who legitimately purchased their DVDs to view them on the platform of their choice, it even says so in the source code.
This law is fundamentally flawed as I hope everyone can see, anything could be seen to be illegal in the sense that it bypasses an access control mechanism, debuggers et al.
I also agree with what was said earlier about guns, luckily I live in the UK when gun proliferation is no where near as bad as in the US and am happy for that.
Because Guns are used to KILL PEOPLE, and are used illegally, surely they should be banned? No of course not, but if a multi-billion dollar corperation loses the ability to have absolute control over what people bought and thought they owned, they can get any piece of code made "illegal".
It makes me vomit blood just thinking about it.
skiy.
skiy. www.Smokedot.org Drug Info, Rights, Laws, and Discussion
There you go. Having to buy a different DVD player to play foreign films is for your benefit!
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
[Congressional reply to one suggestion] "While it does not appear that Congress anticipated that persons who legitimately acquired copies of works should be denied the ability to access these works, there is no unqualified right to access works on any particular machine or device of the user's choosing. There are also commercially available options for owners of DVD ROM drives and legitimate DVD discs. Given the MARKET ALTERNATIVES, an exemption to benefit individuals who wish to play their DVDs on computers using the Linux operating system does not appear to be warranted."
"Market alternatives?" I was going to make some spiteful references to 'good little puppets', but I just realized why this sentence sounds so familiar to me as a web geek. It sounds exactly like "Please visit our sponsors".
This space intentionally left blank
I've seen very few DVDs that actually force you to watch commercials, even though it is technically possible. Forcing you to watch the "FBI warning" is more common, but at least that's brief.
If any studio started using the "access control" feature more often, I simply wouldn't buy any of their DVDs. If all the studios start using it, of course, that's a different problem...
MSK
You need the permission, so every time you play a DVD, call the studio and ask if you can play it. Even if they say don't, do so again, and tell them you are because the DMCA requires it.
People aren't necessarily asking for a free lunch, they just want to choose who they buy it from. In all of the scenarios that you described, the user is ultimately channelling money to a single point: DVDCCA. It turns out that all (every single one) of the DVDCCA-licensed players have weird restrictions built into them. If you want an uncrippled DVD player, you simply can't have one at any price. (Well, except for the illegal ones.) Where's your marketplace fix now?
Furthermore, this lack-of-free-lunch is an arbitrary added expense that need not exist. CSS does not add any value to the product, so that amount that customers should pay to unscramble it should be $0. From the customer's point of view, the price of DVD players is higher than what they naturally should be.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I agree completely and wholeheartedly with this...except for the 'free of the capitalist system' part. (Now, now, hear me out...)
From my perspective, the much-to-be-admired producers of 'free' content (in any real sense of the word 'free') are indulging in the ultimate in free-market capitalism - not only do they have complete control of the distribution and how much they get paid, they also are making good use of their right to decide in what form they get paid - e.g. fame, prestige, "good stuff to put on their resume'", free bug-checking and/or critiques and/or coding help (for software), possible more content for themselves to use produced by other people encouraged by their example, etc. etc.
In short, an admirable barter system that includes, where desired, barter for 'intangibles' rather than simply 'hard' goods and services.
Just a philosophical quibble. I do, personally, think that "capitalism" and "corporatism" are two rather different things...
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
What they say is, it is illegal to make a device, either software or hardaware, which circumvents accesss control.
Only if that is the main reason for the software existing. I'm saying that it is logically improbable (to a high degree) that that can be the main reason for DeCSS being written. This is covered in 1201 para a part 2 sub-parts A through C.
But, even ignoreing that, section C of 1201 states that nothing in that section (dealing with circumvention) overrides fair use as laid out in chapter 1. Fair use takes precedence. It actually specifically states that in black and white.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Corporate America loves this stuff. Now we are even more beholden to the large companies with copyrights on many different items. All large companies with lots of copyrights have more options now. They can raise the price on their books or software, and heavily prosecute everyone who doesn't buy their stuff but tries to steal it. There is no public good to this law. Much like the USPTO, congress no longer follow their charter of being OUR servants. They are the servants of the corporations with the money.
And is anyone wonderring why corporations seem to be owning more and more of America? Most of you work for big companies. Buy stuff made from big companies, pay extra for their entertainment and services. I see that trend continuing, perhaps forever. If we can't mount an effective defense to laws like this, the laws will only get worse (like the cybercrimes treaty). Soon the only legal activities will be company sponsored and expensive. Perhaps this is because of human over-expansion (there is less space "outside" to play in, everything is over-crowded and therefore "fun" and "recreation" tends to be controlled, indoors, and will encroach on someone elses space who will gladly charge for your activities). I don't see these trends reversing. As the Earth gets more crowded, we are losing more freedom (ostensibly to companies, but that's only because they make the movies,games, and tv shows and we can no longer take a vacation to escape. Not enough free spacce.) Globally, this decrease in personal freedom will continue as we run out of space to do things in.
-Ben
On another note, pre-Clinton underage smoking was the same, you could smoke but you couldn't buy.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Ref: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/fedreg/65fr64555.html
Please note that this determination affirms a federal court ruling (NY) that it is a violation of the DMCA to view a work, even if the viewer has license to access the work, with software other than that which the author of the work allows (even if not stipulated in the license a priori which software is accessible).
As such, please note that the US copyright office has been in continuous violation of the DMCA since its inception by recieving encoded data in the form of e-mails, decrypting them, viewing them, and even reposting them without the consent of the authors. While sending the note to the LOC may constitute license to use the work, without express prior consent of the author as to the methods used to access the work, the federal government has engaged in systematic circumvention of access controls on those works (for example, ASCII text is not readable by humans without an intermediary piece of software to render it in readable form -- the courts have already adjudicated that neither the underlying quality of the access control measure, nor license to use the work are to be considered with regard to whether the user circumvented the access controls).
Further, it has come to my attention that the Library of Congress has in place a system of software programs explicitly designed to circumvent digital encryption measures including e-mail applications, FAX software, WWW browsers, TCP/IP protocol stacks, spreadsheets, word processors, databases, graphics programs, print protocols, data compression and data encryption tools, etc., all of which are capable of accessing, copying, and transmitting digital documents in a manner that may be inconsistent with the author's wishes. I would encourage the Library of Congress to set a good example and stop using any and all software that deals with accessing any form of digital information not produced by a Library of Congress employee until each of the work's authors can be contacted with regards to the terms an conditions of access to the work can be determined.
For future reference, this message may be accessed on any general purpose or embedded device using any UNIX or Linux operating system with the aid of software running under that operating system. Accessing the work with any software other than that stipulated above will be construed as a violation of the access restriction provisions of the DMCA.
The same access limitation applies to all previous correspondence.
I just can't see how DMCA isn't self contradictory.... For many fair use purposes, unhindered access is necessary, so circumventing access control is necessary...
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
A single, simple question:
Could being "no longer in print" or "no longer available" be considered a form of obsolescence?
Is there any way we might convince a judge somewhere that this is true, and that therefore abandoned literary works (e.g. works no longer being made available commercially) should be copyable?
(And can certain provisions of copyright law be considered themselves "access control" mechanisms? [e.g. "if you access this, we'll sue you"?])
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
Unfortunately, it won't. There's too much economics and politics involved.
Personally, I don't want to be anywhere near this planet when the Supreme Court upholds the DMCA. Everyone worries about terrorists with nukes; try to imagine the US civil war being fought in an era with weapons of mass destruction -- nukes, bio weapons, incindiary weapons as powerful as nukes, etc.
"A storm is coming... Our storm." Mu'a'dib -- Dune
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Sadly, I can't figure out exactly what you're fighting for for the life of me.
I can't speak for the OP, but it basically comes down to this:
Big companies are stealing from the public.
No, I'm not being overzealous, that is the basic problem with removing fair use. The deal is that the government, in order to advance the nation, grants people (and companies) an exclusive right to copy something they created. In other words, they are specifically taking a creation out of the public domain, and making it legal for the person who created it to produce copies, but nobody else.
This is a way to ensure that books still get written, music still gets recorded, etc, etc. The artifical monopoly provides one way to "reward" the copyright holder - by being able to sell copies.
This is not intended to give the copyright holder the ability to tell people what they can and cannot do with their copy. What would that achieve? The government has already given that a massive reward for creating something, that should be enough, right? There is no basis for the big companies to stop us from doing what we like with our copies. The copies belong to us. We may be legally obliged to protect the "reward" the government gave them, by not making copies, but that is all.
By restricting fair use, they are taking away more from the public domain than they are entitled to. And that is theft.
I'm afraid you are wrong. You thinking of the current trend in software licencing and trying to extend it to general copyright law.
.-, they are just different symbolic codes for the exact same entitiy, and the exact same IP, but the .- now operates under a different law than the A.
.. -.. .. --- - .. -.-.
If you buy a book you OWN the book. Period. You can access it in any way you want. You can sell it, trade it, lend it to a friend, etc.
You can also quote it, burn it, cut its words out and rearrange them, scribble in it, etc.
And here's the real kicker, you can COPY it in its entirety for you * own use.*
You can do all of this legally specifically because you do NOT license it. You BOUGHT the book.
What you *cannot* do is copy it and the GIVE that copy to someone else because you do not own the work itself, only the book, but you have the absolute right to use that book in ANY manner yourself.
Video and sound operate under exactly the same rules. You may copy, encode, sample, use as a Frisbee (tm), chop up and rearrange your music and videos at will, lend or even rent to a friend, all legally. How do you think video stores operate? Do you think they have a special licence? No, they don't. You can buy tapes at retail and rent them, it is your RIGHT!
This right is legally defined EXPLICITY by acts of Congress.
Now find one or your commercial video tapes, and a commercial DVD. Please note that there in *no licence* notice on EITHER. They both claim the SAME * copyright protection.* Not licence protection. Copyright protection.
In fact, and here's the really ironic part of the whole damn thing, the very fact that you can purchase a video tape with no access or copy controls is being used by the lawyers to * claim the DMCA denies you none of these rights because you can by a video tape instead, for which these rights remain intact!*
Think about that one really, really hard for a minute.
The DMCA makes a subcatagory of IP * storage * as a special protected class. The fact that langague used in the *copy* of a work is coded in ones and zeros, instead of the 26 letters of the alphabet, give it special status. This is no different from saying that books written in German have different copyright laws applicable than books written in English or Spanish.
Think about this one, what if I wrote a book in * Morse Code.* The DMCA would then apply to a * printed work.*
Why should it?
Answer: It shouldn't, but that's what it does.
.- is A. A is
It's
Do not try to read the above word, to do so is in violation of the DMCA. The above is my IP and you must purchase a code key from me. Obtaining a code key elsewhere is in violation of the DMCA. If you "know" the code key we maintain that your brain is an illegal device by the definition excepted by the DMCA and you are now a criminal. Offenders will prosocuted.
Not to mention that "Macrovision" encoding and similar "copy-prevention" schemes prevent copying of even "fair-use sized" snippets of video from even these VHS Tapes, which makes this argument even MORE bogus...
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
But in this case, the DMCA metaphorically prevents you from opening the lock on _your own car_.
If I take a piece of software or a movie home, and I figure out how to encode it differently or break through any of their "protections"-- why should they go after me? I bought the software or the movie, after all.
-Dean
That's the point I was obtusely trying to make. If you own it, it's your right to do whatever the hell you want. But if you use that knowledge to get into some else's car, then you are a criminal. It's a question of letter of the law vs. intent. They (the government) won't prosecute you for fair use. The RIAA or MPAA should only be able to prosecute for creating the tools, not using them. The wording of the bill is "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic ..." with no mention of use. Whatever you do for your own benefit is still protected.
Maybe I've just still got a little more faith in the government relative to business. We may not be able to change the system, but we can put the specific people in charge out of positions in power.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
This is still the part that chafes me most; it completely wipes previously legal fair use copying. This would make even dubbing to a tape illegal.
So you go out and buy your new secure digital music CD player and you can't even legally make a copy to play in your car's tape deck.
Well, by their logic since there are "commercially avaliable alternatives" (e.g. taking your SDMI deck out to your car, buying a $100 inverter to run off your car battery, and wiring it to your stereo system) it is simply a matter of convenience. They dismissed all questions of freedom to use that which you own as being matters of convenience (e.g. Buy a Windows box or a dedicated player you dang long-haired hippie! Just because it's inconvenient (expensive/unstable/unusable/etc) doesn't mean you have a right to use what you just bought!)
however, the trend has been set: hardware devices in the future will be relatively cheap, but there will be an expensive service bound to them.
.sig and no, Microsoft is not a good counterexample) are usually not so willing to part with their money in exchange for pathetic products. I don't see how DMCA is going to affect this.
So what else is new? Hardware keeps on getting cheaper and cheaper, while services rise in cost or stay the same.
Pathetic companies like DC will be allowed to leech money off of their pathetic products and they will be allowed to make a despicably large profit.
You know, there is such a thing as "market". Generally, pathetic companies like DC are not allowed to grab people off the street and empty their wallets. They have to persuade people to make a voluntary exchange: goods or services for money. Now, people (regardless of my
And as to "allowing" people to make profit, I am not so sure what you mean. Do you think that any profit greater than X% (X determined by you) is amoral and should be confiscated by the government -- that is, "not allowed"?
If this isn't grounds for a revolution, then I don't know what is.
Read history and try not to make an idiot out of yourself in public.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Aw, man! And I wanted to "scan" the text for a relevent passage. (Note: said CueCat doesn't exist; it's just an excuse for a pun)
I'm guessing that the Register of Copyright's didn't want to make many exceptions for two reasons.
First, the decision was useless. Given the way the DMCA is written most exemptions would be useless in the real world anyway.
Second, with so few exceptions it is much more likely that the DMCA will go to the Supreme Court soon. Hopefully to be ruled unconstitutional, or at least parts of it.
Maybe my logic or legalese is rusty, but it seems like anyone, be it Ford, Microsoft, Compaq or Sony, can slap a lable and some sort of locking mechanism on any product of theirs I purchase, label it no user serviceable parts inside, and suddenly I have lost my right to change the oil in my own car (authorized for technicians only), fix conflicts in my operating system (oh, wait..). Can't upgrade my RAM without opening that locked out case containing "protected" technology (guess I''ll have to buy a whole new machine for every upgrade), can't even solder a repair to the loose jack on my protable cd player. What can't be locked up under this sort of clause? It seems like this act, intended perhaps to protect ingenuity and creative drive, instead will squelch it. Take it apart, put it back together, it is how we learn, whether it is a engine or an OS.
the whole exercise was pointless? peacefire won a tremendous victory here!
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
I think you are wrong about that. Some distributors may refuse to sell to people other than locksmiths, but lockpicks are not illegal. Some cities and states may have more restrictive laws, and they may be considered "burglary tools" in some places.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I agree. Don't buy DVD's until They stop being so draconian about their use.
The problem is there aren't enough of us (people that are aware of the issue, care about the issue, are willing to do a little something about the issue) to significantly dent the profits of the Big Corporations.
For each person that votes with their feet there will be one hundred, or one thousand, that tromp down to Best Buy to "get one of them thar DVD things that I saw there on the TeeVee. They says it's just goin' down the movies."
I argue that the masses will overwhelm a boycott with their robot like consumerism.
$ finger #timmy
invalid use of finger
Its a shame that some of the more pressing issues werent taken up for by the request for comments. It would appear that the entire thing was rigged from above; merely to serve as a 'But we asked!' for later when political complaint arises.
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
This is still the part that chafes me most; it completely wipes previously legal fair use copying. This would make even dubbing to a tape illegal.
So you go out and buy your new secure digital music CD player and you can't even legally make a copy to play in your car's tape deck.
And of course, this doesn't begin to deal with all the Mac, Linux, etc users who're stranded because some Windows developer doesn't deem their markets worthy of software player ports.
Stupid.
If a law similar to the DMCA was passed 30 years ago, none of these companies would even be in existence.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
In theory. Not in practice, though.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Circumvention is a necessary liberty. Without circumvention for technology we cannot figure out how technology works or make technologies compatible (and don't tell me we're allowed to do that under the law -- look at the DeCSS case). These anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA must be struck down. They only serve to vest power into the hands of large corporations and impede technological progress. Circumvention is a right!!
--
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
IANAL! Sadly, based on prior observation, the legal system would probably consider the following to be irrelevant and pointless.
Interesting question: what basic rights are being violated by this draconian piece of legislation?
1. Freedom of speech. The DCMA makes enforcable those onerous (and more frequently common,) license prohibitions of discussing or reporting of product performance testing.
2. Cruel and unusual punishment. A jail term plus fine for telling my daughter how to watch a region 2 DVD on a region 1 player? DCMA says, 'Yes!'
3. Besides specific rights ennumeriated by the Constitution and its amendments, many other freedoms are generally agreed upon. While each of these is open to specific judicial interpretation in individual cases, we commonly agree that an individual has the right to use their property in whatever manner they see fit, so long as such use does not infringe the law, constitute a danger to others, etc. As a trivial example, a screwdriver is designed to drive screws yet I can also use it as a chisel, can opener, gardening implement, etc. In more relevant terms, if I desire to watch a DVD and I do not own a DVD player but I do own a personal computer using the Linux operating system, I can not do so because the holders of the DVD's copyright have not specifically provided me with a means ('device') capable of doing that. Never mind that I have legally purchased the DVD from an authorized retailer: the argument is (as the DCMA says,) that I can not do this because by defeating their technology I could in theory then copy the DVD. Not only is the DVD copyright holder's insistence on the right to determine how I use their product a violation of commonly held consumer rights, their inherent and specific presumption of my guilt of pirating their product directly contradicts my express freedom of presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.
So there you have it: the big four reasons why I feel this law to be so onerous that I have no choice as a free individual but to protest its enactment by publicly refusing to obey it.
mjs
It has been posted here several times that they all did.... Nobody voted against. I haven't checked, so I don't know if it's true, though.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Rights, User: Passed away October 28, 2000. Murdered by the DMCA.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
"If you outlaw DeCSS, only outlaws will have DeCSS"
"They can have my DeCSS when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."
Ok. Now that we've had a good laugh... You seem to be equating a device which can cause bodily harm and death with one that can result in someone's copyrights violated. Either thats trivializing gun violence or elevating piracy as a major societal issue.
This being said, your post does merit a +5, as the parallels are interesting but allying with the NRA
---
Inanimate Carbon Rod thanks you for your support. See you in 2004!
A basic freedom? Really? This "basic freedom", by which I assume you mean "fair use" provisions was created by US Congress in the late 60s with the passage of the Copyright Act.
No, fair use is implicit in the wording of the copyright clause of the Constitution.
Yes and yes. This system exists ONLY because of my claims above.
This is a pricing system for * new releases * as you note. For the chance of buying earlier they pay a higher price. It's an early adoption price that only needs to be charged BECAUSE of the above statements. It's a kludge on marketing and has nothing to do with licences or copyright except in a lefthanded sense.
The fact remains that you can buy Steve McQueen's LeMans at Buy.com for $7 and rent it to another party for whatever the market will bear with no permission or licence from the copyright owner because you OWN the tape and have the RIGHT to rent it out.
What's more, under the DMCA you retain the same rights to a DVD. Only there person you * rent it too* is effected by the law.
This is, in fact, the key fear of the movie industry, that you can rent a DVD for a buck, and make an exact digital copy of it. They would prefer a law that allows a software like licence of movies, but they can't get one, and they know it. The DMCA is the next best thing.
With the DMCA in place though, software like licences on music and movies are just one bit smaller a step than they used to be. . .
Macrovision still makes my TV roll.
Run the feed through your VCR. Buy your VCR's technical reference/service manual and find the AGC pot. Turn it down. Macrovision fixed.
Most signals coming at your VCR's line in are clipped anyway so the risk involved is minimal. If you're paranoid, bring the control out to the front using shielded cable or do something similar.
IIRC, that's exactly what 2600 and all the other defendants tried to do. In the 2600 case, Judge Kaplan basically ignored everything they said about that, including Jon Johnson's testemony, and swallowed the party line offered by the MPAA hook, line, and sinker. I believe their reasoning was that, as it in theory could be used to make an illegal copy, or a device to do that, it was a prohibited device.
-RickHunter
But he both relies on the notion of intellectual property to prevent the theft of that freedom and respects the rights of others to restrict their intellectual property.
Go read "Why Software Should Not Have Owners" and "Why Software Should Be Free". RMS does not believe in intellectual property. He doesn't think creators deserve any more control over their creations than anyone else. He uses IP laws only when it suits his purposes.
But it isn't. The primary function of the net in that case would be the publication of pornography, which still accounts for more than half the traffic.
Is a gun's primary use murder? Or is that just one very common illegal use.
The primary function of DeCSS is to allow the viewing of DVDs which it achieves by converting them to a format for which there is a player available. It happens that illegal use of this format includes giving it away, but the same's true for tape recorders and wav files of CDs.
The fact is that no one is worried about wav files because they are a stupid way of pirating CDs, but they are worried about MP3 because it is an efficient way to copy them. DeCSS is a stupid way to copy DVDs. But that just means it's one more way to spot stupid people (although being on alt.binaries.movies was a clue to start with).
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Or better yet, I wire the DVD player to the TiVo, and get it record when the ads turn off, and then when I come back from work, watch these movies sans ads? What is the status of that movie clip on that is on the harddisk of the the TiVo. It is stripped of the ads!!
What if I write a player in software to do all that. Waitaminute, that is LinDVD and it is illegal.
Do you even understand the infinite amount of variations that these puny laws fail to cover? That to cover all these bases leads ultimately to a thought-control and fascism? (To the MPAA: Don't even think you are exempt - when the laws come up, you are subject to them too!)
Now compare if this had been written by an average /. story submitter. "Librarian of Congress refuses all DMCA exceptions! Librarian of Congress responsible for the ozone hole! Librarian of Congress actually an evil alien from Galaxatron 6!"
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
do the words "limited Times" mean anything to you? They don't mean anything to Congress either.
--
+&x
...boycotts don't work anymore. See my response to someone else with the same point as you.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I do vote, and further I vote for whichever candidate I think best represents my views, and pollsters' opinions of who can and can not win be damned. The apathy of so much of the rest of the population, though, does make me feel at times that I'm trying to compete in a "three-legged race"[*] and my partner is comatose.
* - for anyone who doesn't already know, the 'three-legged race' is a somewhat silly form of foot race wherein two people each have one of their legs tied together with the other's leg. Winning the race obviously depends then on how well the two can work together coordinating their 'inside' leg...
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Yes, you can - if there's a fire! You just can't falsely shout "fire!" and cause a panic - that might be disorderly conduct, for example.
From the article linked above, emphasis mine:
I was wrong. Justice Holmes was writing for the court in Schenck vs. the United States, when in 1919 he penned the now infamous doctrine: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. ... The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
So the right of free speech is limited only by its impact on public safety. For example, it wouldn't be protected speech to hijack an air traffic control channel and direct planes into mountainsides, but that's the sort of conduct that should be the exception. Certainly the exceptions that the religious right find to be in this category are not, in my view.
Of course, nobody can prevent you from shouting "Theater!" in a crowded fire!
sulli
RTFJ.
History has shown that the Powers That Be are flexible about what speech falls under that protection. For example, I can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Nor can I write an erotic story where a character says, at the end, "That was the best sex I ever had, but I am only 8 years old." Are you sure that all speech is protected?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
Read the treaties (especially you, sdo1). Both are very short and clear in comparison with, say, the Library of Congress ruling.
Read them? Good. Now you know that neither of them says anything about a copyright holder having some right to prevent owners of copies from accessing them however they wish. Neither says anything about source code not being speech. Both allow sweeping fair use exceptions.
Of course, if congress votes to ratify a treaty that doesn't imply that all or many of the congressbeings have read it.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
Then I say we take Emacs, vi, cat, or any other view / edit utility and insert a DeCSS routine to it! I mean it's primary purpose is still text (data) viewing / manipulation, right?
-Dave
That is the fun part! There is a part of the constitution that says that the federal government can't do this. The tenth amendment specifically prohibits the federal government from exercising any powers not delegated to it by the constitution. Federal laws such as the wetlands protection, gun control, federal highways, and the DMCA are all extraordinarily broad readings of the powers of congress.
The United States of America was incredibly well engineered. The problem lies with the slow erosion of the constitution due to "emergency measures" and "temporary tax" situations. The federal government has grown to big for its britches. Somebody needs to beat the federal government with a cluestick. If I remember correctly, the federal tariff on long distance phone calls is supposed to be paying for the Spanish-American war.
So vote Libertarian. I know they are wacky, take things a little too far, but what the hell. If enough people show some interest in a party that wants to do "extreme" things like force the government to run according the charter that we the people granted it, the viable parties will start to take notice. Maybe the media will start taking interest in (small-l) libertarian topics. I can dream.
Besides, I'm not really being taxed on the land, I'm being taxed on the services the county renders to me by virtue of my land being in the county.
The fact that property can be confiscated to pay a debt doesn't mean that it's not property. I tried, but it was impossible when half the text was rendered over the marginal background image and made illegible. What I could make out seemed to be some bizarre anti-Catholic screed about how property taxes are all the fault of whoever was Pope back in 1066.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Since PGP was (and possibly still is) classified under the export laws as a munition, it is clearly an "arm" under the second amendment. That means that any U.S. citizen who has not had his or her civil rights revoked, such as by being convicted of a felony ("the people"), has an incontrovertable constitutional right to use PGP or equivalent enrcyption.
Of course, since the Clinton/Gore administration holds that there is no individual right to bear arms, a Gore win would spell at least four more years of oppression. Not that Bush will be stellarly better, but I'm getting pragmatic in my old age.
Between the first, second, fourth, and tenth amendments, one should be completely secure against this sort of government nonsense. However, the constitution is always interpreted by those currently in power in support of their interests--that is, the people who financed their elections. Don't be deluded into thinking that just because something is constitutionally protected that it will be legal and that you will somehow be protected from your life sucking at the hands of your government if you try to do what's constitutional, but not legal.
I can't seem to locate the ruling, but wasn't the Supreme Court ruling on consumer rights to record/time-shift based on the lawsuit against the GoVideo dual-tape deck inventor? Also, as an owner of a pre-DMCA GoVideo tape deck that *will* let you record Macrovision protected VHS & DVD media, am I now in violation of the law when I duplicate my tapes/DVDs on this device?
LINUX: The Power of Choice
Why do you people insist on equating RMS with the abolition of intellectual property?
We people?
We people insist on it because RMS has repeated stated that he believes that intellectual property, specifically copyright, should not exist.
But he both relies on the notion of intellectual property to prevent the theft of that freedom and respects the rights of others to restrict their intellectual property.
Well, I am not an expert on Stallman, but it is my understanding that his position is that *while copyright exists* he will make use of it to achieve his ends. But he would much more prefer for the copyright not to exist at all.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I seem to remember a relative handfull of people got tired of trying to work within the system when they threw a bunch of tea in the water. Seems it was pretty effective.
I'd recommend infiltrating the Republican party ...
I recommend a complete break from the parties that put us in this position and replace them with representatives of the people who understand their responsibilities AND their limitations.
Our last chance to stop the law is thrown out, cause the respondents specified items too broadly. What about offering them the chance to define their lists of items before just rejecting their comments?
This is a clear demonstration of the utter disrespect to democracy that corporate America has become. The only people to benefit from this are those that want to control America for the sake of their own wallet. Enough is enough.
We've had the online polls, we've had a huge response from REAL people addressing faults in the law, and the law makers have made absolutely no compromise on any of the sections, in fact it's hard to find evidence in the text that they've even made an attempt to understand and address the issues raised.
By actioning this law, the "United States" has inflicted civil war on its very own people in order to persecute the freedom of the very advocates who stand in the definition of the "American Dream" for the benefit of those whos only desire is to rape it of its goodness.
The WIPO should be ashamed of itself.
The copyright holder can just create a new, cheap work protected with the same access control. A device circumventing that control would be illegal under the DMCA.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
denied the right to exercise a basic freedom
Not that I like DMCA, but it's time for a reality check.
A basic freedom? Really? This "basic freedom", by which I assume you mean "fair use" provisions was created by US Congress in the late 60s with the passage of the Copyright Act.
You can argue that intellectual property is nonsense in general and should be abolished wholesale (like RMS is doing), but I don't think that's the argument you are making.
Besides, I don't really understand what is it that you want? Do you want to legally prohibit licensing (as in: "you can only sell software, not license it")? Do you want to put serious restrictions on the freedom of contract?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Just because you paid money for it doesn't mean it's yours under the law -- you can't print up copies of a book you bought for all your friends.
You're right, but you're assuming that he wanted to print up copies for his friends. That's already illegal under pre-DMCA copyright. DMCA isn't required to stop that.
I think that the original poster was alluding to the fact that under DMCA, one loses the ability to do a lot of things that are normally considered "fair-use". I'm allowed to copy my books, videos, CDs, etc., for archival purposes. I'm also allowed to change their format. I'm even allowed to record shows on TV so I can watch them later, or in a different place. As long as I don't broadcast these things, or distribute them, it's fair-use. Copy protection and region coding prevent me from being able to do these things.
It's bad enough that the publishers implement these technologies. It's even worse when they demand legal protection for people who circumvent the technologies, even when those people are doing it for purposes that fall under fair use.
To use an analogy: Imagine your next door neighbor has a problem with people tresspassing on their yard. Your neighbor decides to put up a fence, but their fence actully encloses a significant chunk of your yard in addition to their yard. I bet you'd be pretty annoyed, even if the fence was only 6 inches high. Now imagine your neighbor also went and got a restraining order, saying that you can't touch their fence, or cross over it.
That fence is copy protection. The part of your yard in their fence is fair-use. The restraining order is DMCA.
it goes something like...
"excuse me... pardon me... BLAM... thank you very much, sorry about that."
tagline
... hi bingo
I'm an anti-capitalist organizer, so I'm interested in seeing people cooperate economically. I'm interested in freeing the planet of capitalism, so one of the first steps for some people will be to break free of the mindset that money has to exchange hands everytime you do something creative. There are many of us who do creative stuff, give it away, and don't expect money or bartered goods to exchange hands.
The gift economy.
Nothing will really change until people start breaking the DMCA on a mass scale. Real change takes place outside of the parameters of sanctioend protest. Writing your legislator is a waste of time. Obviously none of them listened to those of you who bothered to write them when this stuff was being ratified, so why do you think they'll bother to listen now?
There is one thing the corporation hate and that's when people refuse to play their game. We saw last year how mad they got when a few anarchists refused to write letters to their congressmen and smashed windows instead. We see how worried the recording industry got once some bright programmers wrote really cool p2p programs that millions of people now use.
Capitalism? No thanks, we'll burn your fucking code.
"2) Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsoleteness."
A couple of questions:
- Does a compiled computer program have a form of access control applied, that is, the actual compilation itself? (For the vast majority of the population this presents a barrier to their accessing the source.)
- If a computer program malfunctions, does the person who has licensed that program become excempt from this law, and have the right to reverse-compile that program in order to fix it (assuming they have the ability, of course)?
The obvious example here is the Windows 2000 bug barring a user from logging on following the installation of 128-bit security - but could this extend to any bug/malfunction? Or are you still bound by the initial license agreement barring reverse-compilation?
The movie is information. It cannot be owned. An exclusive right to the movie can be awarded to the movie's "author" by the federal government for a limited time, but that is not ownership.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Copyright ownership does not protects the owner from fair use. Only if material is not available to the public at all in any form, its author or owner can determine, what can be done with it, as that means that he possesses all copies, but as long as copies are sold, they are owned by whoever bought them, and all limitations to what copyright does and doesn't protect can be applied -- the same mechanism that prevents me to duplicate all my CDs (or DVDs) and sell copies, thus competing with copyright owner prevents copyright owner from determining, how I can quote their work, what devices I can use to view or listen to them, or even from making copies for my own use.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Not really, they are equal in that they are both rights reserved by the citizen. This is the problem with most sheeple. They are willing to give up a few rights here, a little freedom there. Pretty soon, there's nothing left. The question is really "Which rights should we sacrifice?": arms, speech, voting?
The correct answer is: None of the above.
Actually people do make part-by-part reproductions of vehicles all the time. There are several small motorcycle manufacturers that build bikes entirley from aftermarket Harley-Davidson parts - thus making Harleys with no Harley parts. The biggest such manufacturer is Big Dog Motorcycles (http://www.bigdogmotorcycles.com). I haven't heard of any lawsuits against them yet.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
That last paragraph is a gem.
What would happen if a copyright owner, who is not an MPAA member, and instead had their own terms for permission, released a CSS-protected DVD, is subject to speculation. I think it would have some very interesting consequences.
Heh, technically that makes every commercial DVD player and DVD software a "device for bypassing access control", putting the entire DVD industry at jeopardy.
Now, the catch that makes it hard to convince a judge to find that way is that you didn't have to use CSS to encode your DVD, and that doing so is implicitly granting permission to all those existing DVD-player owners to access the content of your DVD. (OTOH, by that same logic, one could argue that anyone producing a CSS-scrambled DVD after DeCSS was made public is similarly granting implicit permission to use DeCSS or similar programs to access their content. Although I think you'd have a hard time finding a judge that would buy that logic, either.)
No, no, no. It ain't ME babe,
It ain't ME you're looking for.
-- Alastair
US law isn't supposed to have any effect on other nations, unless they pass similar laws.
However, the US is known for "persuading" (read: pressuring) other nations into going along with its more totalitarian ideas. Witness Wassenar for an example of that (an attempt, among other things, to bring the US' draconian encryption regulations overseas). WIPO as another.
In other words, while it doesn't affect other nations yet, get ready for a fight, because it's coming.
----------
As an anarchist, a librarian, and a long-time webmaster, I have to say that in a strange way I'm thankful for the DMCA. I couldn't have asked for a more extreme measure that would effectively radicalize thousands of people about the stupidity of intellectual property. If the corporations want to nuke the barn to get rid of a few file-sharing horseflies, let them do it.
There are some options here. You can fight them by making more of their content available for free on the Internet. Napsterize all the copyrighted information you can get your grubby paws on. You can help efforts to crack schemes. Finally, and more importantly, you should support authors, artists, and programmers who do stuff outside of the corporate system. Instead of listening to Metallica, check out some indie heavy metal band. Use freeware instead of pirated Microsoft and other major vendor products.
After all, the corporations make billions off the cultural interest in their products that piracy creates. So do some radical, stop consuming pirated culture and support folks who are doing their own thing free of the capitalist system.
My post is Anti-Copyright 2000
Nope. It permits access under Windows.
"Fails to permit access because of malfunction..." is just that -- lock broken, so NOBODY can get in until the lock is jimmied. If in a decade or so things like Laserlok become obsolete because NO drive manufactured at the time responds the way Laserlok expects, then it could be bypassed.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Look at it in a slightly different way. Copyrights started off as a limited temporary thing, yes. How were they temporary? Well, they started as about, what, 6 or 12 years? (I don't remember exaclty. I'll say 12.)
Look at that as a percentage. In the mid 1700s, when a normal life span was about 45 years, a 12 year copyright was about 20% of the total lifespan of the copyright holder, or, probably, about half of the remaining life of the holder.
Welcome to the age of "corporations are people too!" How long does a corporation live? Well, we've got a bunch that are over 100 years, and some rare few that are over 300 years, and showing no signs of ending any time soon. Could you make a compelling case for a corporation "living" forever? Spend some time, you probably could.
Okay... 20% of infinity is what? Infinity, right? Or if you want a physics-based answer, how about 12 billion years, the universe is supposed to end around then, isn't it? So 20% of 12 billion years is about 2.5 billion years. (As far as I'm concerned, that's still effectively infinity.)
Ahh... we now know where this "temporary" copyright is going. And we have a justification for it, too.
Sound about right?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
What part of "primarily designed or produced for" don't you understand?
Debugging tools have the primary purpose of helping to debug code, by stepping through it and monitoring execution. This use is well-established. And, to my knowledge, very few debuggers if any are marketed primarily as a tool against access control; gdb certainly doesn't qualify.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Look at it this way: what the US law now says (and this is not what the MPAA lawyers say it says...) is that it's okay to do whatever you want to make copies for yourself that you don't distribute (for free or money, makes a bit of difference but not much if it's 10000 copies). What you are not allowed to do is to sell or import or write etc. software which is designed for large scale duplication, where large scale is simply more copies than a single person could use (in the judge's opinion since it's not specified how many is too many).
So DeCSS is okay, because is is a crap way to make distribution copies, they're far too big. But an unlicenced DVD copier would be a no-no as the copies are in fact as good as the original both in quality of picture etc. and in quality of format. It would not exacly take Judge Jefferies to interpret such a machine as being mainly for non-fair use copying, although you could make a case. That's why we have trials, because no law is, or should be, black and white.
As ever, the law as written is not the same as the law as spoken by lawyers.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Let's see, George Bush gets to appoint "pro-business" justices, or Al Gore gets to appoint "pro-government" justices, *ahem* carnivore *ahem*. Hmmm, which would I prefer.
I didn't necessarily mean Gore. We need to consider ALL the options, but be realistic about the odds involved. But in reality your characterization as "pro-government" is probably more correct than the phrase I used.
Thanks.
THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT (DMFRA)- -----
-----------------------------------------------
A BILL
To amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 1998, to repeal restrictions regarding circumvention of copyright protection systems.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. REPEAL OF RESTRICTIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF COPYRIGHT PROTECTION SYSTEMS.
Title I of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 1998, is amended by striking section 1201 under the heading 'CHAPTER 12--COPYRIGHT PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS'.
[END OF DMFRA]
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I believe that Kaplan's reasoning was "If I find in favor of fair use I'm going to squash one of the biggest ever money spinners for the legal profession before it's even started. Oh, and make my life hard too. Why bother, it's just a bunch of hippies - who cares?".
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
First, I think that this provision (and the law it self) is just wrong. But short of massive civil disobedience I don't see how anything will change for at least 3 years.
However on a somewhat of a tangent... could this effectly stop the FBI, private employers and others from using devices like Carnivore to easedrop on private email's, etc. that are encrypted in some form or fashion?
This is great! Since many would consider Windows to be an obsolete technology, DeCSS should be allowable as we have no means of viewing DVDs on non-Windows machines. (No offense to Mac users but I think it's obsolete as well.)
Was anyone else paying attention to the page numbering in the official Copyright Office proclamation? When I see things like ``[[ Page 64574 ]]'' I start thinking very much about how smaller Government might be a very good thing. Any Govt. agency that has the time and resources to issue 64K-page decisions has got way, way too much time on its hands.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
He's not being prosecuted. He was arrested, had his property seized, and was subjected to extensive interrogation, but in the end everything was dropped (because he did nothing wrong). The arrest occurred after the MPAA contacted law enforcement in Norway through their law firm.
You can read Jon Johansen's answer to these and other (DeCSS) questions here. Quote: "The biggest problem has been trying to explain non-tech people that encryption does not prevent copying."
U.S. law, however, can affect people outside the United States both through the political clout of the United States and its corporations and via international treaties signed by other countries and the United States.
Contact a local legal advisor to decide whether you can crack U.S. encryption in Finland. There's no reason you should not be able to, except for over-reaching laws or if you are invading others' privacy by doing so.
--
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Wow, last time I had heard, Linux/*BSD users numbered around 7-9 MILLION. That may be a fraction of the total number of PC owners out there, but let's do a little new math for a moment:
As a whole, most Linux/BSD users are at a higher level of understanding when it comes to computers, networks, the way things works, than your average windows user. Now, let's say that half of them, have a DVD player on their machine, now we're at 4 million users.
Half of those are hardcore zealots like myself who refuse to buy a DVD player or a DVD. Now we're at 2 million users.
2 MILLION users * 20-30$ per DVD = 40-60 million dollars in lost revenue, just as a minimum, not including people like me who love movies and would definitely buy more than one DVD.
The Linux contingent may be a small percentage, but I have yet to see ANY company that would ignore that amount of money in earnings, for any reason. Yet they do, and get away with doing away with consumer choice, fair use, and my right to do whatever the hell I want with something that I have purchased.
Now is the point where I write yet another letter to my congressmen asking them why they would back such a thing as the DMCA, and so CLOSE to election time no less?
Imagine this if you will, those 7-9 million users all voting for the same person who represents their opinions, and not just financial interests. Wouldnt determine a new president, but it would certainly get a LOT of peoples attention.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
So now I could write a virus, put access/copy "controls" on it and then sue McAfee and Symantec when their anti-virus software "circumvents" my code so they can detect and disable it?
Gotta love that forward thinking gummint we got here.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
The same parallels can be made with laws such as Possession of Burglars Tools (FL S810.06) or Drug Paraphernalia(FL S893.15). Both these laws require the state to prove what the item was intended to be used for - I can't arrest you for walking down the street with a crowbar in your bag but if its 3AM and your standing in the shadows at the back door to the local pawn shop I'm pretty close to getting out my chrome bracelets (better have a good story to tell me on this one).
The people who write our laws are mostly lawyers by trade and so they understand conventional issues like the example I gave above, but they arn't for the most part technicaly savy so they get advice from their friends (read lobby) who are mostly big buisess types that keep the re-election fund growing so they see that making posession of a crowbar a crime would be bad and probably not survive the courts the same is not true in the technology field.
~
Yes, but they left in sub-section C of 1201, which specifically says that the right to fair use overrides the ban on circumvention.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Actually, circumventing the copy-control aspect of CSS is quite easy. It's called dd (or rawrite, or DiskCopy, or whatever the appropriate equivalent for your OS of choice is). Note that this saves the stream in its original, unencrypted state, so you have not altered the stream.
As for circumventing access controls, DeCSS doesn't do that either. It uses a key that has been defined as valid by the MPAA. Since encryption is designed to allow people through it if they have a valid key, it is clearly not circumvention, which disables the control. Therefore, you're in the clear (IANAL, of course).
What you could not do is decrypt the stream and then save it. However, if you copied the encrypted stream, and then played it using a player designed to play encrypted streams (which we've already determined is not circumventing the access control), then you should still be good.
Anyone see any holes in that?
----------
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
OK, so first thing we do is make sure our submission is specific.
Even where specific classes of works were singled out by the commenters, unless they submitted a great deal of evidence, they weren't deemed to have met the burden necessary of proving that they were being harmed by the prohibition on circumvention of access controls.
OK, so next thing we do is make sure we provide a massive amount of evidence to back up our specific submission.
In particular, the Register of Copyrights noted that "individual cases" would not be sufficient to meet the burden of showing harm.
Erp! Um, so lemme get this straight: We have to provide specific submissions, not general ones, but if we provide 'individual cases' we get looked down upon?
And no exemptions were granted where there was a large company opposing the exemptions.
Oh well, screw it then. The fix was in from the beginning...
________________
________________
Private Essayist
Compilations consisting of lists of websites blocked by filtering software applications
Hold up...does this mean CPHack is legal in the US? A big middle finger in red neon fifty feet high burning in the face of Mattel?
Or are we still not that lucky?
-------------
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Failure to permit, not failure to prevent. Locks that can no longer be opened "legitimately"... this provision is most likely to allow libraries, databases and other archives (that is, anybody that would store documents for the long term) to break such control in the years to come if the only alternative is complete lack of access.
Got an unsupported file format that nobody even writes filters for anymore? Or a dongle-driven program, only the dongle is lost and nobody's manufactured it for years? Or anything like this?
It's a real concern -- with software and hardware changing so rapidly, things break, which theoretically means that libraries and so forth will have difficulties in the years to come making sure that what can be accessed today, will be accessible ten, twenty or fifty-plus years from now.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Metallica always, even to this day, has allowed and encouraged bootlegs of live material.
They have *never* encouraged bootlegs of master tapes. This is similar to the policy the Grateful Dead had.
Metallica isn't concerned with their profits, as Lars has repeatedly said. They're concerned that their works are now effectively out of their span of control -- that any one can distribute works in progress like "I Disappear" and master tapes, and they have no say in the process. It's cutting the artist out of the way they may want their works distriubted. That's not about profits -- it's about influence, control, and power.
They're whining about the piracy of their own works because they have the right to control their work -- and the majority of Americans WANT them to have that right.
The Napster supporters, in their narcissistic zeal, want the power to control all intellectual works. The artists don't generally agree with that.
I think that widespread digital distribution of music is inevitable, but I also think that Napster isn't the appropriate way to do that until artists can retain their control and fair share of the profits.
-Stu
MSK
If creating a device to circumvent copyright controls is illegal according to the DMCA when I assume a device is characterized as a program as well as a hardware device. If someone wrote a program that once executed would produce and compile the source code for a circumvention device would that be legal? Basically it's a device that CREATES a device to circumvent copy controls.
Do you think that any profit greater than X% (X determined by you) is amoral and should be confiscated by the government -- that is, "not allowed"?
Only if that profit was gained by curtailing my rights as a citizen. *EXACTLY* like they are in this situation.
Personally I think it's funny that you declare an exception to your own law when it would invalidate your own comments. It was a nice catch, but just because you catch yourself falling, doesn't mean you haven't just tripped.
There is such a thing as a "market", there is also such a thing as "community". These are two different entities, often in conflict. I think it is quite obvious which path the U.S. Congress has taken in this conflict. Personally, I look at the culture this has left us with and am sickened. Maybe we should veer the other direction for a little while. You might like it. Variety is the spice, baby.
--
+&x
Not being able to print up copies of a book is a red herring. DMCA anti-circumvention isn't about copying. Selling a book written in Esperanto, with a provision that you have to pay the publishing company's translators to read it to you (and if you can read Esperanto, you're not allowed to read it either), and having that provision be enforcable is a better analogy--and such a provision would be an insane abrogation of your property rights in the purchased book. (I'm talking about being able to read the book, not publish your own English-language translation)
You are confused. Software, for example, that you bought is not your property. Maybe you want it to be your property, but it's not -- it's somebody else's and that somebody else is allowing you to use it (use, but not own) subject to a number of restrictions. Again, maybe you want to change this, but this is quite outside the scope of DMCA.
Says who? Only the people who sell software. They want this to be the case, but that doesn't mean much.
Currently, UCITA and other bribery aside, you own software just like you own a book. You own the physical work and all rights pertaining to the use of the data printed on it, where those rights don't conflict with copyright. (You can copy it temporarily (overhead projector, etc) for purposes or reading it, burn it, underline/highlight it, and nearly anything else.)
They (the publisher) can't revoke those rights under any circumstances... you paid for it, they sold it, it's yours.
So why do you think software is different? Because of some license you didn't see until after you bought it? Hah. That's the equivalent of me putting a contract in a box of food you buy which states that by your opening of the box, you agree to the terms of the contract. It's completely, and obviously, void.
Yet, you do this with a box of software and people suddenly think it means something? Not bloody likely.
Unless your state (are you in the USA?) government was bribed to pass the UCITA. (And yes, it is bribery which would be criminal in most other countries.) But if it hasn't, who the hell cares what a software company claims? Like anyone else, they'll ask for everything they think they could get, and then a little more just in case. If you give it to them it's your own dumb fault.
How long is it going to be before some smart soul from Disney or TW/AOL figures
out a browser plugin plus thin encryption equals a page you can only look at.
No fair use quoting, no deep linking, no framing, no nothing. If they get greedy, you can't even print the page.
Plus, it'll only be avail for Windoze.
A basic freedom? Really? This "basic freedom", by which I assume you mean "fair use" provisions was created by US Congress in the late 60s with the passage of the Copyright Act.
Yes, actually, fair use is a First Amendment freedom. You have the facts wrong about the 60's. Congress first "restated" the principle of fair use in 1976. They added to the Copyright Act, essentially unchanged, a "judge-made" doctrine enunciated in 1841, but with roots going back to the British Statute of Anne which predates the US Constitution.
Copyright has a special place in the Constitution in that it temporarily protects original "writings" Copyright is inherently a form of speech regulation, so any deviation from the Constitutional purpose should hit the sharp razor of the First Amendment. It is only because of fair use and a narrow focus of protection provided by Copyright to the exact expression rather than the underlying facts and ideas that saves the Copyright Act from the First Amendment Axe.
The Supreme Court spoke rather definitively on the subject of fair use in the case Harper & Row v Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) .
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof...
I imagine, then, that this will be interpreted as covering even hyperlinks to DeCSS. It's always rather funny to see this kind of blanket phrase included in legislation - all it does is give anyone with money a licence to interpret the law as they like.
What a nightmare.
Lucky the DMCA doesn't cover British citizens (yet).
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
I am against the increasing restrictions on fair use.
To expand on the metaphor I gave:
Congress no more created "fair use" than they created "equality". They merely passed legislation that codified the fundamentals (or the ideals, at least) of our society.
Reverse-engineering is one of the oldest human traits. Since the day that Oog copied Urg's "fire" idea, it has been accepted that it is in the best interest of competition, and society in general, for people to figure out how things work - whether those things are natural phenomena or war devices created by a competing clan. All a company now has to do to prevent its products from being examined is to put a trivial copy-protection scheme on it. This currently applies mainly to software, but what happens when a judge rules that some company has the right to protect their new motherboard layout with some "Don't break this seal!" stickers? Voila. The right to property is effectively nullified.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I have already seen one commercial for a movie that will be released "only on DVD"....
Blogging because I can...
Plain and simple.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Um, if it effectively controlled access wouldn't this law be *unnecessary*? It's like putting some gum on a chest to "lock" it in place, then when somebody "circumvents" your access control device, running to the government and saying "hey, they're not allowed to circumvent my anti-circumvention device - make a law!". I mean, why don't they just make a law that says nobody can circumvent anything they don't want them to, and just do away with the tedious practice of actually designing and implementing controls?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Some days I wonder what I'm smoking. Obviously RMS is opposed to artificial restrictions on sharing of information, like ridiculous copyright laws. Please forgive me.
I do not have a signature
I think we should ask a rabbi... Weren't the Israelites the children of the cirumvention?
In short, let's do to the MPAA what Napster did to the RIAA!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Not selectively enforced? Tell that to the officers that stop me and don't give me tickets. BTW, if you guys are out there: Thanks for not making my insurance any higher than the $550/6 months I already pay.
The insurance industry is a bigger racket than the movie industry ever thought about being.
-Nathan
Care about freedom?
Care about freedom?
Become a card carrying member of the GOA.
The main protest against this will have to come from the public and purchasers. Where libraries have an option to buy a DVD thesaurus from vendors it is up to them to purchase one that is not encrypted / region encoded and demand one that is not.
If people continue to purchase these restrictive products they provide funds to the wrong side.
Sure you may have to adjust your musical / Film tastes, if it is Boyzone you like then write to them tell them why you will not buy another CD/DVD and download Courtney Love and listen to her instead and pay her direct. I know the two are not so well musically aligned but the point is we have choice and we must exercise it correctly.
Not any more! :)
(The copyright owner) shall have the right -
(A) to prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation, and any intentional distortion, mutilation, or modification of that work is a violation of that right, and
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
If I use Zapcryption(c) to protect all the new movies I release it is illegal to make something to circumvent that. Using Zapcryption(c) I release all my old movies, where copyright has expired-- presto! infinite copyright. This is the same theory as the Terminator gene. Even after a patent expires, companies will be able to control who grows a seed. Well, they will also need a law making it illegal to bypass the terminator gene.
Where do you come up with this?
Now, the actual design documents are copyrighted, so if I copied said documents in order to make the duplicate components, that would be copyright infringement.
Some of the components I need to make might be obscured by trade secrets, so I'd have to figure them out without obtaining the trade secrets illegally.
Other components could be covered by patents, so it would be illegal to sell them until the patent expired.
And trademark law would prevent me from marketing my hand-built sports car as, say, a "Corvette", even if it was identical to the Chevrolet sports car. (see Carroll Shelby's trademark lawsuit against Factory Five Racing)
But as long as I stay within these strictures, I don't see anything that would make it illegal for me to make a component-level duplicate of my car. Could you enlighten me?
This almost makes me want to cry.
It's one thing to know that in the time between the foundation of this country and the time of your birth, freedom was sold off, in the form of preferential laws, to corporations and other governments
It's an entirely different matter to not only see those laws passed in your lifetime, but to see them continually reaffirmed by the only people who have any real power to change them. It makes me very, very sad to see that any sense of fairness and balance in our legislative process has gone out the window in favour of corporate favoritism.
--
Wouldn't a bit-copy DVD copier be legal, since it wouldn't be bypassing any access control restrictions?
Depending on the type of gun and location, owning it can be very illegal -- some cities ban handguns (D.C. comes to mind), some ban long guns (NYC, for instance), certain guns are ALWAYS considered worse than others (automatic weapons, 'natch, plus depends on clip size, et cetera) and ISTR that a Federal law banning firearms possession within a certain radius of a school passed, although it wouldn't surprise me if that had been struck down.
The NRA isn't as strong as you seem to think -- they've had their share of losses. But they do, at least, have a lot of experience trying to press the view that the focus should be on punishing misuse, rather than possession.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Why do you people insist on equating RMS with the abolition of intellectual property? Instead you should equate the abolition of intellectual property with warez traders and "pirates", these people not only refuse to recognize the intellectual property rights of others, but go out of their way to infringe those rights. Mr. Stallman takes a hardline position that freedom is important. But he both relies on the notion of intellectual property to prevent the theft of that freedom and respects the rights of others to restrict their intellectual property. Perhaps he has stated that he has no sympathy for those who have their intellectual property infringed upon because they are predatory, but why would he go to extraordinary lengths to create freedom-minded solutions when creating unauthorized copies has always been a much easier approach?
I do not have a signature
History buffs will immediately recognize the similarity between this and Prohibition (i.e. of alcohol in the 20s), wherein it was legal to drink the stuff, it just wasn't legal to buy or brew it.
Thus came the "speakeasy", or a house/club where persons unknown (i.e. Capone and company) supplied the house and its patrons with booze. The patrons, as members of the club, found themselves "magically" in posession of the booze, and proceeded to consume it.
Further deponent sayeth not, other than that Capone went down for tax evasion, not the booze racket.
I'd hate to see DMCA-protected hardware in the future; however, the trend has been set: hardware devices in the future will be relatively cheap, but there will be an expensive service bound to them. They will be easy to hack, but doing so means violating the DMCA and facing the full brunt of the U.S. legal system. In other words, technological Darwinism as we know it will end. Pathetic companies like DC will be allowed to leech money off of their pathetic products and they will be allowed to make a despicably large profit. If this isn't grounds for a revolution, then I don't know what is.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Well, we still have speed limits. They aren't "selectively enforced", they are "randomly enforced." If everyone is speeding, then the cop can pull over any car he can catch :-)
There are a lot of illegal drugs in this country. They've always been illegal. It's bigger business than tobacco yet it's still illegal and looks like it will stay that way.
You fail to realize the DMCA exists because of industry. Hell, it was "written" by the MPAA's Valenti.
Is there a web site somewhere that has a simple user interface where I could enter my zip code and find out the relative positions of the congressional candidates in my distriction on DMCA, patents, and other issues that competent technologists care about?
If not, perhaps someone on this forum who has more spare time than I do could create such a site. That might actually effect this election a little bit and, more significantly, send a message about what new issues politicians need to think about for the next election.
To me, the following exemption is the most interesting part of the Library's recommendation:
Obsoleteness! Isn't an access control method "obsolete" once knowledge of a circumvention method is available to the public? It seems that if this exemption (which I consequently strongly favor) becomes part of the law, then only the first person to reverse-engineer the access control method (or disseminate documentation about said deconstruction) is actually infringing. Or am I misinterpreting?
When the work's Copyright expires, it'll no longer be protected by the DMCA. At that time, feel free to create a device to circumvent its access control.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I presume that there is a record of who voted for this supremely FSCKed up law to begin with?
I read here on /. that it was a voice-vote (i.e., not written down).
Can anybody give me a pointer?
Nah. I read it on slashdot. It must be true. And don't ask me to prove I read it here, because I just hit the "Preview" button and read this post, so I must've read it here. My browser told me so. :-)
Very good. A right without a remedy or means to exercise it is no right at all.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Um, Thats part of the DMCA. In case you didn't know, the DMCA is LAW now, not some possibility. And yes, it sucks.
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Is it the "Copyright" or the "Performance Right" owner whose permission is required to watch a video, listen to a CD or cassette which you have purchased? The copyright owner, obviously, has the rights to control copying, but what rights (and from where do these come) does a "copyright" owner have to stipulate other conditions of usage of the copy which you have purchased?
What is the relevance, and impact of this act of US congress on the rest of the world? Is it (even in the remotest possibility) enforcible in countries such as Australia, England, or even, Canada?
Pls provide information if possible.
Thanks in advance.
Of the two exemptions the Library did grant, one is laughably narrow: 'Compilations Consisting of Lists of Websites Blocked by Filtering
Software Applications'. So you're allowed to reproduce lists of blocked websites, but not lists of blocked email addresses, lists of banned words, or even compilations consisting of lists of websites plus a copyright notice. And you have to know the compilation doesn't contain anything apart from lists of websites before you're allowed to decrypt it.
The other is laughably broad: 'Literary Works, Including Computer Programs and Databases, Protected by Access Control Mechanisms That Fail to Permit Access Because of Malfunction, Damage or Obsoleteness'. Compiled programs are not a literary work, and this is basically a kludge to circumvent the DMCA. To its credit, the Library does admit that it's abusing the law, and points out how ill-conceived the DMCA is.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
I don't know about other states, but in VA, possession of tools of burglary are considered prima facie evidence of intent. That pretty much shifts the burdon of proof onto the accused.
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Reread what the Librarian of Congredd added. He put in a rather interesting clause: the law does not affect fair use.
IANAL, but the sort of language used here does not redefine fair use. Rather, it states that fair use is an exception to any of the restrictions.
In other words, we have a very interesting legal play. If you're caught pirating, you can now be smacked around for piracy and for DMCA violation. However, if you actually are keeping it completely legit (having only MP3's of things you've bought, likewise with ROM's and DVD rips) the law can't touch you. The reason: circumvention devices are necessary to exercise fair use, and this fun little clause states that fair use overrules the DMCA.
Translation: you've got to be very careful, now, to make sure all the copyrighted stuff on your machine is legitimate, because there are now criminal as well as civil penalties. However, if it is, then nothing has changed.
IANAL, like I said, but does anyone see any holes here?
----------
My pooint is that, it seems alot of people think that this law is bunk. Therefore, dont follow it. Host deCSS, write the next "deCSS", store works you feel need to be stored so that future people may enjoy or need them, regardess of wether or not they are copyrighted and DCMA protected. Dont like the law? dont follow it.
DVD-CSS fails to prevent access because of obsoleteness. I would, however, think that the faild DIVX system would count as something that fails to permit access due to obsoleteness.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Malfuctioning indeed. You do know, though, that your computer would stop malfunctioning if you put a NT on it, instead of a Unix-derivative?
...it was nice while it lasted.
Seriously, folks. Is anyone really surprised by this? Did anyone actually truely believe that the library of congress would come riding out like some kind of fairy tale prince on a white horse, and save us from the evil DMCA just because we pleaded? I'll admidt that the fact that they ignored EVERYONE was a little more shocking, but either way, I would have been surprised if they'd granted any exemptions that weren't effectivly meaningless. I think that if we need a savior of the DMCA, our only (increasingly dubious) protection at this point is the court system. We just have to hope that it's not composed ENTIRELY of loser-MPAA-patsy-Kaplan-alikes.
Okay, there, I said it. This is one that's really *out* there in terms of reality, but I wanted to hit it before any one else did. *grin*
... Fine. I'm not saying that every company has to be pro-Linux, and it's fine if a company remains pro-Windows, but what I'm saying is that *I* (as the consumer) shouldn't have to suffer because of a company's unmoving support. (Note that I finally did buy a videocam, 3Com's HomeConnect. While I don't see any drivers for Linux, I blataintly refused to go with Logitech given their whole attitude regarding Linux.)
Microsoft paid the MPAA and RIAA for their cooperation in getting the DCMA passed so it would effectively hurt Linux and all attempts to improve on the technology behind Linux and did so under terms of anonymity so as to prevent an uprising of the Linux community.
Now, seriously... While companies are jumping on the band wagon, there are still those that refuse to do so remaining in favour of Windows. Logitech is an example. Back in January or so, I started shopping around for a videocam and was seriously looking at Logitech -- simply because I knew that name and the QuickCam2 product. Being that I couldn't find drivers for Linux (or any mention of Linux on their website), I E-Mailed their technical support people. The response I got was along the lines of: "not only do we not support Linux, we never will." My reply was equally as harsh: "I think I will go with another company that is a little more progressive and a little more friendly." I received only silence at that one, but
From what I've seen and read here on Slashdot, reverse engineering seems to especially important to Linux and its continued development. (Specifically in terms of device drivers.) No, I don't think reverse engineering is a right, but I do think it's necessary. Right now, though, I think the DCMA is more of an "We don't understand all this, we're afraid, so we are dealing with it like this" block. How many politicians these days actually understand the term "reverse engineering?" Until my generation grows up and is able to actually move into Congress, technology will always be feared because "normal" (reread: non-geek) people as a whole don't understand technology. It's hard for geeks to understand non-geeks and vice versa. As geeks, technology is our life. As non-geeks, technology is some sort of ethereal construct somewhere out there.
I still honestly believe that if not wholly stricken by the Supreme Court, the DCMA will be so ravaged by the Supreme Court that little will remain enforceable. The DCMA sounds more like a law to govern licensing (as compared with owning) of the products I buy. Licensing is a relatively new concept, and not one that should be applied to consumers. The one reason why I never liked DIVX is because I was basically told, "You aren't buying a copy of this to own; you must lease this move and pay for it over and over and over and over until the end of time every time you want to see it." Ummmm. *ahem* Bullshiyit. As a consumer, my intent is not to license but to purchase and buy something. And I think the Supreme Court -- given its typically pro-technology responses in the past -- would also see this.
You know... I do have this lovely Microsoft Sidewinder USB Joystick that I bought. And since I *think* I own it, I'm going to sit down, reverse engineer it, and write a Linux device driver for it. I'll see y'all on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Seth Anderson BTW, I'm not 23 anymore -- I am TexasCowboy26 now. =)
I wonder how many other comments got dropped like that. They should at least have some sort of error handling mechanism to send you an e-mail telling you your comments did not go through.
Free Hans!
Torn apart by the Supreme Court? No, not if George W. Bush gets to appoint 3-4 "pro-business" leaning justices instead of someone else getting the chance to appoint "pro-freedom" leaning justices.
It is now 8 days before election day. Do we risk a Bush presidency or take the lesser of two evils? A very, very difficult choice if you ask me.
Everything boils down to politics and political power. Even the Supreme Court, in the long run.
...and I would not sit in the back of the bus, or use "separate but equal" facilities, or submit to the other recent denials of civil rights.
Yes, I am equating this with the civil rights marches of the '50s and '60s. Why? Because the same principle is at stake: a small segment of the population is being denied the right to exercise a basic freedom, and the rest of the society must necessarily be lesser because of it.
This is serious, people! You can either follow the herd mentality and be a good sheep, or you can stand up for what is right and decent. It's your choice.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
don't worry, clinton will veto any of the really bad crazy stuff that congress tries to do, like funding the government
Well, the place to start "fixing" the DMCA is in Congress. Once repealed, the DMCA is no more, and since there's nothing in it worth saving at all, this would be preferable to having the Supreme Court merely throw out 90% of it.
Hey, yeah, and Boeing is willfully distributing these access control devices (what's more, they're even doing it for a profit)! LAWSUIT!
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
There is a part of the constitution that says that the federal government can't do this.
Most of these laws (including the DMCA, if you read the legislative history carefully) are justified by an extremely expansive reading of the commerce clause. This is the root cause of all of these problems.
It used to be, until FDR pressured the Supreme Court during the height of the Great Depression with the "Court Packing" plan, that the right to "liberty" recognized by the 5th amendment actually acted to protect individuals from overreaching acts of Congress. In the late 30's the Supreme Court overturned these precedents and ended "substantive due process". The effect was that the level of scrutiny given to commerce clause based laws was sharply reduced. Congress has filled itself with the people most able to extort campaign contributions in return for regulatory favors.
The (somewhat) good news is that the pendelum has finally started to swing the other way. The Supreme Court has started to tell Congress that it cannot use the commerce clause to do whatever it wants. It started with US v Lopez where Rehnquist wrote a 5-4 decision striking down a Federal Gun-Free Schools law. They have followed with two other similar decisions, including striking down the Federal Violence Against Women Act, saying that the commerce clause could not be used to justify usurping police powers from the States. So far, though, they have only turned back criminal Federal statutes that States traditionally regulate.
Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in US v Lopez, where he stated that he believed the Supreme Court had, over the years, strayed badly from the original intent of the Commerce Clause.
Well Said!!!! Mod this guy up!!!
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
I have to agree with the comments so far; the ability to forbid someone to circumvent protective measures on a piece of tangible property that you own seems futile.
Hackers will always be collectively smarter than any corporation or law enforcement body... and there is not a law or rule in the book that can prevent this.
Ahem...make that "access control circumvention devices...
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
> If you "know" the code key we maintain that your brain is an illegal device by the definition excepted by the DMCA and you are now a criminal. Offenders will prosocuted.
Please report immediately to the Ministry of Truth to surrender your illegal device. Any further use of this illegal device is punishable by death.
The Computer is your friend!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
But the *design* of that car is owned by the manufacturer. You can't make a part-by-part reconstruction of your car by making the parts yourself, unless you have permission from the manufacturer.
You can, you just can't sell it to anybody.
$ finger #timmy
invalid use of finger
see Mercury Rising - brain can be used as a device to decrypt encrypted information and as such also falls under DMCA rulling. If you can decrypt encrypted messages in your head, it does not mean you did not build a device, it is actually your parents and the environment you live in that are responsible for creating the device (your brain) and will be sued under DMCA
You can't handle the truth.
This is, in fact, the key fear of the movie industry, that you can rent a DVD for a buck, and make an exact digital copy of it.
Though such copying is already covered by standard copyright law
They would prefer a law that allows a software like licence of movies, but they can't get one, and they know it. The DMCA is the next best thing.
It also gives software licences some legal basis. Effectivly what was a strange legal anomaly (the software licence) is slowly being extended into other areas, such as DVDs even hardware...
I wonder when book publishing companies get the "Tree Millenium Copyright Act" passed.
Would then need to, can't they use case law arguments to have their products considered "Digital".
If anyone is actually interested in making a difference, instead of just whining about it, I'd recommend they join the Republican or Democratic party and make your voice heard within the party. Personally, I figure the Democrats are basically for more and bigger government, so I'd recommend infiltrating the Republican party if you want any chance of success.
Except in order for this kind of infiltration to have the slightest chance it would need to be by an organisation at leastas well organised as the political party bein infiltrated.
Just do what people did before Hackers were everywhere; if the product doesn't do you good, don't use it
Except that it wasn't so long ago that "hackets" were everywhere. The idea of an off the shelf product being suitable for immediate use is a very modern one.
The key phrase here is "prejudicial to his or her honor."
If one is doing such for one's own use, and not distributing it, it cannot, by legal definition, be prejudicial.
Making a compilation tape from music or video sources, such as a party dance CD is also not prejudicial.
If it is mutilated, distorted or modified beyond recognition as the work of the author it also cannot be prejudicial.
The difference is that under the DMCA it can be held that you can't take Come Together from Abbey Road and put it onto your own mixed song CD.
Iremember in the Pilot for Max Headroom, while investigating someone who had died from the Blip-vert trials, Edison Carter noticed the dead guy had added an extremely illegal modification to his television... an 'off' switch.
For some reason this popped into my mind recently and it has been shouting out more and more in disturbing tones, especially when I see some of the idiocy that Congress and the media giants pull.
But which of then is going to decide to call themselves "Omni Consumer Products"...
The DMCA came about to bring us into compliance with two global treaties as part of the World Intellectual Property Organzation. (WIPO... the same body that's giving legitimate domain names back to the companies with the biggest checkbooks).But who has influence and standing with the WIPO? Which governments have an effective veto on WIP0 treaties?
(a)3(A) defines an access control as one which requires the copyright owner's permission to access (as opposed to copy) the work. For most works, could it not be argued that the copyright owner's permission is not required to access the work, therefore measures to circumvent such access are not covered by the provisions of the DMCA?
Taking the example of CDs and DVDs, you have a licence from the recording company which restricts your rights to play (access) the work which include a prohibition on public performance etc. The question is, when granting this licence are the recording companies doing so as the "copyright owner" in in some other capacity. That they may happen to be the copyright owner should be immaterial unless the action if taken "as the copyright owner".
Ideally, you're being assessed a user fee for the privilege of excluding others from the land.
If any studio started using the "access control" feature more often, I simply wouldn't buy any of their DVDs. If all the studios start using it, of course, that's a different problem...
No, it's not. If some studio X adds this "feature", don't buy their DVDs. If they all do it, don't buy any of their DVDs.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I know the inability to fast forward through commercials would piss me off if I owned a DVD player. Can you chain it though a Tivo and get around it that way? Or is that circumvention?
I have been told (by the parent of a three year old) that the Tigger Movie DVD has 12 minutes of trailers and commercials at the beginning. This is similar to various Disney videos we own. I have dismantled the cassette and removed the offending sections of these tapes. The unfortunate 3 year old with the DVD has no such recourse.
--
--
E_NOSIG
we will now have large number of lawful people join in the creation of a "hidden" subculture.
Remember hacking in the old days? you were quiet. No wannabees screaming I am HaXor BoW To Me 4 I am L33t! Those were who we banned and shunned. we were silent, and subversive.
Time to return to the dark. Collect our information and knowlege, and archive it for future use. The Government and society hate us again.
Me, I will circumvent and reverse engineer.. because it's fun.
Come brothers, start your archive of knowlege as the time of darkness is coming... Brought to you by the morons running this country.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And what if, in 70 years time (minimum), the DVD doesn't work any more? I suppose I could make copies of them as the old ones deteriorate onto new blank media, which I expect will be available by then, but that's on shaky ground as well.
I seem to notice a trend going on, where our (US) government drafts and pushes treaties that violate everything America stands for and threaten the country's prosperity, so that they can blame the rest of the world for the laws we then "have" to pass to honor these treaties.
This is a bigger problem than merely the DMCA, as we also have the CyberCrimes treaty, which seems to outlaw nMap and Perl, and anything else you might be able to sniff a packet with.
This alas, is surely just the beginning.
An exception is granted to literary works in the form of computer programs that deny access because of damage. This seems to nullify the DMCA in the case that Windows corrupts the DLL or the program itself that is needed to play that DVD containing Mel Gibson's portayal of Hamlet. If Hamlet won't play because Windows hosed your software, here's your license to circumvent the player software's access controls in order to protect your investment.
Judge: "You are charged with violating the DMCA. What say you?"
Defendent: "Windows crashed and..."
Judge (interrupting): "Ah...understood. Case dismissed!"
How do you think video stores operate? Do you think they have a special licence? No, they don't. You can buy tapes at retail and rent them, it is your RIGHT!
Yes and no. They don't have a special license, but there is a special deal worked out (at least with Blockbuster). Blockbuster and similar retailers buy videos during a first release just for them. The tapes typically go for about 60-80$ each (to make up for what the studio perceives it is going to loose and priced so that your typical viewer won't want to buy one before the 'General Availability' release). Blockbuster has arranged with most studios to get a special discount (which they use to bludgeon the small 'ma and pa' rental places out of business.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
In my vision illegalising something in general will make it more profitable, thusly the activity in the illegal scene will go up, thusly the problem will not be stopped.
No, it will not be stopped it will continue to grow. Here in the netherlands we have a quite liberal approach to Cannabis, now one might say, why does this apply. Well the illegal scene around Canabis in the US is way bigger then the same scene in the Netherlands merely because it is illegal in one country and illegal in the other.
Here is my point, what one creates is illegal activity, and for what ? For music artists that makes millions and millions of dollars each year, for software companies that makes Bill-ions (read Microsoft). The market that is taken away because of "illegal copies" is not as big as they claim, if it were that big they would not be making enough money to sustain themselves and would die out.
True, it is a shame that it had to come to this, but did these same persons that now cry wolf not instigate this themselves by selling their product at high prices while still making millions per single and billions per new release of software, and I think it is here the real problem lies.
When the music and software industry would lessen the prices of their products, the copying would become less and less common and in the end all one would do with the cd-burners what they were meant for, spare copies
-= Free your mind and your Ass will follow,
-= Free your mind and your Ass will follow,
Bono(U2), MTV Video Music Awards=-
The region coding also seems to result in inconvenience rather than actual or likely harm, because there are numerous options available to individuals seeking access to this foreign content (PAL converters to view foreign videotapes, limited reset of region code option on DVD players, or purchase of players set to different codes).
Uh... I thought that the MPAA would not license to a company that made a player supporting more than one region and that they had to also agree to only sell players in their "proper" regions. Furthermore, some material is only avaliable on DVD... not on crappy VHS tapes put through a Macrovision filter then through a PAL converter.... the whole idea of using a DVD is for better quality.
It looks like they were trying _very_ hard to find reasons why this doesn't impact consumers.... and the MPAA gave them some bogus information for them to parrot. Anyone who owns a playstation KNOWS that this does impact consumers. Mod chips are very popular, and now they are illegal.This is exactly what they want, and no, it's not futile. This law is tantamount to saying, "Everything is illegal, and we're just going to selectively prosecute those violators who we don't like." The DMCA effectively makes it very easy for anyone with money (i.e. content publishers) to lock up anyone they see as a threat to their interests.
Regards,
Ok, what does "primary function" mean? If a device's primary function is that function for which it is most often used, then the primary function of DeCSS is obviously duplication for distribution. (And if you dispute that, you obviously haven't looked in the alt.binaries.movies usenet hierarchy lately. Check out those DVD rips! =)
Nowhere in that document did I see anything that stated that malfunction or damage couldn't be intentional.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
The DMCA was written by a democratic congressman, and signed into law by a democratic president. The Democrats aren't the saints fighting against abuses of business like they would have much of the population think, simply only when it suits their power base (unions, etc). Don't forget that.
They differ in many other ways, but when it comes to passing laws favoring corporate interests over individual liberty, Bush and Gore are not far apart.
Correct.
Obviously, we'll just have to stop making brains, if we want to keep being good little consumers/citizens... On second thought, looking around at the general public, one is forced to wonder if this plan has already gone into effect...
Mod parent up please; it's a valid point with the current progression of things and quite possible if we don't do something to stop it.
Did this come as any surprise? Did you really expect them to say "screw all those Linux users forever!!!!" It's called public relations, and large corporations (and larger organizations like the MPAA) are very good at it. They are more than capable of offering olive branches, especially if it doesn't hurt their business model. Offering commercial Linux players helps their business model, since that diffuses one of the thornier issues (or it was thorny until rejected above). The MPAA is always willing to let you back into the fold if you pay the fee (CCA licensing fees passed on to consumers) they ask for.
pretty soon they'll define commercials as part of the broadcast TV access mechanism .... and ban your mute button .....
I remember in the Pilot for Max Headroom, while investigating someone who had died from the Blip-vert trials, Edison Carter noticed the dead guy had added an extremely illegal modification to his television... an 'off' switch.
For some reason this popped into my mind recently and it has been shouting out more and more in disturbing tones, especially when I see some of the idiocy that Congress and the media giants pull.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I'm just wondering. With all this nonesence about not reverse engineering anything, and not allowed to look inside a system to see how it works and find problems etc. Would this extend to the average car mechanic goes around tweaking adjusting his car to be "just right".
Sure he may void his warranty, but he don't care does he! He bought the car, surely it his to do with as he pleases!
If he subsequently uses his tweaked and customised car as an accessory in a bank robbery, surely he is guilty of bank robbery, and the state of his car isn't the point!
I know it is naive, but I feel that if I buy a cool toy, I'm allowed to break, fix or adjust it.
Sure my Warranty is void, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.
Now if I try to make a profit from somebody else intellectual property, that I'll agree is a separate issue, but they can't make it illegal to learn how a technology works (or doesn't work as the case may be)!!!
My two cents!
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
If you combine UCITA -- and its ability to enforce such things as shrinkwrap terms prohibiting product criticism and reverse engineering -- with the DMCA, what will we have? I fear it could be a form of censorship that will make the most despotic governments exceedingly envious.
Good article. Send it to your legislator.
sulli
RTFJ.
New exempt categories set forth in the rule are:
(1) Compilations consisting of lists of websites blocked by filtering software applications; and
(2) Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsoleteness.
Exemptions the Librarian rejected were:
1. ``Thin Copyright'' Works
2. Sole Source Works
3. Audiovisual Works on Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs)
4. Video Games in Formats Playable Only on Dedicated Platforms
5. Computer Programs and Other Digital Works for Purposes of Reverse Engineering
6. Encryption Research Purposes
7. ``Fair Use'' Works
8. Material that Cannot be Archived or Preserved
9. Works Embodied in Copies Which Have Been Lawfully Acquired by Users
10. Exemption for Public Broadcasting Entities
Who hasn't broken a copyright law?
As for me, no matter what the sacrifice, I will follow Christ.
A few weeks ago when the 2600 trial / DeCSS / DMCA issues were front and center around here, I wrote letters to my representatives to express my displeasure with the DMCA, with the initial rulings in the 2600 trial, and the continuing erosion of "fair use" rights. I received a reply from one of them, John F. Kerry (D), US Senator from Massachusetts. His entire letter is presented below, verbatim.
Since the DMCA was passed on a "show of hands" vote, there is no public record of our representatives voting records on this issue. Well, here we have one. Senator Kerry states that he supported the Act. His comments are interesting. He pretty much says (my inturpretation)"we knowingly passed a vague law and left it up to the courts to figure out". Woah! Talk about a crap shoot! Our legislature hard at work.
Has anyone else here heard from their representatives about these issues? What did they have to say?
-S
"October 23, 2000
Mr. ***** ****
*** **** ****
**********, Massachusetts *****
Dear Mr. ****:
Thank you for contacting me regarding pending litigation between DeCSS users and the Motion Picture Industry Association. I appreciate hearing from you.
During the 105th Congress, I supported enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, P.L. 105-304. The Act brings the United States into compliance with two landmark treaties: the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonogram Treaty. Under these treaties, writers, artists, and other creators of copyrighted material are protected from piracy in the information age.
As you know, technological innovations have made it easier to distribute written works, music, and other materials quickly. Unfortunately, these technologies also make it easier to pirate and widely distribute copyrighted materials. The treaties require participating countries to provide ''adequate legal protection'' and ''effective legal remedies'' to the owners of copyrighted works, balancing the interests of creators and users of copyrighted materials.
Section 1201(A)(1) of the Act provides that ''No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.'' Certainly, the courts' interpretation of this language will, to a large extent, determine the strength of the law and the effectiveness of its provisions. I will not seek to influence the courts but I hope that their decisions will protect the intellectual property rights of creators and provide incentives to innovate within the technology community. I will be watching developments in this area carefully.
Thank you again for sharing your views with me. Please do not hesitate to write to me in the future about this or any other issue of concern to you.
Sincerely,
[signature stamp]
John F. Kerry
United States Senator
JFK/jdwb"
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
If I patent the atom, can I sue the particle physics labs?
--The basis of all love is respect
What is the effect of this law to foreigners? CSS was to my knowledge cracked in Norway, but still the creator is being prosecuted under the DMCA (AFAIK).
Can somebody with some understanding of the situation please explain how some US law can affect anybody outside the States/any non-US citizen? Am I still allowed to crack US-made encryption systems here in Finland?
I doubt, therefore I may be.
Look, I think the DMCA is a load of bull too, but that doesn't alter the fact that:
<big honkin' rant> reverse engineering is not a right!. If you want to protest by disobeying the law, fine; just don't call something a right when it isn't! </rant>
Can someone please put Hansard on DVD. Due to its large size, im sure you could fit a whole years worth on. Then, have someone decrypt it openly, and see what the corporations do then. It would look pretty bad to deny access to the proceedings occurring in parliament. If they do nothing, then the cats out of the bag, if they do something, then see you later DMCA.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
It seems that if you allready have a
divece to copy works then you don't have to obtain
it. There for people who have DeCSS can use it
(asuming it is not illeagle on othere grounds) to
copy DVDs for there own use.
While you are correct that mot all commercially available players let you read the whole disk, this is not important, because this is an efficiency issue. There is nowhere to copy the disk to, therefore if the player were to let ytou read a whole disk it would take several gigs of memory, which most desktop computers don't have, let alone DVD players.
I might add, by the way, that DVD drives do let you read the whole disk, and these are certainly legal. Therefore, you still have a legal way to copy the disk, because you are not altering the work and everything is performing precisely as it was designed to perform, therefore you cannot be considered to be circumventing any measures.
----------
then why would anyone use their hardware? they must be doing something right if they have hardware good enough for you to bitch about not being able to do what you want with. my friends use their cuecats as extra lights. i haven't actually done anything with mine.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
All of these corporate attacks on your liberty, all of these draconian restrictions are being paid for by the money YOU spend on corporate-sponsored books, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes and trips to the multiplex. If you want it to stop you need to re-orient your priorities and better target your entertainment dollar.
If you like movies, go to Atomfilms or head down to the local art-house cinema that shows truly independent work instead of the mega-mall. If you like music, go to mp3.com or use services like Napster and pay artists you like directly via Fairtunes or Paypal. If you are an artist, release your work to the public under the terms of the OPL and let the public know about your account at Paypal.
Don't spend dime one on anything for sale at Amazon.com. Use your local library instead. If you simply must have some piece of corporate media, buy it used.
The only power these pimps have is the power YOU give them. For the DMCA and everything else the RIAA and MPAA have done to your rights, and plan to do to them in the future, you must choke off their access to the cash they expect to have available to fund their ongoing attacks against you, your family and your children. Hollywood has had a terrible year, box office receipts are way off. Keep it up! Make the first decade of the 21st century a finacial Waterloo for them!
Every one of these abuses flows from the ability of corporate money to pervert your democracy, your birthright. Support alternatives to the corrupt two-party system. One week from today vote Nader or Harry Browne.
Night
Geek Goddess
So, in Netscape and IE by my clicking "Do not allow cookies to be set" am I circumventing their access controls to my system?
Just out of curiosity, would the encryption/scrambling clause include compression? Technically, any file that's been compressed has been, to some degree, "scrambled" (from its original form). If the DMCA covers this method of software distribution, I think that we can expect to see quite a few Windows software distributions that consist of a compressed file with the program's contents (probably a ZIP file), a decompressor/runtime executable, and a notice threatening people with legal action if the decompress the file and modify/reverse engineer/hex edit/etc. the contents. Just a thought.
It seems that we've got no choice but to protest heavily at this clear violation of our civil rights.
I suggest that we should all switch our computers off, go out into the streets, and shoot the first hispanic male we see.
The two treaties in question are The WIPO Copyright Treaty and The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
This isn't just the United States Government acting stupidly because lawmakers have sold out to the highest donors, it's being driven from abroad.
Don't think the "anti-hacking" treaty could find its way into US law? Just wait!
We, the users who's rights are being stripped away, are far to small of a voice, even if we all yelled together. Fair Use Rights are unknown to the vast majority of the population. They won't even notice when they've lost them because they never knew they had them.
The best that we can do right now is to keep up the fight. Continue to violate the DMCA because we know it's a bogus law and unconstitutional. Copy DeCSS. Copy the Cue-Cat code. Support EFF. Buy a t-shirt from 2600. And most of all, don't let something as stupid as the DMCA stand in the way of exercising your fair use rights.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Copyright is a TEMPORARY priviledge granted to encourage people to publish/produce works that will eventually become fully free to the public at large. While copyright goes back to english common law which has less to say on questions of freedom, this much is cleary stated by both Artile I of the US constitution, and as clearified a little bit in the writing of Madison in the Federalist papers, the idea of copyright being a priviledge granted temporarily in exchange for and to encourage full public availablility certainly is a key provision and aspect of virtually every copyright act passed by congress of historic note prior to the DMCA.
I do not believe works that are provided in protected forms should even properly constitute works subject to or that should benifit from copyright protection. Clearly this was never intended, and access controls are by their very nature a restriction of the use of the work that denegrates the purpose of copyright as envisioned to "promote useful arts".
Furthermore a "protected work" does not expire, since the protections on it never expire, and hence, it cannot ever go into the publics hands as specifically required by copyright and stated in article I itself; copyright is a temporary priviledge only, but protected works cannot unprotect themselves even if their theoretical copyright "expires".
Copyright does imply a fairly broad priviledge for the period it is in effect, and some of this also can conflict with the publics right to a work, which is clearly a means test for copyright itself, while under copyright protection. Fair use laws exist in part to balance these potentially conflicting goals by specifically limiting rights of a published and copyrighted work.
Clearly I do not believe that a "protected work" (or secret work, like say proprietary software) should enjoy or deserve what should only be a temporary priviledge of copyright at the public's expense. In this respect I do not believe what the copyright office chose to state is either ethical or constitutional, nor does it serve the publics interest for which it is ulimately required to uphold.
building a gun is also building a prohibited device.
It's also illegal to 'recode' a AR-15 into an M-16, which probably seems similar, I suppose, to someone who knows nothing of guns, or code, and just wants control.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
A while ago I had a chat with my Danish friend about DMCA and its the implications. At first he wouldn't even believe that someone would consider proposing this kind of a law, but after I showed him some info on the DMCA he thought that not even the EU bureaucrats would be insane enough to try something like this.
Personally I think he'll be in for a nasty surprise in near future...
If i were to have some nice and illegal copywrighted works protected by a bizarre and ridiculously easy to bypass "access control" and the police confiscated it and read it, would they have violated the DMCA?
If it weren't for the 2nd amendment, wide ranging gun control would have been a reality in this country long ago. Think what you like about gun control, or even the "militia" interpretation of the 2nd amendment, and so forth, that amendment is a clause in the Constitution which gun control opponents can point to, giving them a powerful ally.
Unfortunately, there is no rule in the Constitution protecting our right to build and own technology-- devices or software. While shooting somebody with a gun is very illegal, owning the gun is not. You'd think that actually pirating, and violating copyright, is all that would need to be illegal. But, no, because we don't have a specific clause in the constitution protecting that right, even purchasing or building something which could be used for copyright violation is illegal. It's just crazy. It's so ironic I could just weep.
Perhaps the gun lobby is powerful enough that it could be enlisted as an ally? The parallels are clear; devices which themselves are not illegal, but which have readily apparent illegal uses. Perhaps the gun lobby could be convinced that the DMCA, once it stands, could be used as a precedent to weaken their case further.
It's really too bad that most of the population our country is not technically savvy enough to really understand these issues. As long as they can stick a DVD in their Windows machine and have it work, they're happy. And, they love to see the law crack down on all the dangerous pirates and hackers and similar scary people.
-Rob
I was just looking at what we have done here in Australia, and it appears that a circumvention device is legal providing it is to be used for permitted purposes, which include interoperability, and non copyright infringing acts. see here
It also allows for people to make copies for backups, and allows libraries to store electronic material and make copies.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
- fly to Japan
- buy a DVD player
- fly back to the US
- wire it up.
- relax and enjoy the movie
Then, the next weekend, you want to watch a Spanish DVD. No problem.....See there are ways around access control.Fight Spammers!
On the bright side: consider that most of the recent highly publicized security breaches were associated with Microsoft Outlook's feature that it can automatically run executable attachments. This has been used to cause untold harm-- and to gain *access* to Microsoft's private source code, which was "effectively" protected by passwords and so forth.
To me, it looks like Microsoft Outlook is a circumvention technology. Somebody should sue Microsoft, and jail all of their programmers....
-Rob
Yes, and I would bet that you had to get a permit to put the door in a new place. You couldn't just knock a hole in the wall and put in a door. Likewise you had to comply to the appropriate building codes. Regards, Elkor
If the thrill is gone, then it's time to take it back.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Um, do you know how independent WIPO actually is in terms of influence from the United States? Just like the U.N. (in which the U.S. has used its position in the Permanent Security Council) and the W.T.O., the United States basically rams through what it wants, and blythly ignores things that go against its wishes.
We only use those two fronts to pursue our own interests, where "our own interests" mean the interests of the corporations which fund our election campaigns.
That is one of the best reasons for publicly funded and restricted campaign contributions if there ever was one.
The WIPO is in the back pocket of the US based multinationals, and that's not going to change anytime soon.
yours,
yours,
kbs
Hrm. So I guess that means that parody is now illegal. Sucks to be us.
If you can circumvent it, it's not very effective now, is it? Looks like there was nothing to worry about after all, since according to the DMCA, any controls that are no longer effective, are not covered by the anti-circumvention clauses.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I forgot: this is The Law, where words do not mean what they mean. Sorry for the stupid post preceding. But IANAL. I only understand English.
Edith Keeler Must Die
DMCA was passed by voice vote. Don't ya love it?
Edith Keeler Must Die
You are correct by stating that this is a sad state of affairs. However, your statement that we have descended into a system "where politicians are no longer in contact with their constituency and Special Interest Groups(SIG) are able to purchase laws", is making the flawed assumption that politicians weren't always controlled by those who truly were empowered (money). I think it has always been this way (I bring up the Electoral College as proof), and we are (as a society) gradually becoming more aware of the reality that controls us. The sad thing is that we are (mostly) actively participating in this by selling out for some level of personal comfort. I offer one small consolation though. One of the sponsors of the DMCA is MO Senator John Ashcroft (I can still remember him stumping with the line that "This will protect little Suzy's posted artwork from being stolen online"). Well, the MO race was tightly contested until 2 weeks ago when Gov. Carnahan died in a plane crash. I'm happy to report that Ashcroft is now losing his reelection bid to a dead man. For me the irony is that the only Republicrat I'm voting for this year is deceased. Now there is a statement for the two party system! Don't worry too much about them removing all of our rights from the Internet, because they will. It is inevitable. They have to as all other power structures (MPAA, RIAA...) will always fight to retain their power. I say not to worry because in another twenty years, Gen X will firmly hold the reins of power, and we have a tool that no other generation has ever had before. An uncontrollable global voice. (8?>
(8?>
So, world, we just have to wait, and the technical knowledge of the US will slowly but steadily degrade. Soon, they'l be in their own little stone-age. if feel sorry for the smart people in the US, but they may perheaps flee before it's too late. Unfourtunately, I don't know if fleeing to the EU will make it any better for you... We may ass well soon be a burning hole...
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Sorry about the lack of white space, forgot about them ole html formatting tags.
(8?>
The problem is our entire political system. A corporation can purchase influence from lawmakers for a tiny fraction of the benefit they derive when "favorable" laws are passed, such as the DMCA.
The heart and soul of the problem is that our politicians have whored themselves out. I am friends with a former lobbiest, and he asserts that, while money was given, it was in exchange for the politician's time, not to purchase influence. But when you may pay someone to listen to your case, that in effect is purchasing influence.
Someone once said that democracy is doomed once the people realize they may extort money from the government, but we are seeing the destruction of democracy due to corporations taking advantage of politicians lust for power and position to buy off the rights of the citizenry.
We are serfs once again. Not to a king, but to the corporations which control the strings of our puppet leaders.
Read this for a little more toned down version. I'm not a Nader fan, but we must address the issue of individual versus corporate versus states rights before more radical action is demanded of us.
Please bid on this Karmann Ghia! Please pleas
Y'know, this makes me wonder... Who exactly decides what an "control measure" is? I mean, some things are obvious, (because the company has declared them to be) but since protections can now be as flimsy as they want to be, (Secure in their protection by the DMCA) how can you tell if something is intended as a protection or not? For example:
"FOOL! You opened up the shrink wrap on your action figure. It was SUPPOSED to be used for display. By circumventing our shrink wrap, you have bent our product to twisted ends, and run afoul of the DMCA! WOE IS YOU!"
Granted, this is an extreme and silly example, but can you honestly say that the whole DVD case is any less ridiculous? Or how about this:
"Silly, you WROTE with our pens. Our pens are designed to keep ink IN. By writing with it, you have circumvented... blah blah..."
The point I'm making here is, unless I've missed something obvious (and I hope I have) doesn't this give companies the right to arbitrarily decide at any time what you can't use their product for, and then back it up with the legal muscle of the DMCA? And doesn't that make using any product extremely risky then, since if you use a product, the company that makes it can sue you at will, should they feel the need?
Just do what people did before Hackers were everywhere; if the product doesn't do you good, don't use it. If it offends you, don't use it.
Be aware of where the money for everything comes from--and if you care, do something about it. If you don't care, or don't care enough to do something, then admit that to yourself and live life that way--you'll be happier.
Exempt are: "Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsoleteness." Wouldn't you consider incompatibility with Linux "obsoleteness".
(c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected. - (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.
So, fair use as defined in Chapter 1 section 107 still stands. Case 4 of that section makes it clear that making an incidental copy (such as with DeCSS), of a work in order to view/listen to it is fine if the incidental copy is not distributed, ie if the actions take to use the work have no effect on the market for the product. If I use DeCSS to make a version of a movie that I can watch on my computer I'm in the clear so long as I don't ever let anyone else possess that copy
So, where's the problem? It is that the whole DeCSS thing revolves around MPAA pretending DeCSS's primary function is duplication for distribution (which breaches para 4 of 1:107 since it reduces the market for the "genuine" product). Now they know this is a lie, and we all know it's a lie. The real reason is that they want to protect their monopoly on DVD players and the licence fees from that. The weakness of this argument is that the copies they claim are the main purpose are so bulky and inconvienient compared to a bitwise copy of the disc that it makes no sense to use DeCSS for this purpose, which only leaves the legal use.
Surely this can't be that hard to demonstrate in front of a judge?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
...now that the law definitively builds presumption of guilt into its language, now it may be possible to sue to have the law repealed outright.
Honestly, this is bad news. I do find it interesting that filtering blacklists were specifically exempted from this law; at least the LoC still doesn't support the bookburners. But this is still an unconstitutional provision of the law, based on nothing more than presumption of guilt where access controls are concerned.
----------
Since the advent of capitalism. Sucks, doesn't it?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
People are too lazy to stand up for their rights unless there is no choice
The fight is expensive and ultimately will be won or lost in court. From what I know talking to people in the EFF, each court level can take hundreds of thousands of $$, or more, in legal expenses. This would be above and beyond the normal expenses of running a non-profit.
If you can, donate stock- the IRS offers matching grants on donations of appreciated stock. (in some sense: you get to deduct the appreciated value without capital gains, so its worth more than if you sold stock and donated money.)
Your car is your car. You own it, you can do whatever you want with it...
But the *design* of that car is owned by the manufacturer. You can't make a part-by-part reconstruction of your car by making the parts yourself, unless you have permission from the manufacturer.
Movies and the like are the same thing--but it's a lot easier to copy a CD than to copy a car.
And "learning how it works" isn't necessarily illegal--it's the "take it apart" bit that trips us all up.
Several American entrapenours hired spies to figure out how the British factories worked even though it was illegal. The end result was "The United States of America, Industrial Giant".
Does anyone else find it ironic that the economic heirs of those enterprising individuals are buying laws to protect their own IP 200 years later?
What are we supposed to do? Move to China, where they don't honor the same IP laws? Hmm...makes you wonder what the next "great" nation will be.
science is a religion
You're overlooking a critical point --- which is no one can FORCE the three year old to watch those Tigger trailers. Like the underlying ideas in the arguement for free speech, the village idiot can yell all he wants, but the audience has the right to cover their ears if they wish to.
In this application, it just means that the user has no right to remove (alter) the "offending" material from the media in question. However, you have the right to ignore it all you want or take Junior out of the room.
This is another view of the world.
When I purchase a DVD, aren't I implicitly granted access to the contents on the DVD? As such, I should be allowed to use DeCSS to access the DVD to which I have access rights to. It seems to me that DeCSS is not used for circumvention of DVD's anymore than a dvd player is used for circumvention (they both decrypt the DVD), anyone who uses either one already has (or at least ought to have) right to access the DVD. DeCSS does allow you to decrypt Region X DVD's in Region Y, but since you could buy a Region X DVD player to do the same, and since the copyright office reasoned that since you could buy a Windows machine or a DVD player... that there was no reason for an exemption, then DeCSS should not be faulted for its multi region ability since multi region ability can be gained by purchasing more than on DVD player (or a single DVD player that supports more than one region) and the copyright office seems to think that the use of DeCSS and the purchase of DVD players are appropriate substitues.
This makes a lot of sense, provided that circumvention tools and so on can continue to be made available. Unfortunately we are in a more difficult situation than in the case of 55 mph, though, because that law had very little public support and was ignored by most state troopers, particularly towards the end of its life in the early nineties. The current case is more like a regulation requiring that 55 mph speed governors be installed on all cars, or (as is the case in Japan) overspeed alarms, and forbidding owners from disabling them.
I think our best bet is to do two things:
1. get these provisions overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of free speech;
2. buy only non-copy-protected content when we have the choice (i.e. stay the fuck away from SDMI encoded digital music and CDs).
It's a pretty gloomy scenario, but I for one will be doubling my annual gift to the EFF.
sulli
RTFJ.
I think that "Master of Puppets" accurately portrays this situation. Of course, this was back in 1985, when Metallica cared less about their profits and more about their freedoms. Now they're poster childs for the DMCA. How pathetic; an anti-capitalist, disestablishmentarian band reduced to whining over the piracy of its works. They didn't complain about people bringing recorders to "Puppets" concerts, and now they're whining over Napster. Ugh, is no one immune?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
pretty soon they'll define commercials as part of the broadcast TV access mechanism .... and ban your mute button .....
And we were bought a long time ago. Congress has given preferential treatment to big business for so long that it doesn't know who or what "We the people" are anymore.
One telling statistic is the economic makeup of Congress. I wish I could point you to a source, and I'm sure the numbers have changed slightly, but when looking at the percentage of people worth more than $1,000,000 compared to the general population of the U.S., the percentage in Congress was something like NINE TIMES that of millionaires vs the general population.
--
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
The options for resisting a pathetic product are dwindling. Boycotts don't work, protests don't work, even exposing the manufacturers/designers for the megalomaniacal morons they are isn't working. What shall we do?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
If people gave reasons why a general category should be exempted, they said that the submission was to general, and they needed you to be more specific. If people gave specific examples, they rejected the submission because it was specific. They did not explain this restriction before people made supmissions on the measure.
In any case, if a company complained about a possible exemption it was rejected, simply because the company complained.
Smells like payola to me.
Beyond that, If there is a serious problem with a protection mechanism, you can circumvent the mechanism as long as you don't use any sort of device or technology to do so... I.e. you can circumvent a problematic protection mechanism as long as you're incapable of doing so.
This is as close to the original catch-22 as I could expect to see in a normal lifetime.
I presume that there is a record of who voted for this supremely FSCKed up law to begin with? Can anybody give me a pointer?
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Read this excerpt:
"Another argument raised in the comments and testimony regarding
DVDs is that users of Linux and other operating systems who own
computers with DVD drives and who purchase legitimate copies of
audiovisual works on DVDs should be able to view these works. Many
Linux users have complained that they are unable to view the works on
their computers because a licensed player has not yet been developed
for the Linux OS platform. R56, PH11, PH3. While this situation created
frustration for legitimate users,
[[Page 64569]]
the problem requires balancing of other considerations.
The reasonable availability of alternate operating systems (dual
bootable) or dedicated players for televisions suggests that the
problem is one of preference and inconvenience, and leads to the
conclusion that an exemption is not warranted. T Metalitz, 5/19/00, pp.
298-99. Moreover, with the rapidly growing market of Linux users, it is
commercially viable to create a player for this particular operating
system. T Metalitz, 5/19/00, pp. 297-98. DVD CSS has expressed its
willingness to license such players, and in fact has licensed such
players. PH25. There is evidence that Linux players are currently being
developed (Sigma Designs and Intervideo) and should be available in the
near future. It appears likely that the market place will soon resolve
this particular concern. PH123 (MPAA)."
Notice the attribution of that last comment - the MPAA! It appears that the MPAA is speaking for Linux users!
Upset that you cannot reverse-engineer the encrption format on your DVD that you legitimately purchased so that you can view it in the manner that you choose? Don't worry, someone will licence the player format from the MPAA, and "the market will solve the problem for you" So speaks the MPAA, advocate for Linux users!
Bah. I'm outraged. Since when am I a subordinate of "the Market"? Since when is the ability of a corporation to make money placed above my own rights and freedoms?
I am SO glad I'm not an American. Maybe the US is going to hell in a handbasket, but we can try and keep laws as downright EVIL as this off the books in Canada.
Note how many comments they got - 325-ish. How many American Slashdot readers commented? Not many, it would seem. You're reaping the result of your own apathy. You chose not to speak, and the MPAA spoke for you.
Enjoy your law.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
A well informed Public, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Technology, shall not be infringed.
sulli
RTFJ.
It is no longer EDT.
The more I think about this topic, the more I think we as geeks have a warped perspective on it. Sure, we can write/download programs to get around encryption. But the question still remains "Do we have the right to?" The closest analogy is locksmiths. They know how easy it is to get into a house, car, masterlock, whatever. But unless you are a locksmith, slim-jims, lockpicks, etc. are illegal to buy. So I guess the equivalent would be to make peer-to-peer networking, mp3 encoders, packetsniffers, etc. legal for us as long as we are using them in accordance with our jobs or for your own benefit.
I actually do not see as much wrong with this bill as a lot of people here. Using the locksmith example again: the ignition key to your car is hardly a "effective deterrent," but still, if someone steals your car even if it is unlocked, you can prosecute them. I learned the same lesson about the relative lack of security at home when I kicked our front door open at age 12. But even so, if someone breaks in, they can be prosecuted. This bill is just the electronic version of common sense laws that exist in the real world. Just because I've got a list of the first half-million prime numbers doesn't make me a criminal, but distributing the list and a keybreaker program would make me an accessory to any crime committed using them.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
Research into encryption and protection mechanisms is now effectively Verbotten. Only commercially significant exceptions are allowed. Research is not a commercially significant use.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
It's really an awful state that we're descending into in the US these days. We stuck with a system where politicians are no longer in contact with their constituency and Special Interest Groups (SIG) are able to purchase laws. It's not that the politicians are all evil people, it's just when you have a group of reasonably (however misguided) informed people constantly telling you that something is good, unless you are already against it... the repetition will get you. The SIGs are winning because they can hold the ear of the our representatives. Hell /. could start a SIG about this and try and reverse the effect.
Problem is that this (forming our own SIG) is the only way I see things getting turned around short of mass revolution. People lose interest in politics, because it is by and large legal wrangling. I feel my eyes glazing over whenever I try to read this stuff, and I like to consider myself very concerned and reasonably intelligent. Which makes me wonder how anyone who is either less concerned or less intelligent could even have a vague hope of wading through this without being a lawyer.
Additionally politicians seem to have to make massive compromises just to get any legislation passed. So instead of well thought out and agreed upon legislation we have a state where poorly written legislation is accepted because it will get ironed out in courts. Mind you this is the huge problem...
Bad legislation leads to lots of lawsuits by companies attempting (rightly or wrongly) to keep a hold on the IP, works, property, revenue sources against consumers or groups. These laws are now generally only overturned by very very blatant unconsitutionality, or at considerable cost to unsung martyrs willing to sacrifice for what they feel is right. Witness the MPAA/DVD/DeCSS debacle.
The problem is that a lot of these suits are such flagrant violations of the basic rights that we have come to expect. However we are at a loss to defend ourselves from these changes without some kind of activisim. So for your own sake please go vote. Vote your conscience and most specifically for someone who will listen to you. Then make sure that you write them about your opinions, because if you never tell them they will vote their own conscience and that of the stories that they have heard the most. (SIGs)
Direct quote from the Ruling:
From the comments and testimony presented, it is clear that, at present, most works available in DVD format are also available in analog format (VHS tape) as well.
Excuse me? Are they saying that because it isn't a problem today that we don't have to think about when it will be a problem? Either I'm misreading the statement, or the goverment has no forsight at all. Just because VHS is around today doesn't mean it will dissapear tomorrow! (Case in point: LP records).
Do you like Japanese imports?
Seems that although this was far from a complete success, they got a couple important ones. I think that more can be read into the second exception (literary works, etc.) because of the use of the term "obsolescence." A lot can be crammed under the heading "obsolete," and it wouldn't surprise me to see someone more clever than I manage to cram things like DVD-CSS into this category.
Look at that! Amazing.......Good luck in doing it though.
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
I keep seeing this written (that the 'Terminator' gene is just there to screw over farmers who want to save seeds).
In reality, as I understand it, the "terminator" part of the genetic alteration is to appease people worried about the spread of the OTHER genetic alterations in the seeds (BT protein production, for example) into the wild. The idea was that if somehow the modified plant DID cross-pollinate with a "wild" plant, the "terminator" gene would prevent the seeds produced by the wild plant infertile, so that the other genetic alterations wouldn't enter the 'wild' population.
Besides (to get back at least tangentially to the topic at hand), unlike means for playing DVD's, Monsanto DOESN'T (at least, not yet) have complete control of how someone grows corn. It is, at the moment, still possible to legally obtain similar corn seeds from other vendors that don't have the 'terminator' restrictions.
Though, I suppose in a broad sense, the 'teminator' gene is a 'copy control method'...
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
That's not the only problem; the level of apathy in the US has reached an all-time high. The majority of voters don't really care about who will take the presidency this year. A large group of voters are abstaining from the elections because they feel that the country would go in the same path no matter who wins. In that sense, capitalism wins, and consumers lose, big time.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer